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The remaining years of his life were spent in vainly struggling against that
fatal policy which, at the moment when he might have given it a death-blow, he
had been induced to take under his protection. His exertions redeemed his own
fame, but they effected little for his country.
He found two parties arrayed against the Government, the party of his own
brothers-in-law, the Grenvilles, and the party of Lord Rockingham. On the
question of the Middlesex election these parties were agreed. But on many other
important questions they differed widely; and they were, in truth, not less
hostile to each other than to the Court. The Grenvilles had, during several
years, annoyed the Rockinghams with a succession of acrimonious pamphlets. It
was long before the Rockinghams could be induced to retaliate. But an
ill-natured tract, written under Grenville's direction, and entitled A State of
the Nation, was too much for their patience. Burke undertook to defend and
avenge his friends, and executed the task with admirable skill and vigor. On
every point he was victorious, and nowhere more completely victorious than when
he joined issue on those dry and minute questions of statistical and financial
detail in which the main strength of Grenville lay. The official drudge, even on
his own chosen ground, was utterly unable to maintain the fight against the
great orator and philosopher. When Chatham reappeared, Grenville was still
writhing with the recent shame and smart of this well-merited chastisement.
Cordial co-operation between the two sections of the Opposition was impossible.
Nor could Chatham easily connect himself with either. His feelings, in spite of
many affronts given and received, drew him towards the Grenvilles. For he had
strong domestic affections; and his nature, which, though haughty, was by no
means obdurate, had been softened by affliction. But from his kinsmen he was
separated by a wide difference of opinion on the question of colonial taxation.
A reconciliation, however, took place. He visited Stowe: he shook hands with
George Grenville; and the Whig freeholders of Buckinghamshire, at their public
dinners, drank many bumpers to the union of the three brothers.
In opinions, Chatham was much nearer to the Rockinghams than to his own
relatives. But between him and the Rockinghams there was a gulf not easily to be
passed. He had deeply injured them, and in injuring them, had deeply injured his
country. When the balance was trembling between them and the Court, he had
thrown the whole weight of his genius, of his renown, of his popularity, into
the scale of misgovernment. It must be added, that many eminent members of the
party still retained a bitter recollection of the asperity and disdain with
which they had been treated by him at the time when he assumed the direction of
affairs. It is clear from Burke's pamphlets and speeches, and still more clear
from his private letters, and from the language which he held in conversation,
that he regarded Chatham with a feeling not far removed from dislike. Chatham
was undoubtedly conscious of his error, and desirous to atone for it. But his
overtures of friendship, though made with earnestness, and even with unwonted
humility, were at first received by Lord Rockingham with cold and austere
reserve. Gradually the intercourse of the two statesmen became courteous and
even amicable. But the past was never wholly forgotten.
Chatham did not, however, stand alone. Round him gathered a party, small in
number, but strong in great and various talents. Lord Camden, Lord Shelburne,
Colonel Barre, and Dunning, afterwards Lord Ashburton, were the principal
members of this connection.
There is no reason to believe that, from this time till within a few weeks of
Chatham's death, his intellect suffered any decay. His eloquence was almost to
the last heard with delight. But it was not exactly the eloquence of the House
of Lords. That lofty and passionate, but somewhat desultory declamation, in
which he excelled all men, and which was set off by looks, tones, and gestures,
worthy of Garrick or Talma, was out of place in a small apartment where the
audience often consisted of three or four drowsy prelates, three or four old
judges, accustomed during many years to disregard rhetoric, and to look only at
facts and arguments, and three or four listless and supercilious men of fashion,
whom anything like enthusiasm moved to a sneer. In the House of Commons, a flash
of his eye, a wave of his arm, had sometimes cowed Murray. But, in the House of
Peers, his utmost vehemence and pathos produced less effect than the moderation,
the reasonableness, the luminous order and the serene dignity, which
characterized the speeches of Lord Mansfield.
On the question of the Middlesex election, all the three divisions of the
Opposition acted in concert. No orator in either House defended what is now
universally admitted to have been the constitutional cause with more ardor or
eloquence than Chatham. Before this subject had ceased to occupy the public
mind, George Grenville died. His party rapidly melted away; and in a short time
most of his adherents appeared on the ministerial benches.
Had George Grenville lived many months longer, the friendly ties which, after
years of estrangement and hostility, had been renewed between him and his
brother-in-law, would, in all probability, have been a second time violently
dissolved. For now the quarrel between England and the North American colonies
took a gloomy and terrible aspect. Oppression provoked resistance; resistance
was made the pretext for fresh oppression. The warnings of all the greatest
statesmen of the age were lost on an imperious Court and a deluded nation. Soon
a colonial senate confronted the British Parliament. Then the colonial militia
crossed bayonets with the British regiments. At length the commonwealth was torn
asunder. Two millions of Englishmen, who, fifteen years before, had been as
loyal to their prince and as proud of their country as the people of Kent or
Yorkshire, separated themselves by a solemn act from the Empire. For a time it
seemed that the insurgents would struggle to small purpose against the vast
financial and military means of the mother country. But disasters, following one
another in rapid succession, rapidly dispelled the illusions of national vanity.
At length a great British force, exhausted, famished, harassed on every side by
a hostile peasantry, was compelled to deliver up its arms. Those Governments
which England had, in the late war, so signally humbled, and which had during
many years been sullenly brooding over the recollections of Quebec, of Minden,
and of the Moro, now saw with exultation that the day of revenge was at hand.
France recognized the independence of the United States, and there could be
little doubt that the example would soon be followed by Spain.
Chatham and Rockingham had cordially concurred in opposing every part of the
fatal policy which had brought the State into this dangerous situation. But
their paths now diverged. Lord Rockingham thought, and, as the event proved,
thought most justly, that the revolted colonies were separated from the Empire
for ever, and that the only effect of prolonging the war on the American
continent would be to divide resources which it was desirable to concentrate. If
the hopeless attempt to subjugate Pennsylvania and Virginia were abandoned, war
against the House of Bourbon might possibly be avoided, or, if inevitable, might
be carried on with success and glory. We might even indemnify ourselves for part
of what we had lost, at the expense of those foreign enemies who had hoped to
profit by our domestic dissensions. Lord Rockingham, therefore, and those who
acted with him, conceived that the wisest course now open to England was to
acknowledge the independence of the United States, and to turn her whole force
against her European enemies.
Chatham, it should seem, ought to have taken the same side. Before France had
taken any part in our quarrel with the colonies, he had repeatedly, and with
great energy of language, declared that it was impossible to conquer America,
and he could not without absurdity maintain that it was easier to conquer France
and America together than America alone. But his passions overpowered his
judgment, and made him blind to his own inconsistency. The very circumstances
which made the separation of the colonies inevitable made it to him altogether
insupportable. The dismemberment of the Empire seemed to him less ruinous and
humiliating, when produced by domestic dissensions, than when produced by
foreign interference. His blood boiled at the degradation of his country.
Whatever lowered her among the nations of the earth, he felt as a personal
outrage to himself. And the feeling was natural. He had made her so great. He
had been so proud of her; and she had been so proud of him, He remembered how,
more than twenty years before, in a day of gloom and dismay, when her
possessions were torn from her, when her flag was dishonored, she had called on
him to save her. He remembered the sudden and glorious change which his energy
had wrought, the long series of triumphs, the days of thanksgiving, the nights
of illumination. Fired by such recollections, he determined to separate himself
from those who advised that the independence of the colonies should be
acknowledged. That he was in error will scarcely, we think, be disputed by his
warmest admirers. Indeed, the treaty, by which, a few years later, the republic
of the United States was recognized, was the work of his most attached adherents
and of his favorite son.
The Duke of Richmond had given notice of an address to the throne, against the
further prosecution of hostilities with America. Chatham had, during some time,
absented himself from Parliament, in consequence of his growing infirmities. He
determined to appear in his place on this occasion, and to declare that his
opinions were decidedly at variance with those of the Rockingham party. He was
in a state of great excitement. His medical attendants were uneasy, and strongly
advised him to calm himself, and to remain at home. But he was not to be
controlled. His son William and his son-in-law Lord Mahon, accompanied him to
Westminster. He rested himself in the Chancellor's room till the debate
commenced, and then, leaning on his two young relations, limped to his seat. The
slightest particulars of that day were remembered, and have been carefully
recorded. He bowed, it was remarked, with great courtliness to those peers who
rose to make way for him and his supporters. His crutch was in his hand. He
wore, as was his fashion, a rich velvet coat. His legs were swathed in flannel.
His wig was so large, and his face so emaciated, that none of his features could
be discerned, except the high curve of his nose, and his eyes, which still
retained a gleam of the old fire.
When the Duke of Richmond had spoken, Chatham rose. For some time his voice was
inaudible. At length his tones became distinct and his action animated. Here and
there his hearers caught a thought or an expression which reminded them of
William Pitt. But it was clear that he was not himself. He lost the thread of
his discourse, hesitated, repeated the same words several times, and was so
confused that, in speaking of the Act of Settlement, he could not recall the
name of the Electress Sophia. The House listened in solemn silence, and with the
aspect of profound respect and compassion. The stillness was so deep that the
dropping of a handkerchief would have been heard. The Duke of Richmond replied
with great tenderness and courtesy; but while he spoke, the old man was observed
to be restless and irritable. The Duke sat down. Chatham stood up again, pressed
his hand on his breast, and sank down in an apoplectic fit. Three or four lords
who sat near him caught him in his fall. The House broke up in confusion. The
dying man was carried to the residence of one of the officers of Parliament, and
was so far restored as to be able to bear a journey to Hayes. At Hayes, after
lingering a few weeks, he expired in his seventieth year. His bed was watched to
the last, with anxious tenderness, by his wife and children; and he well
deserved their care. Too often haughty and wayward to others, to them he had
been almost effeminately kind. He had through life been dreaded by his political
opponents, and regarded with more awe than love even by his political
associates. But no fear seems to have mingled with the affection which his
fondness, constantly overflowing in a thousand endearing forms, had inspired in
the little circle at Hayes.
Chatham, at the time of his decease, had not, in both Houses of Parliament, ten
personal adherents. Half the public men of the age had been estranged from him
by his errors, and the other half by the exertions which he had made to repair
his errors. His last speech had been an attack at once on the policy pursued by
the Government, and on the policy recommended by the Opposition. But death
restored him to his old place in the affection of his country. Who could hear
unmoved of the fall of that which had been so great, and which had stood so
long? The circumstances, too, seemed rather to belong to the tragic stage than
to real life. A great statesman, full of years and honors, led forth to the
Senate House by a son of rare hopes, and stricken down in full council while
straining his feeble voice to rouse the drooping spirit of his country, could
not but be remembered with peculiar veneration and tenderness. The few
detractors who ventured to murmur were silenced by the indignant clamors of a
nation which remembered only the lofty genius, the unsullied probity, the
undisputed services, of him who was no more. For once, the chiefs of all parties
were agreed. A public funeral, a public monument, were eagerly voted. The debts
of the deceased were paid. A provision was made for his family. The City of
London requested that the remains of the great man whom she had so long loved
and honored might rest under the dome of her magnificent cathedral. But the
petition came too late. Everything was already prepared for the interment in
Westminster Abbey.
Though men of all parties had concurred in decreeing posthumous honors to
Chatham, his corpse was attended to the grave almost exclusively by opponents of
the Government. The banner of the lordship of Chatham was borne by Colonel
Barre, attended by the Duke of Richmond and Lord Rockingham. Burke, Savile, and
Dunning upheld the pall. Lord Camden was conspicuous in the procession. The
chief mourner was young William Pitt. After the lapse of more than twenty-seven
years, in a season as dark and perilous, his own shattered frame and broken
heart were laid, with the same pomp, in the same consecrated mould.
Chatham sleeps near the northern door of the Church, in a spot which has ever
since been appropriated to statesmen, as the other end of the same transept has
long been to poets. Mansfield rests there, and the second William Pitt, and Fox,
and Grattan, and Canning, and Wilberforce. In no other cemetery do so many great
citizens lie within so narrow a space. High over those venerable graves towers
the stately monument of Chatham, and from above, his effigy, graven by a cunning
hand, seems still, with eagle face and outstretched arm, to bid England be of
good cheer, and to hurl defiance at her foes. The generation which reared that
memorial of him has disappeared. The time has come when the rash and
indiscriminate judgments which his contemporaries passed on his character may be
calmly revised by history. And history, while, for the warning of vehement,
high, and daring natures, she notes his many errors, will yet deliberately
pronounce, that, among the eminent men whose bones lie near his, scarcely one
has left a more stainless, and none a more splendid name.
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