creditable to the individuals answerable for it, and full of danger to the interests of the State. In the joint smarting under exile from office, and with the joint hope of again returning to it, Lord North and Mr. Fox forgot their former passages of enmity and their wide differences of principle. Fox was ready to combine with a statesman 'void of honour and honesty' and 'the most infamous of mankind;' while Lord North was prepared to forgive and embrace the orator who had so designated him.

The coalition between

them was concluded, and it led at once to the defeat of the Government by a majority of sixteen upon an amendment to the Address on the Peace.

In this debate Pitt spoke with less than his usual effect. He rose late and when he was himself exhausted. It was on this occasion that the indiscreet allusion of the young Minister to Sheridan's connexion with the stage brought down upon himself that telling retort which named him the 'angry boy,' after the character so called in Ben Jonson's play of the Alchemist. But four nights afterwards he more than regained his position, and made a powerful and eloquent speech, which may be ranked among the highest efforts of his oratory. Fairly may be claimed for it the distinction of being the finest speech in ancient or modern times made by a man under fiveand-twenty. It occupied two hours and three-quarters in its delivery; and he was so ill at the time that -as is vouched by Wilberforce's Diary he was actually holding open a door from the House with one hand while vomiting during Fox's speech, to whom he was to reply. The language in which he assailed Lord North, however just, seems to pass the limits of modern parliamentary speech, which in the anxiety to preserve courtesy may perhaps have lost some of its elder force. It was not, however, resented by Lord North, nor apparently considered to have been irregular in its unmeasured denunciation of the noble Lord in the blue riband, and of his 'utter

7

incapacity to fill the station he occupied.'

Still, however, the Opposition held their majority, and indeed increased it by one. Lord Shelburne resigned, and by his advice and that of his principal colleagues the King sent for Pitt. Great hopes were entertained of the effect that would be made by his appointment as Prime Minister. Dundas wrote to his brother in Scotland, 'It will create an universal consternation in the allied camp the moment it is known.' Pitt's letter to his mother, short as it is, to inform her of his early call to the highest office in the land, is one of the most remarkable in these volumes for its modesty, its simplicity, its sense of duty, its affection, and its practical wisdom. It is unnecessary to say that Pitt did not upon this occasion become Premier. He saw that he could not govern in a minority, and that his chief reliance must be founded on the forbearance of Lord North and his friends. This, he felt, would afford neither a safe nor an honourable tenure of power. He declined the great offer, and with a feeling of joyful emancipation writes to his mother, 'I shall be a free man, and shall be able to see you again with a little more certainty.' For weeks the country was without a Government. The division of the spoils of office could not be at once satisfactorily arranged by the leaders of the victorious coalition. Again was the post of Prime Minister pressed by the King on Pitt, and again were the King's entreaties met by a wise refusal to comply with them.

Fox at last got his own way. The Duke of Portland was his nominal chief; Lord North was his ostensible equal as joint Secretary of State; but Fox was the real head of the Government. The value of Pitt's services was so strongly felt by every party that he was asked to resume his place under the new arrangements, but it was of course out of the question with him to do so. On resigning office, he declared in the House of Commons that he was unconnected with any party whatever. He said, 'I shall keep

myself reserved, and act with whichever side I think is acting right.' Such a declaration unquestionably came with perfect sincerity from the man who had so recently refused to fill the highest post in the Administration, and whose desire to serve the country was never doubted.

No one was more capable of enjoying his leisure moments than Pitt. He had now known the toils of State, and was all the better able to taste the luxury of occasional idleness. The pleasure of relaxation is always the greatest with those whose work is of the hardest and highest kind. The judge off the bench, and the statesman away from his office, are, in their brief intervals of repose, among the happiest of mankind. It is to this summer of 1783 that Wilberforce's charming anecdotes belong, of the early meals of peas and strawberries at Wimbledon; and of Pitt's exuberant fun in sowing the garden beds, before the rest of the party were up in the morning, with the fragments of a dress-hat belonging to one of them.

Yet Pitt was not idle as a private member of the House of Commons, but continued in his course of liberal and enlightened endeavours for internal improvement. In May he again introduced the question of Parliamentary Reform, with special resolutions aimed against bribery and expense at elections, and providing for an increase in the number of county members and of representatives for the metropolis; while somewhat later in the session he brought in a bill for the reform of abuses in the public offices.

The debate on the Reform resolutions terminated in a division of 293 to 149 against them, and in it Lord North and Fox took opposite sides. The other measure was defeated, by the influence of the professedly reforming and economical Government, in the House of Lords. There is a passage about this time in one of Pitt's letters to his mother which deserves particular notice, and is worth citing for its practical value, and as a specimen of

his perfect good temper and selfreliance-it being remembered that Fox was ten years his senior, an immense difference at his time of life. He says, 'I was induced from Fox's language to mark pretty strongly that I was not disposed always to stand quite on the defensive; and the effect of attacking him, not very civilly, was, that he took more pains afterwards to be civil to me than I ever knew when we were friends.'

A visit to France-Pitt's only experience of the Continent-took place in the autumn in company with Wilberforce. Parliament met in November, according to the custom of those days. The great question of the future government of India was now assuming a character of almost exclusive importance. The India Bill prepared by Burke and Fox no doubt contained useful and necessary provisions, but it was so framed as to place the entire administration of British India in the hands of a Board, to consist of seven persons, whose names were to be supplied in a committee of the House of Commons, and whose powers were to last absolutely for four years, independently of any changes in the general government of the country at home. An irresponsible dictatorship would thus have been established for a certain period, and the influence of the Indian septemvirate would have been supported by the disposal of patronage which has been estimated at from three hundred thousand to above two millions a year. Pitt, in a private letter, designated the scheme as the boldest and most unconstitutional measure ever attempted, transferring at one stroke, in spite of all charters and compacts, the immense patronage and influence of the East to Charles Fox, in or out of office.'

In the debates upon the India Bill, Pitt completely established an equality in senatorial oratory with his older rival, but to no immediate purpose so far as the fate of the measure was concerned. The blank spaces for the names of the directors were filled in with those

of Fox's closest friends and supporters, and the bill was carried in the Lower House, in December, by a majority of 208 to 102. It still remained for the friends of the constitution to resist it in the House of Lords. Lord Thurlow and Lord Temple were active in bringing the whole force of the King's personal influence to bear upon individual peers, and to induce them to vote against a measure which would certainly have largely impaired the due honour and legitimate power of the Crown. Lord Temple was authorized by the King to say that whoever voted for the Bill was not only not his friend, but would be considered as an enemy; and if these words were not strong enough, Earl Temple might use any words that seemed stronger and more to the purpose. The result was that in the Lords the obnoxious bill was finally thrown out by 95 votes against 76. The royal interference was of course warmly, and not without some reason, resented in the House of Commons. Any attempt to bring the King's opinion to bear upon the votes of members was, by a resolution to that effect, denounced as criminal and contrary to the constitution of the land. This resolution, although attacked by Pitt as unnecessary, frivolous, and ill-timed, was carried by 153 to 80; and another resolution pledged the House to procure the redress of abuses in the government of India, and to regard as an enemy of the State any person advising the King to impede the prosecution of this object.

A direct issue was thus raised, in which the King and Lords on one side stood in open and avowed conflict with the House of Commons on the other. The Ministers rested on their large majority in the Commons, and threw upon the King the onus of removing them. Nor did he doubt his right or his power to undertake that duty. North and Fox were at once required to surrender their offices, and the first steps towards the formation of a new Government were taken by Lord Temple at the desire of the King. Laying out of con

6

sideration the previous exercise of personal influence which may be supposed to have procured the rejection of the India Bill, it was the fact that the King had to decide between retaining a set of Ministers who had strong support in the Commons, or naming others who would command that of the House of Lords, and would probably obtain the confidence of the country. In those days the equality of the two branches of the Legislature was more nearly actual than it has been in later times; and some effect must be fairly allowed to the preponderance of the King's own judgment in a matter so closely affecting the power of the executive head of the State, and upon which the two Houses were maintaining opposite opinions. No thoughtful politician, even in the year 1861, ought to be content to admit that the personal functions of the Crown should be held confined to the occasional duty of superintending the details of a change of ministers, which has been in effect already determined by a vote of the representative chamber. In practice it may be substantially the case that this duty of the monarch is only exercised under that condition; but those who have carefully read history should be reluctant to abandon the theory of the mutual independence and co-equality of King, Lords, and Commons, and would be unwilling to assert that no occasion could occur on which it might be for the public good that the prerogative of the Crown should be effectively exerted.

We who are now beholding the frightful disruption of a great nation descended from ourselves, with a polity mainly founded on our own, and who can note as among the chief causes of an unnatural war the total want of personal loyalty to the head of the State, may well pause before we assent to doctrines which would deprive the Crown of Great Britain and its dependencies of any of the rights which are or may be not only important for its own dignity, but perhaps essential to the welfare of the community. In George

III.'s reign, also, when views of Ministerial responsibility for the acts of the Sovereign were very imperfectly developed, his proceedings must be judged by a very different standard from any that it might now be proper to apply to them. Constitutional notions must not, as Lord Campbell says, in commenting on this proceeding, be carried to a pedantic length; nor can we be erring against the cause of liberty if we follow the opinion of Lord Brougham, who, in his sketch of Pitt, has vindicated, as well in the name of the nation as of the monarch, the right of the Sovereign to make his voice heard and his influence felt in the administration of public affairs. We entirely agree, therefore, with Lord Stanhope, that it would be very difficult to state clearly and precisely the constitutional rule which the King can be fairly accused of having violated on this occasion.

Not until after the change of Ministry was decided upon, and in effect made, was Pitt called to the King's closet. He was the only man in the country who could have undertaken with any prospect of success the task of leading the Government against a large actual majority in the House of Commons, and against its powerful chiefs, chafing with indignation at their summary expulsion from office by the King's act. So slight, however, appeared Pitt's chance of eventual victory, and so confident was the new Opposition in its own populous ranks, that the new writ for Appleby was moved among general derision from their benches. No one thought he could dare to attempt carrying on the Government without a dissolution, and no one believed that he would venture to throw himself upon the sense of the country.

With great difficulty, in the face of such adverse circumstances, could Pitt bring together an Administration, and upon its actual formation he was himself the only Cabinet Minister in the House of Commons. His first trouble was in the refusal of Lord Temple to become a permanent member of the Government which he had assisted to

initiate. Why he deserted his relative at such a crisis has always been a vexed problem in political history. The solution supported by Lord Macaulay in his Life of Pitt, is that Pitt and Temple differed on the question of an immediate dissolution; and upon this point Lord Stanhope has enjoyed the unique fortune of obtaining from the brilliant historian an acknowledgment of error in having relied upon the single authority of Wraxall, which led him to adopt this view. This appears, indeed, to have been the general belief of the time; but we think Lord Stanhope has sufficient grounds for his opinion, that this strange conduct of Temple, and his subsequent long absence from public life, were due to his disappointment in not obtaining for himself a dukedom or some other high distinction upon which he had set his heart.

Now began that magnificent and unparalleled parliamentary struggle of two months' duration, in which Pitt singly almost sustained himself against the attacks and taunts of the Opposition. They defied him to dissolve; they defied him to go on without dissolving. Night after night, and in debates constantly protracted to early morning, the giant conflict was waged. Pitt held his own, and would not be forced to disclose prematurely his intentions as to a dissolution; yet the Mutiny Act would expire on the 25th of March, and it appeared as if Fox and his supporters were masters of the situation. There was, however, a reaction in public feeling. People were disgusted and alarmed by the factious and violent conduct of the Opposition. As Dr. Johnson said, it became a question whether the nation should be ruled by the sceptre of George III., or by the tongue of Charles Fox.

Gradually the majority against Ministers diminished, until at length, in the beginning of March, it stood as a solitary unit. The causes of this remarkable change were mainly personal, and the instance is one especially deserving of study by those who would ex

1861.]

clude the wills and characters of individual men from any important share in influencing the sequence of events. At the beginning of the session, the great sinecure place of Clerk of the Pells, worth £3000 a year, became vacant. Nothing would have been more easy or natural than for Pitt to take it for himself. It would have occasioned no outcry, and he was not unfairly urged by his friends to secure a competence, even in the name of public duty. They said he could devote himself more completely and independently to politics if all anxiety were removed as to his private means of subsistence. Pitt, by his refusal of the place, and his application of its emoluments in reduction of the public burdens, for ever fixed his character for the noblest self-denial, and evinced his unmixed devotion to the interests of the country. His undaunted bearing in debate, and the entire capability shown by him of upholding his position at the head of the Government in the face of such opponents as those who were exhausting all the force of oratory and all the tactics of faction against him, confirmed him in the confidence and esteem of the country. By the middle of March the supplies were voted, the Mutiny Bill was passed, and Pitt was at liberty to appeal to the feeling of the country in a general election.

On the 23rd of March, the victorious Minister was prepared to dissolve Parliament. At the last there was some danger of delay in seizing the favourable opportunity for an immediate dissolution. The Great Seal was stolen from the house of the Lord Chancellor, in Great Ormond-street, and before the royal authority could be duly given for the dissolution of Parliament, a new seal had to be expeditiously made. Pitt, in writing to Wilberforce, calls the stealing of the Great Seal 'a curious manoeuvre ;' and it is certainly difficult to suppose that its disappearance at so critical a moment was the accidental result of an ordinary burglary. On the other hand, it is impossible to accuse the Opposition

11

chiefs of any knowledge of a design to enlist the professional services of common thieves in the furtherance of a political object, and not easy to understand by what obscure and descending ramifications of intrigue they could have been connected with the robbery at Lord Thurlow's house.

Mr.

London, Bath, and other important places contended for the honour of returning Pitt to the new Parliament. But he abided by his original desire to represent his own University, and he became member for Cambridge, and continued to be so during the rest of his life. The discomfiture of the Whigs in the elections was signal. Coke had to decline a contest for Norfolk. Yorkshire emancipated itself from the old dictation of the great Whig families, and returned Wilberforce and another stanch supporter of Mr. Pitt. The band of sufferers-Fox's Martyrs,' as they were called-on the Opposition side, who lost their seats, counted one hundred and sixty in their routed ranks. Fox himself stood only second on the poll for Westminster, and with a scrutiny demanded and no return made, had to take his seat as the nominee of a borough's patron.

In reviewing the four months during which Pitt rose from a position of the most precarious tenure of office to the full strength of well-established power, Lord Stanhope has compared him with Sir Robert Peel in his first Administration, which also lasted for four months, from December, 1834, to April, 1835. The period, indeed, ended with widely different results in the two cases. There was success in the one instance, and failure in the other. Yet there were many resemblances between the two men on these occasions. Great power of maintaining an almost singlehanded conflict in debate, great courage, temper, and discretion under the most arduous circumstances, were displayed by both. There was also the coincidence of a dismissal of predecessors in office by an alleged unjustifiable exercise of the King's prerogative. The circum