314 PITT'S RESIGNATION ACCEPTED. CH. XLI. that year, absolved from the engagement which had attached to his former administration. But, to break up a Government in February, because Catholic emancipation was indispensable, and to offer to reconstruct it in March, on the principle of Catholic exclusion, was to trifle with the King, to trifle with public men, and to trifle with a great question. Addington Addington, then, having declined to be made a minister one day and to be unmade the Premier. next at the caprice of Mr. Pitt, it only remained that the new arrangements should be formally completed. On the 14th of March a council was held, at which Mr. Pitt resigned the seals of office, and they were delivered by His Majesty to Mr. Addington, who thus became First Lord of the Treasury, and Chancellor of the Exchequer. Lord Hawkesbury succeeded Lord Grenville at the Foreign Office. Lord Hobart was appointed to the War Department in the room of Windham. Lord Lewisham replaced Dundas at the India Board, Earl St. Vincent succeeded Earl Spencer at the Admiralty. The Duke of Portland, Lord Chatham, and Lord Westmoreland remained in office. Lord Eldon was Chancellor. Loughborough's fate is remarkable enough to point a moral. The last thing which this deep politician could have anticipated as the result of his own intrigues, was his own exclusion from office. He thought he had certainly made the King his friend for life by betraying the counsels of his colleagues, and by making himself the tool of a prejudice, which he despised alike for its honesty and its folly. When he found that he was not consulted in the new arrangements, he had the assurance to write to the King, urging him to continue Pitt in office, and to rely upon the generosity of Mr. Pitt's mind. When the regency was imminent, Loughborough hurried off to Fox, with whom he had long ceased to have any but casual communication. In 1801. DISMISSAL OF Loughborough. 315 any event, therefore, he had made provision for his own safety. The manner of his dismissal was mortifying in the extreme. Addington informed him, that the arrangements which he proposed to make with reference to the legal appointments rendered it necessary that His Lordship should give up the Great Seal. To be dismissed by Addington was humiliation enough. But to be told that his services were not required in a Cabinet which contained no man of half his ability, was a significant intimation that, in the opinion of the respectable gentlemen who constituted His Majesty's Government, no attainments and no experience in affairs could compensate for the want of honesty and plain dealing. But Loughborough was not content until he had drained the last drop in the cup of degradation. The Seal had been taken away from him; but he had not been turned out of the Cabinet. He continued, therefore, to attend the meetings of the Cabinet, until he received a letter from Addington, reminding him that he was not one of His Majesty's confidential advisers, and that his presence at a Cabinet Council, already sufficiently large, was not desired. It is said, that Addington had intended, at one time, to make Loughborough President of the Council; but if such an intention was ever entertained, it was soon abandoned. At length, his banishment was alleviated by an earldom; but his dignity was not accepted as an adequate compensation for the power and emoluments of office. Auckland, also, kindred to Loughborough in ambition and intrigue, but greatly his inferior in ability, was doomed to disappointment. Auckland, according to a contemporary statesman, who was not in rivalship with any pretender to power, had named himself as minister. There was a deeper shade in the treachery of Lord Auckland than in * CAMPBELL'S Lives of the Chancellors, vol. vi. p. 327. * † LORD MALMESBURY's Diary, vol. iv. 316 AUCKLAND'S TREACHERY. CH. III. that of the Earl of Rosslyn. Auckland owed everything to the patronage of Pitt; his employments, his pensions, his peerage. He was the intimate friend of the great minister, who had admitted him to a confidence without reserve. If there was one man who should have blindly followed the fortunes of Pitt, Auckland was that man. Yet Auckland conspired with Loughborough to betray his friend and patron. And when the resignation of the late Ministry, which had been mainly caused by the intrigues of their professed friends, became the subject of discussion, Auckland was one of the first to stand up in his place in Parliament, and to attribute that resignation to some secret and unworthy motive.* It is satisfactory to record that this baseness was not rewarded. Lord Auckland had sought, by covert intrigues, and by open slander, to ruin his benefactor, because he had been refused promotion to the Cabinet. This promotion was still denied him. He had held the lucrative office of joint Postmaster-General under Pitt's administration; and he was permitted, by the contemptuous neglect of the new minister, to retain his office. Resignation of Lord Cornwallis resigned the Irish Viceroyalty,† and was succeeded by the Earl of Hardwicke. Cornwallis. Lord Castlereagh also retired. The new Secretary was Mr. Abbot, one of the most uncom *On this occasion, Rose wrote Lord Auckland a letter which, if he was susceptible of shame or compunction, must have wrung his soul.-See the letter in LORD STANHOPE'S Life of Pitt, vol. iii. p. 326. Lord Stanhope adds, Pitt himself viewed the affair in nearly the same light. He was too proud to make any complaint. But he broke off all intercourse with Lord Auckland; and, as I believe, never again exchanged a word with him.' 'No consideration could induce me to take a responsible part with any administration which can be so blind to the interest, and indeed to the immediate security, of their country, as to persevere in the old system of proscription and exclusion in Ireland.'-Lord Cornwallis to General Ross, 15th February, 1801. Correspondence, vol. iii. p. 337. 1801. ADDINGTON'S NEW MINISTRY. 317 promising of the opponents of the Catholic claims. The minor political offices were filled by some two dozen gentlemen, none of whom were of any note. Two of these gentlemen, Mr. Spencer Perceval, the Solicitor-General, and Mr. Vansittart, one of the joint secretaries of the Treasury, afterwards attained distinction. Mr. Perceval was destined to prove, that Mr. Addington was not the weakest possible minister. And Mr. Vansittart afterwards became the worst Chancellor of the Exchequer that had been known since Sir Francis Dashwood.* Addington. Addington, personally, throughout these transactions, stands in favourable contrast, not Personal chaonly to such men as Loughborough and racter of Auckland, but even to Pitt himself. He had been no party to the intrigues which had undermined the late administration. He had no knowledge of them. He had given no insidious advice to his illustrious friend and patron. When he received the first letter from the King, on the 30th of January, he went immediately to Pitt, and urged him, with so much earnestness, to desist from pressing the Catholic question, that he believed for the moment that he had prevailed. When he received His Majesty's commands on the following day, to form a new administration, he desired, and, I am persuaded, with perfect sincerity, to be excused. But when it was put to him by the agitated monarch, Where am I to turn, if you forsake me?' and when Pitt followed this up by saying-I see nothing but ruin if you hesitate,' what was Addington to do? He might have obeyed the dictate of prudence, and persisted in his refusal. But an English gentleman is not accustomed to weigh personal considerations, when the line of duty is pointed out to him; and Addington might well be excused for thinking that he was * See supra, vol. i. p. 214. 318 THE KING'S FIRMNESS OF CHARACTER. CH. XLI. not wholly unfit for an office which his Sovereign pressed upon him, and, which the statesman, who had held it for seventeen years, told him, he alone was competent to fill. It has been mentioned, indeed, by a contemporary statesman, whose accuracy, when he does not relate facts within his personal knowledge, is very doubtful, that Addington spoke of himself merely as a temporary substitute for Pitt. That he said something of the kind is not improbable, for he relied avowedly on Pitt's support, to enable him to carry on Government.* He acted on Pitt's advice as long as Pitt was willing to advise him ; and he must have felt, that he could not hope to persevere, if Pitt's protection should be withdrawn. There can be no doubt that Pitt considered Addington more as his substitute than his successor. But that there was no understanding of the kind, either express or implied, between the outgoing and the incoming minister, is manifest, from the conduct of Addington on the King's recovery, when he rejected a distinct overture from Pitt, to give way to him. Any such understanding, indeed, would have been highly discreditable to both parties. Complaint of The personal friends and followers of Pitt, the most prominent of whom were Rose and CanPitt's friends. ning, bitterly complained of the unbending pride, which would not permit their patron to tender the withdrawal of his resignation, when he caused it to be intimated to the King that he had abandoned the Catholic question. But, what appeared inflexible pride to men eager for office, was little more than common decency. Mr. Pitt's intimation to the King, that the sole cause of his retirement was removed, in itself afforded His Majesty an opening to reinstate his former minister had he been so disposed. A more direct tender of his services could hardly have * LORD MALMESBURY'S Journal. |