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1. Correspondence of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham. 4 vols. 8vo. London: 1840.
2. Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford, to Horace Mann. 4 vols. 8vo.
London: 1843-4.
More than ten years ago we commenced a sketch of the political life of the great
Lord Chatham. We then stopped at the death of George the Second, with the
intention of speedily resuming our task. Circumstances, which it would be
tedious to explain, long prevented us from carrying this intention into effect.
Nor can we regret the delay. For the materials which were within our reach in
1834 were scanty and unsatisfactory when compared with those which we at present
possess. Even now, though we have had access to some valuable sources of
information which have not yet been opened to the public, we cannot but feel
that the history of the first ten years of the reign of George the Third is but
imperfectly known to us. Nevertheless, we are inclined to think that we are in a
condition to lay before our readers a narrative neither uninstructive nor
uninteresting. We therefore return with pleasure to our long interrupted labor.
We left Pitt in the zenith of prosperity and glory, the idol of England, the
terror of France, the admiration of the whole civilized world. The wind, from
whatever quarter it blew, carried to England tidings of battles won, fortresses
taken, provinces added to the empire. At home, factions had sunk into a
lethargy, such as had never been known since the great religious schism of the
sixteenth century had roused the public mind from repose.
In order that the events which we have to relate may be clearly understood, it
may be desirable that we should advert to the causes which had for a time
suspended the animation of both the great English parties.
If, rejecting all that is merely accidental, we look at the essential
characteristics of the Whig and the Tory, we may consider each of them as the
representative of a great principle, essential to the welfare of nations. One
is, in an especial manner, the guardian of liberty, and the other of order. One
is the moving power, and the other the steadying power of the State. One is the
sail, without which society would make no progress; the other the ballast,
without which there would be small safety in a tempest. But, during the
forty-six years which followed the accession of the House of Hanover, these
distinctive peculiarities seemed to be effaced. The Whig conceived that he could
not better serve the cause of civil and religious freedom than by strenuously
supporting the Protestant dynasty. The Tory conceived that he could not better
prove his hatred of revolutions than by attacking a government to which a
revolution had given birth. Both came by degrees to attach more importance to
the means than to the end. Both were thrown into unnatural situations; and both,
like animals transported to an uncongenial climate, languished and degenerated.
The Tory, removed from the sunshine of the Court, was as a camel in the snows of
Lapland. The Whig, basking in the rays of royal favor, was as a reindeer in the
sands of Arabia.
Dante tells us that he saw, in Malebolge, a strange encounter between a human
form and a serpent. The enemies, after cruel wounds inflicted, stood for a time
glaring on each other. A great cloud surrounded them, and then a wonderful
metamorphosis began. Each creature was transfigured into the likeness of its
antagonist. The serpent's tail divided itself into two legs; the man's legs
intertwined themselves into a tail. The body of the serpent put forth arms; the
arms of the man shrank into his body. At length the serpent stood up a man, and
spake; the man sank down a serpent, and glided hissing away. Something like this
was the transformation which, during the reign of George the First, befell the
two English parties. Each gradually took the shape and color of its foe, till at
length the Tory rose up erect the zealot of freedom, and the Whig crawled and
licked the dust at the feet of power.
It is true that, when these degenerate politicians discussed questions merely
speculative, and, above all, when they discussed questions relating to the
conduct of their own grandfathers, they still seemed to differ as their
grandfathers had differed. The Whig, who, during three Parliaments, had never
given one vote against the Court, and who was ready to sell his soul for the
Comptroller's staff or for the Great Wardrobe, still professed to draw his
political doctrines from Locke and Milton, still worshipped the memory of Pym
and Hampden, and would still, on the thirtieth of January, take his glass, first
to the man in the mask, and then to the man who would do it without a mask. The
Tory, on the other hand, while he reviled the mild and temperate Walpole as a
deadly enemy of liberty, could see nothing to reprobate in the iron tyranny of
Strafford and Laud. But, whatever judgment the Whig or the Tory of that age
might pronounce on transactions long past, there can be no doubt that, as
respected the practical questions then pending, the Tory was a reformer, and
indeed an intemperate and indiscreet reformer, while the Whig was conservative
even to bigotry. We have ourselves seen similar effects produced in a
neighboring country by similar causes. Who would have believed, fifteen years
ago, that M. Guizot and M. Villemain would have to defend property and social
order against the attacks of such enemies as M. Genoude and M. de La Roche
Jaquelin?
Thus the successors of the old Cavaliers had turned demagogues; the successors
of the old Roundheads had turned courtiers. Yet was it long before their mutual
animosity began to abate; for it is the nature of parties to retain their
original enmities far more firmly than their original principles. During many
years, a generation of Whigs, whom Sidney would have spurned as slaves,
continued to wage deadly war with a generation of Tories whom Jeffreys would
have hanged for republicans.
Through the whole reign of George the First, and through nearly half of the
reign of George the Second, a Tory was regarded as an enemy of the reigning
house, and was excluded from all the favors of the Crown. Though most of the
country gentlemen were Tories, none but Whigs were created peers and baronets.
Though most of the clergy were Tories, none but Whigs were appointed deans and
bishops. In every county, opulent and well descended Tory squires complained
that their names were left out of the commission of the peace, while men of
small estate and mean birth, who were for toleration and excise, septennial
parliaments and standing armies, presided at quarter-sessions, and became deputy
lieutenants.
By degrees some approaches were made towards a reconciliation. While Walpole was
at the head of affairs, enmity to his power induced a large and powerful body of
Whigs, headed by the heir-apparent of the throne, to make an alliance with the
Tories, and a truce even with the Jacobites. After Sir Robert's fall, the ban
which lay on the Tory party was taken off. The chief places in the
administration continued to be filled with Whigs, and, indeed, could scarcely
have been filled otherwise; for the Tory nobility and gentry, though strong in
numbers and in property, had among them scarcely a single man distinguished by
talents, either for business or for debate. A few of them, however, were
admitted to subordinate offices; and this indulgence produced a softening effect
on the temper of the whole body. The first levee of George the Second after
Walpole's resignation was a remarkable spectacle. Mingled with the constant
supporters of the House of Brunswick, with the Russells, the Cavendishes, and
the Pelhams, appeared a crowd of faces utterly unknown to the pages and
gentlemen-ushers, lords of rural manors, whose ale and foxhounds were renowned
in the neighborhood of the Mendip hills, or round the Wrekin, but who had never
crossed the threshold of the palace since the days when Oxford, with the white
staff in his hand, stood behind Queen Anne.
During the eighteen years which followed this day, both factions were gradually
sinking deeper and deeper into repose. The apathy of the public mind is partly
to be ascribed to the unjust violence with which the administration of Walpole
had been assailed. In the body politic, as in the natural body, morbid languor
generally succeeds morbid excitement. The people had been maddened by sophistry,
by calumny, by rhetoric, by stimulants applied to the national pride. In the
fullness of bread, they had raved as if famine had been in the land. While
enjoying such a measure of civil and religious freedom as, till then, no great
society had ever known, they had cried out for a Timoleon or a Brutus to stab
their oppressor to the heart. They were in this frame of mind when the change of
administration took place; and they soon found that there was to be no change
whatever in the system of government. The natural consequences followed. To
frantic zeal succeeded sullen indifference. The cant of patriotism had not
merely ceased to charm the public ear, but had become as nauseous as the cant of
Puritanism after the downfall of the Rump. The hot fit was over, the cold fit
had begun: and it was long before seditious arts, or even real grievances, could
bring back the fiery paroxysm which had run its course and reached its
termination.
Two attempts were made to disturb this tranquility. The banished heir of the
House of Stuart headed a rebellion; the discontented heir of the House of
Brunswick headed an opposition. Both the rebellion and the opposition came to
nothing. The battle of Culloden annihilated the Jacobite party. The death of
Prince Frederic dissolved the faction which, under his guidance, had feebly
striven to annoy his father's government. His chief followers hastened to make
their peace with the ministry; and the political torpor became complete.
Five years after the death of Prince Frederic, the public mind was for a time
violently excited. But this excitement had nothing to do with the old disputes
between Whigs and Tories. England was at war with France. The war had been
feebly conducted. Minorca had been torn from us. Our fleet had retired before
the white flag of the House of Bourbon. A bitter sense of humiliation, new to
the proudest and bravest of nations, superseded every other feeling. The cry of
all the counties and great towns of the realm was for a government which would
retrieve the honor of the English arms. The two most powerful in the country
were the Duke of Newcastle and Pitt. Alternate victories and defeats had made
them sensible that neither of them could stand alone. The interest of the State,
and the interest of their own ambition, impelled them to coalesce. By their
coalition was formed the ministry which was in power when George the Third
ascended the throne.
The more carefully the structure of this celebrated ministry is examined, the
more shall we see reason to marvel at the skill or the luck which had combined
in one harmonious whole such various and, as it seemed, incompatible elements of
force. The influence which is derived from stainless integrity, the influence
which is derived from the vilest arts of corruption, the strength of
aristocratical connection, the strength of democratical enthusiasm, all these
things were for the first time found together. Newcastle brought to the
coalition a vast mass of power, which had descended to him from Walpole and
Pelham. The public offices, the church, the courts of law, the army, the navy,
the diplomatic service, swarmed with his creatures. The boroughs, which long
afterwards made up the memorable schedules A and B, were represented by his
nominees. The great Whig families, which, during several generations, had been
trained in the discipline of party warfare, and were accustomed to stand
together in a firm phalanx, acknowledged him as their captain. Pitt, on the
other hand, had what Newcastle wanted, an eloquence which stirred the passions
and charmed the imagination, a high reputation for purity, and the confidence
and ardent love of millions.
The partition which the two ministers made of the powers of government was
singularly happy. Each occupied a province for which he was well qualified; and
neither had any inclination to intrude himself into the province of the other.
Newcastle took the treasury, the civil and ecclesiastical patronage, and the
disposal of that part of the secret-service money which was then employed in
bribing members of Parliament. Pitt was Secretary of State, with the direction
of the war and of foreign affairs. Thus the filth of all the noisome and
pestilential sewers of government was poured into one channel. Through the other
passed only what was bright and stainless. Mean and selfish politicians, pining
for commissionerships, gold sticks, and ribands, flocked to the great house at
the corner of Lincoln's Inn Fields. There, at every levee, appeared eighteen or
twenty pair of lawn sleeves; for there was not, it was said, a single Prelate
who had not owed either his first elevation or some subsequent translation to
Newcastle. There appeared those members of the House of Commons in whose silent
votes the main strength of the Government lay. One wanted a place in the excise
for his butler. Another came about a prebend for his son. A third whispered that
he had always stood by his Grace and the Protestant succession; that his last
election had been very expensive; that potwallopers had now no conscience; that
he had been forced to take up money on mortgage; and that he hardly knew where
to turn for five hundred pounds. The Duke pressed all their hands, passed his
arms round all their shoulders, patted all their backs, and sent away some with
wages, and some with promises. From this traffic Pitt stood haughtily aloof. Not
only was he himself incorruptible, but he shrank from the loathsome drudgery of
corrupting others. He had not, however, been twenty years in Parliament, and ten
in office, without discovering how the Government was carried on. He was
perfectly aware that bribery was practiced on a large scale by his colleagues.
Hating the practice, yet despairing of putting it down, and doubting whether, in
those times, any ministry could stand without it, he determined to be blind to
it. He would see nothing, know nothing, believe nothing. People who came to talk
to him about shares in lucrative contracts, or about the means of securing a
Cornish corporation, were soon put out of countenance by his arrogant humility.
They did him too much honor. Such matters were beyond his capacity. It was true
that his poor advice about expeditions and treaties was listened to with
indulgence by a gracious sovereign. If the question were, who should command in
North America, or who should be ambassador at Berlin, his colleagues would
condescend to take his opinion. But he had not the smallest influence with the
Secretary of the Treasury, and could not venture to ask even for a tidewaiter's
place.
It may be doubted whether he did not owe as much of his popularity to his
ostentatious purity as to his eloquence, or to his talents for the
administration of war. It was everywhere said with delight and admiration that
the Great Commoner, without any advantages of birth or fortune, had, in spite of
the dislike of the Court and of the aristocracy, made himself the first man in
England, and made England the first country in the world; that his name was
mentioned with awe in every palace from Lisbon to Moscow; that his trophies were
in all the four quarters of the globe; yet that he was still plain William Pitt,
without title or riband, without pension or sinecure place. Whenever he should
retire, after saving the State, he must sell his coach horses and his silver
candlesticks. Widely as the taint of corruption had spread, his hands were
clean. They had never received, they had never given, the price of infamy. Thus
the coalition gathered to itself support from all the high and all the low parts
of human nature, and was strong with the whole united strength of virtue and of
Mammon.
Pitt and Newcastle were co-ordinate chief ministers. The subordinate places had
been filled on the principle of including in the Government every party and
shade of party, the avowed Jacobites alone excepted, nay, every public man who,
from his abilities or from his situation, seemed likely to be either useful in
office or formidable in opposition.
The Whigs, according to what was then considered as their prescriptive right,
held by far the largest share of power. The main support of the administration
was what may be called the great Whig connection, a connection which, during
near half a century, had generally had the chief sway in the country, and which
derived an immense authority from rank, wealth, borough interest, and firm
union. To this connection, of which Newcastle was the head, belonged the houses
of Cavendish, Lennox, Fitzroy, Bentinck, Manners, Conway, Wentworth, and many
others of high note.
There were two other powerful Whig connections, either of which might have been
a nucleus for a strong opposition. But room had been found in the Government for
both. They were known as the Grenvilles and the Bedfords.
The head of the Grenvilles was Richard Earl Temple. His talents for
administration and debate were of no high order. But his great possessions, his
turbulent and unscrupulous character, his restless activity, and his skill in
the most ignoble tactics of faction, made him one of the most formidable enemies
that a ministry could have. He was keeper of the privy seal. His brother George
was treasurer of the navy. They were supposed to be on terms of close friendship
with Pitt, who had married their sister, and was the most uxorious of husbands.
The Bedfords, or, as they were called by their enemies, the Bloomsbury gang,
professed to be led by John Duke of Bedford, but in truth led him wherever they
chose, and very often led him where he never would have gone of his own accord.
He had many good qualities of head and heart, and would have been certainly a
respectable, and possibly a distinguished man, if he had been less under the
influence of his friends, or more fortunate in choosing them. Some of them were
indeed, to do them justice, men of parts. But here, we are afraid, eulogy must
end. Sandwich and Rigby were able debaters, pleasant boon companions, dexterous
intriguers, masters of all the arts of jobbing and electioneering, and both in
public and private life, shamelessly immoral. Weymouth had a natural eloquence,
which sometimes astonished those who knew how little he owed to study. But he
was indolent and dissolute, and had early impaired a fine estate with the
dice-box, and a fine constitution with the bottle. The wealth and power of the
Duke, and the talents and audacity of some of his retainers, might have
seriously annoyed the strongest ministry. But his assistance had been secured.
He was Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland; Rigby was his secretary; and the whole party
dutifully supported the measures of the Government.
Two men had, a short time before, been thought likely to contest with Pitt the
lead of the House of Commons, William Murray and Henry Fox. But Murray had been
removed to the Lords, and was Chief Justice of the King's Bench. Fox was indeed
still in the Commons; but means had been found to secure, if not his strenuous
support, at least his silent acquiescence. He was a poor man; he was a doting
father. The office of Paymaster-General during an expensive war was, in that
age, perhaps the most lucrative situation in the gift of the Government. This
office was bestowed on Fox. The prospect of making a noble fortune in a few
years, and of providing amply for his darling boy Charles, was irresistibly
tempting. To hold a subordinate place, however profitable, after having led the
House of Commons, and having been entrusted with the business of forming a
ministry, was indeed a great descent. But a punctilious sense of personal
dignity was no part of the character of Henry Fox.
We have not time to enumerate all the other men of weight who were, by some tie
or other, attached to the Government. We may mention Hardwicke, reputed the
first lawyer of the age; Legge, reputed the first financier of the age; the
acute and ready Oswald; the bold and humorous Nugent; Charles Townshend, the
most brilliant and versatile of mankind; Elliot, Barrington, North, Pratt.
Indeed, as far as we recollect, there were in the whole House of Commons only
two men of distinguished abilities who were not connected with the Government;
and those two men stood so low in public estimation, that the only service which
they could have rendered to any government would have been to oppose it. We
speak of Lord George Sackville and Bubb Dodington.
Though most of the official men, and all the members of the Cabinet, were
reputed Whigs, the Tories were by no means excluded from employment. Pitt had
gratified many of them with commands in the militia, which increased both their
income and their importance in their own counties; and they were therefore in
better humor than at any time since the death of Anne. Some of the party still
continued to grumble over their punch at the Cocoa Tree; but in the House of
Commons not a single one of the malcontents durst lift his eyes above the buckle
of Pitt's shoe.
Thus there was absolutely no opposition. Nay, there was no sign from which it
could be guessed in what quarter opposition was likely to arise. Several years
passed during which Parliament seemed to have abdicated its chief functions. The
journals of the House of Commons, during four sessions, contain no trace of a
division on a party question. The supplies, though beyond precedent great, were
voted without discussion. The most animated debates of that period were on road
bills and enclosure bills.
The old King was content; and it mattered little whether he were content or not.
It would have been impossible for him to emancipate himself from a ministry so
powerful, even if he had been inclined to do so. But he had no such inclination.
He had once, indeed, been strongly prejudiced against Pitt, and had repeatedly
been ill used by Newcastle; but the vigor and success with which the war had
been waged in Germany, and the smoothness with which all public business was
carried on, had produced a favorable change in the royal mind.
Such was the posture of affairs when, on the twenty-fifth of October, 1760,
George the Second suddenly died, and George the Third, then twenty-two years
old, became King. The situation of George the Third differed widely from that of
his grandfather and that of his great grandfather. Many years had elapsed since
a sovereign of England had been an object of affection to any part of his
people. The first two Kings of the House of Hanover had neither those hereditary
rights which have often supplied the defect of merit, nor those personal
qualities which have often supplied the defect of title. A prince may be popular
with little virtue or capacity, if he reigns by birthright derived from a long
line of illustrious predecessors. An usurper may be popular, if his genius has
saved or aggrandized the nation which he governs. Perhaps no rulers have in our
time had a stronger hold on the affection of subjects than the Emperor Francis,
and his son-in-law the Emperor Napoleon. But imagine a ruler with no better
title than Napoleon, and no better understanding than Francis. Richard Cromwell
was such a ruler; and, as soon as an arm was lifted up against him, he fell
without a struggle, amidst universal derision. George the First and George the
Second were in a situation which bore some resemblance to that of Richard
Cromwell. They were saved from the fate of Richard Cromwell by the strenuous and
able exertions of the Whig party, and by the general conviction that the nation
had no choice but between the House of Brunswick and popery. But by no class
were the Guelphs regarded with that devoted affection, of which Charles the
First, Charles the Second, and James the Second, in spite of the greatest
faults, and in the midst of the greatest misfortunes, received innumerable
proofs. Those Whigs who stood by the new dynasty so manfully with purse and
sword did so on principles independent of, and indeed almost incompatible with,
the sentiment of devoted loyalty. The moderate Tories regarded the foreign
dynasty as a great evil, which must be endured for fear of a greater evil. In
the eyes of the high Tories, the Elector was the most hateful of robbers and
tyrants. The crown of another was on his head; the blood of the brave and loyal
was on his hands. Thus, during many years, the Kings of England were objects of
strong personal aversion to many of their subjects; and of strong personal
attachment to none. They found, indeed, firm and cordial support against the
pretender to their throne; but this support was given, not at all for their
sake, but for the sake of a religious and political system which would have been
endangered by their fall. This support, too, they were compelled to purchase by
perpetually sacrificing their private inclinations to the party which had set
them on the throne, and which maintained them there.
At the close of the reign of George the Second, the feeling of aversion with
which the House of Brunswick had long been regarded by half the nation had died
away; but no feeling of affection to that house had yet sprung up. There was
little, indeed, in the old King's character to inspire esteem or tenderness. He
was not our countryman. He never set foot on our soil till he was more than
thirty years old. His speech betrayed his foreign origin and breeding. His love
for his native land, though the most amiable part of his character, was not
likely to endear him to his British subjects. He was never so happy as when he
could exchange St. James's for Hernhausen. Year after year, our fleets were
employed to convoy him to the Continent, and the interests of his kingdom were
as nothing to him when compared with the interests of his Electorate. As to the
rest, he had neither the qualities which make dullness respectable, nor the
qualities which make libertinism attractive. He had been a bad son and a worse
father, an unfaithful husband and an ungraceful lover. Not one magnanimous or
humane action is recorded of him; but many instances of meanness, and of a
harshness which, but for the strong constitutional restraints under which he was
placed, might have made the misery of his people.
He died; and at once a new world opened. The young King was a born Englishman.
All his tastes and habits, good or bad, were English. No portion of his subjects
had anything to reproach him with. Even the remaining adherents of the House of
Stuart could scarcely impute to him the guilt of usurpation. He was not
responsible for the Revolution, for the Act of Settlement, for the suppression
of the risings of 1715 and of 1745. He was innocent of the blood of Derwentwater
and Kilmarnock, of Balmerino and Cameron. Born fifty years after the old line
had been expelled, fourth in descent and third in succession of the Hanoverian
dynasty, he might plead some show of hereditary right. His age, his appearance,
and all that was known of his character, conciliated public favor. He was in the
bloom of youth; his person and address were pleasing. Scandal imputed to him no
vice; and flattery might without any glaring absurdity, ascribe to him many
princely virtues.
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