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The address which the House of Commons presented to the King on the occasion of
the Prince's marriage was moved, not by the Minister, but by Pulteney, the
leader of the Whigs in Opposition. It was on this motion that Pitt, who had not
broken silence during the session in which he took his seat, addressed the House
for the first time. "A contemporary historian," says Mr. Thackeray, "describes
Mr. Pitt's first speech as superior even to the models of ancient eloquence.
According to Tindal, it was more ornamented than the speeches of Demosthenes,
and less diffuse than those of Cicero." This unmeaning phrase has been a hundred
times quoted. That it should ever have been quoted, except to be laughed at, is
strange. The vogue which it has obtained may serve to show in how slovenly a way
most people are content to think. Did Tindal, who first used it, or Archdeacon
Coxe and Mr. Thackeray, who have borrowed it, ever in their lives hear any
speaking which did not deserve the same compliment? Did they ever hear speaking
less ornamented than that of Demosthenes, or more diffuse than that of Cicero?
We know no living orator, from Lord Brougham down to Mr. Hunt, who is not
entitled to the same eulogy. It would be no very flattering compliment to a
man's figure to say, that he was taller than the Polish Count, and shorter than
Giant O'Brien, fatter than the Anatomie Vivante, and more slender than Daniel
Lambert.
Pitt's speech, as it is reported in the Gentleman's Magazine, certainly deserves
Tindal's compliment, and deserves no other. It is just as empty and wordy as a
maiden speech on such an occasion might be expected to be. But the fluency and
the personal advantages of the young orator instantly caught the ear and eye of
his audience. He was, from the day of his first appearance, always heard with
attention; and exercise soon developed the great powers which he possessed.
In our time, the audience of a member of Parliament is the nation. The three or
four hundred persons who may be present while a speech is delivered may be
pleased or disgusted by the voice and action of the orator; but, in the reports
which are read the next day by hundreds of thousands, the difference between the
noblest and the meanest figure, between the richest and the shrillest tones,
between the most graceful and the most uncouth gesture, altogether vanishes. A
hundred years ago, scarcely any report of what passed within the walls of the
House of Commons was suffered to get abroad. In those times, therefore, the
impression which a speaker might make on the persons who actually heard him was
everything. His fame out of doors depended entirely on the report of those who
were within the doors. In the Parliaments of that time, therefore, as in the
ancient commonwealths, those qualifications which enhance the immediate effect
of a speech, were far more important ingredients in the composition of an orator
than at present. All those qualifications Pitt possessed in the highest degree.
On the stage, he would have been the finest Brutus or Coriolanus ever seen.
Those who saw him in his decay, when his health was broken, when his mind was
untuned, when he had been removed from that stormy assembly of which he
thoroughly knew the temper, and over which he possessed unbounded influence, to
a small, a torpid, and an unfriendly audience, say that his speaking was then,
for the most part, a low, monotonous muttering, audible only to those who sat
close to him, that when violently excited, he sometimes raised his voice for a
few minutes, but that it sank again into an unintelligible murmur. Such was the
Earl of Chatham, but such was not William Pitt. His figure, when he first
appeared in Parliament, was strikingly graceful and commanding, his features
high and noble, his eye full of fire. His voice, even when it sank to a whisper,
was heard to the remotest benches; and when he strained it to its full extent,
the sound rose like the swell of the organ of a great Cathedral, shook the house
with its peal, and was heard through lobbies and down staircases to the Court of
Requests and the precincts of Westminster Hall. He cultivated all these eminent
advantages with the most assiduous care. His action is described by a very
malignant observer as equal to that of Garrick. His play of countenance was
wonderful: he frequently disconcerted a hostile orator by a single glance of
indignation or scorn. Every tone, from the impassioned cry to the thrilling
aside, was perfectly at his command. It is by no means improbable that the pains
which he took to improve his great personal advantages had, in some respects, a
prejudicial operation, and tended to nourish in him that passion for theatrical
effect which, as we have already remarked, was one of the most conspicuous
blemishes in his character.
But it was not solely or principally to outward accomplishments that Pitt owed
the vast influence which, during nearly thirty years, he exercised over the
House of Commons. He was undoubtedly a great orator; and, from the descriptions
given by his contemporaries, and the fragments of his speeches which still
remain, it is not difficult to discover the nature and extent of his oratorical
powers.
He was no speaker of set speeches. His few prepared discourses were complete
failures. The elaborate panegyric which he pronounced on General Wolfe was
considered as the very worst of all his performances. "No man," says a critic
who had often heard him, "ever knew so little what he was going to say." Indeed,
his facility amounted to a vice. He was not the master, but the slave of his own
speech. So little self-command had he when once he felt the impulse, that he did
not like to take part in a debate when his mind was full of an important secret
of state. "I must sit still," he once said to Lord Shelburne on such an
occasion; "for, when once I am up, everything that is in my mind comes out."
Yet he was not a great debater. That he should not have been so when first he
entered the House of Commons is not strange. Scarcely any person has ever become
so without long practice and many failures. It was by slow degrees, as Burke
said, that Charles Fox became the most brilliant and powerful debater that ever
lived. Charles Fox himself attributed his own success to the resolution which he
formed when very young, of speaking, well or ill, at least once every night.
"During five whole sessions," he used to say, "I spoke every night but one; and
I regret only that I did not speak on that night too." Indeed, with the
exception of Mr. Stanley, whose knowledge of the science of parliamentary
defense resembles an instinct, it would be difficult to name any eminent debater
who has not made himself a master of his art at the expense of his audience.
But, as this art is one which even the ablest men have seldom acquired without
long practice, so it is one which men of respectable abilities, with assiduous
and intrepid practice, seldom fail to acquire. It is singular that, in such an
art, Pitt, a man of great parts, of great fluency, of great boldness, a man
whose whole life was passed in parliamentary conflict, a man who, during several
years, was the leading minister of the Crown in the House of Commons, should
never have attained to high excellence. He spoke without premeditation; but his
speech followed the course of his own thoughts, and not the course of the
previous discussion. He could, indeed, treasure up in his memory some detached
expression of an opponent, and make it the text for lively ridicule or solemn
reprehension. Some of the most celebrated bursts of his eloquence were called
forth by an unguarded word, a laugh, or a cheer. But this was the only sort of
reply in which he appears to have excelled. He was perhaps the only great
English orator who did not think it any advantage to have the last word, and who
generally spoke by choice before his most formidable antagonists. His merit was
almost entirely rhetorical. He did not succeed either in exposition or in
refutation; but his speeches abounded with lively illustrations, striking
apophthegms, well-told anecdotes, happy allusions, passionate appeals. His
invective and sarcasm were terrific. Perhaps no English orator was ever so much
feared.
But that which gave most effect to his declamation was the air of sincerity, of
vehement feeling, of moral elevation, which belonged to all that he said. His
style was not always in the purest taste. Several contemporary judges pronounced
it too florid. Walpole, in the midst of the rapturous eulogy which he pronounces
on one of Pitt's greatest orations, owns that some of the metaphors were too
forced. Some of Pitt's quotations and classical stories are too trite for a
clever schoolboy. But these were niceties for which the audience cared little.
The enthusiasm of the orator infected all who heard him; his ardor and his noble
bearing put fire into the most frigid conceit, and gave dignity to the most
puerile allusion.
His powers soon began to give annoyance to the Government; and Walpole
determined to make an example of the patriotic cornet. Pitt was accordingly
dismissed from the service. Mr. Thackeray says that the Minister took this step,
because he plainly saw that it would have been vain to think of buying over so
honorable and disinterested an opponent. We do not dispute Pitt's integrity; but
we do not know what proof he had given of it when he was turned out of the army;
and we are sure that Walpole was not likely to give credit for inflexible
honesty to a young adventurer who had never had an opportunity of refusing
anything. The truth is, that it was not Walpole's practice to buy off enemies.
Mr. Burke truly says, in the Appeal to the Old Whigs, that Walpole gained very
few over from the Opposition. Indeed that great minister knew his business far
too well. He, knew that, for one mouth which is stopped with a place, fifty
other mouths will he instantly opened. He knew that it would have been very bad
policy in him to give the world to understand that more was to be got by
thwarting his measures than by supporting them. These maxims are as old as the
origin of parliamentary corruption in England. Pepys learned them, as he tells
us, from the counselors of Charles the Second.
Pitt was no loser. He was made Groom of the Bedchamber to the Prince of Wales,
and continued to declaim against the ministers with unabated violence and with
increasing ability. The question of maritime right, then agitated between Spain
and England, called forth all his powers. He clamored for war with a vehemence
which it is not easy to reconcile with reason or humanity, but which appears to
Mr. Thackeray worthy of the highest admiration. We will not stop to argue a
point on which we had long thought that all well-informed people were agreed. We
could easily show, we think, that, if any respect be due to international law,
if right, where societies of men are concerned, be anything but another name for
might, if we do not adopt the doctrine of the Buccaneers, which seems to be also
the doctrine of Mr. Thackeray, that treaties mean nothing within thirty degrees
of the line, the war with Spain was altogether unjustifiable. But the truth is,
that the promoters of that war have saved the historian the trouble of trying
them. They have pleaded guilty. "I have seen," says Burke, "and with some care
examined, the original documents concerning certain important transactions of
those times. They perfectly satisfied me of the extreme injustice of that war,
and of the falsehood of the colors which Walpole, to his ruin, and guided by a
mistaken policy, suffered to be daubed over that measure. Some years after, it
was my fortune to converse with many of the principal actors against that
minister, and with those who principally excited that clamor. None of them, no,
not one, did in the least defend the measure, or attempt to justify their
conduct. They condemned it as freely as they would have done in commenting upon
any proceeding in history in which they were totally unconcerned." Pitt, on
subsequent occasions, gave ample proof that he was one of these penitents. But
his conduct, even where it appeared most criminal to himself, appears admirable
to his biographer.
The elections of 1741 were unfavorable to Walpole; and after a long and
obstinate struggle he found it necessary to resign. The Duke of Newcastle and
Lord Hardwicke opened a negotiation with the leading Patriots, in the hope of
forming an administration on a Whig basis. At this conjuncture, Pitt and those
persons who were most nearly connected with him acted in a manner very little to
their honor. They attempted to come to an understanding with Walpole, and
offered, if he would use his influence with the King in their favor, to screen
him from prosecution. They even went so far as to engage for the concurrence of
the Prince of Wales. But Walpole knew that the assistance of the Boys, as he
called the young Patriots, would avail him nothing if Pulteney and Carteret
should prove intractable, and would be superfluous if the great leaders of the
Opposition could be gained. He, therefore, declined the proposal. It is
remarkable that Mr. Thackeray, who has thought it worth while to preserve Pitt's
bad college verses, has not even alluded to this story, a story which is
supported by strong testimony, and which may be found in so common a book as
Coxe's Life of Walpole.
The new arrangements disappointed almost every member of the Opposition, and
none more than Pitt. He was not invited to become a place-man; and he therefore
stuck firmly to his old trade of patriot. Fortunate it was for him that he did
so. Had he taken office at this time, he would in all probability have shared
largely in the unpopularity of Pulteney, Sandys, and Carteret. He was now the
fiercest and most implacable of those who called for vengeance on Walpole. He
spoke with great energy and ability in favor of the most unjust and violent
propositions which the enemies of the fallen minister could invent. He urged the
House of Commons to appoint a secret tribunal for the purpose of investigating
the conduct of the late First Lord of the Treasury. This was done. The great
majority of the inquisitors were notoriously hostile to the accused statesman.
Yet they were compelled to own that they could find no fault in him. They
therefore called for new powers, for a bill of indemnity to witnesses, or, in
plain words, for a bill to reward all who might give evidence, true or false,
against the Earl of Orford. This bill Pitt supported, Pitt, who had himself
offered to be a screen between Lord Orford and public justice. These are
melancholy facts. Mr. Thackeray omits them, or hurries over them as fast as he
can; and, as eulogy is his business, he is in the right to do so. But, though
there are many parts of the life of Pitt which it is more agreeable to
contemplate, we know none more instructive. What must have been the general
state of political morality, when a young man, considered, and justly
considered, as the most public-spirited and spotless statesman of his time,
could attempt to force his way into office by means so disgraceful!
The Bill of Indemnity was rejected by the Lords. Walpole withdrew himself
quietly from the public eye; and the ample space which he had left vacant was
soon occupied by Carteret. Against Carteret Pitt began to thunder with as much
zeal as he had ever manifested against Sir Robert. To Carteret he transferred
most of the hard names which were familiar to his eloquence, sole minister,
wicked minister, odious minister, execrable minister. The chief topic of Pitt's
invective was the favor shown to the German dominions of the House of Brunswick.
He attacked with great violence, and with an ability which raised him to the
very first rank among the parliamentary speakers, the practice of paying
Hanoverian troops with English money. The House of Commons had lately lost some
of its most distinguished ornaments. Walpole and Pulteney had accepted peerages;
Sir William Wyndham was dead; and among the rising men none could be considered
as, on the whole, a match for Pitt.
During the recess of 1744, the old Duchess of Marlborough died. She carried to
her grave the reputation of being decidedly the best hater of her time. Yet her
love had been infinitely more destructive than her hatred. More than thirty
years before, her temper had ruined the party to which she belonged and the
husband whom she adored. Time had made her neither wiser nor kinder. Whoever was
at any moment great and prosperous was the object of her fiercest detestation.
She had hated Walpole; she now hated Carteret. Pope, long before her death,
predicted the fate of her vast property.
"To heirs unknown descends the unguarded store, Or wanders, heaven-directed, to
the poor."
Pitt was then one of the poor; and to him Heaven directed a portion of the
wealth of the haughty Dowager. She left him a legacy of ten thousand pounds, in
consideration of "the noble defense he had made for the support of the laws of
England, and to prevent the ruin of his country."
The will was made in August--The Duchess died in October. In November Pitt was a
courtier. The Pelhams had forced the King, much against his will, to part with
Lord Carteret, who had now become Earl Granville. They proceeded, after this
victory, to form the Government on that basis, called by the cant name of "the
broad bottom." Lyttelton had a seat at the Treasury, and several other friends
of Pitt were provided for. But Pitt himself was, for the present, forced to be
content with promises. The King resented most highly some expressions which the
ardent orator had used in the debate on the Hanoverian troops. But Newcastle and
Pelham, expressed the strongest confidence that time and their exertions would
soften the royal displeasure.
Pitt, on his part, omitted nothing that might facilitate his admission to
office. He resigned his place in the household of Prince Frederick, and, when
Parliament met, exerted his eloquence in support of the Government. The Pelhams
were really sincere in their endeavors to remove the strong prejudices which had
taken root in the King's mind. They knew that Pitt was not a man to be deceived
with ease or offended with impunity. They were afraid that they should not be
long able to put him off with promises. Nor was it their interest so to put him
off. There was a strong tie between him and them. He was the enemy of their
enemy. The brothers hated and dreaded the eloquent, aspiring, and imperious
Granville. They had traced his intrigues in many quarters. They knew his
influence over the royal mind. They knew that, as soon as a favorable
opportunity should arrive, he would be recalled to the head of affairs. They
resolved to bring things to a crisis; and the question on which they took issue
with their master was whether Pitt should or should not be admitted to office.
They chose their time with more skill than generosity. It was when rebellion was
actually raging in Britain, when the Pretender was master of the northern
extremity of the island, that they tendered their resignations. The King found
himself deserted, in one day, by the whole strength of that party which had
placed his family on the throne. Lord Granville tried to form a Government; but
it soon appeared that the parliamentary interest of the Pelhams was
irresistible, and that the King's favorite statesman could count only on about
thirty Lords and eighty members of the House of Commons. The scheme was given
up. Granville went away laughing. The ministers came back stronger than ever;
and the King was now no longer able to refuse anything that they might be
pleased to demand. He could only mutter that it was very hard that Newcastle,
who was not fit to be chamberlain to the most insignificant prince in Germany,
should dictate to the King of England.
One concession the ministers graciously made. They agreed that Pitt should not
be placed in a situation in which it would be necessary for him to have frequent
interviews with the King. Instead, therefore, of making their new ally Secretary
at War as they had intended, they appointed him Vice-Treasurer of Ireland, and
in a few months promoted him to the office of Paymaster of the Forces.
This was, at that time, one of the most lucrative offices in the Government. The
salary was but a small part of the emolument which the Paymaster derived from
his place. He was allowed to keep a large sum, which, even in time of peace, was
seldom less than one hundred thousand pounds, constantly in his hands; and the
interest on this sum he might appropriate to his own use. This practice was not
secret, nor was it considered as disreputable. It was the practice of men of
undoubted honor, both before and after the time of Pitt. He, however, refused to
accept one farthing beyond the salary which the law had annexed to his office.
It had been usual for foreign princes who received the pay of England to give to
the Paymaster of the Forces a small percentage on the subsidies. These
ignominious veils Pitt resolutely declined.
Disinterestedness of this kind was, in his days, very rare. His conduct
surprised and amused politicians. It excited the warmest admiration throughout
the body of the people. In spite of the inconsistencies of which Pitt had been
guilty, in spite of the strange contrast between his violence in Opposition and
his tameness in office, he still possessed a large share of the public
confidence. The motives which may lead a politician to change his connections or
his general line of conduct are often obscure; but disinterestedness in
pecuniary matters everybody can understand. Pitt was thenceforth considered as a
man who was proof to all sordid temptations. If he acted ill, it might be from
an error in judgment; it might be from resentment; it might be from ambition.
But poor as he was, he had vindicated himself from all suspicion of
covetousness.
Eight quiet years followed, eight years during which the minority, which had
been feeble ever since Lord Granville had been overthrown, continued to dwindle
till it became almost invisible. Peace was made with France and Spain in 1748.
Prince Frederick died in 1751; and with him died the very semblance of
opposition. All the most distinguished survivors of the party which had
supported Walpole and of the party which had opposed him, were united under his
successor. The fiery and vehement spirit of Pitt had for a time been laid to
rest. He silently acquiesced in that very system of continental measures which
he had lately condemned. He ceased to talk disrespectfully about Hanover. He did
not object to the treaty with Spain, though that treaty left us exactly where we
had been when he uttered his spirit-stirring harangues against the pacific
policy of Walpole. Now and then glimpses of his former self appeared; but they
were few and transient. Pelham knew with whom he had to deal, and felt that an
ally, so little used to control, and so capable of inflicting injury, might well
be indulged in an occasional fit of waywardness.
Two men, little, if at all inferior to Pitt in powers of mind, held, like him,
subordinate offices in the Government. One of these, Murray, was successively
Solicitor-General and Attorney-General. This distinguished person far surpassed
Pitt in correctness of taste, in power of reasoning, in depth and variety of
knowledge. His parliamentary eloquence never blazed into sudden flashes of
dazzling brilliancy; but its clear, placid, and mellow splendor was never for an
instant overclouded. Intellectually he was, we believe, fully equal to Pitt; but
he was deficient in the moral qualities to which Pitt owed most of his success.
Murray wanted the energy, the courage, the all-grasping and all-risking
ambition, which make men great in stirring times. His heart was a little cold,
his temper cautious even to timidity, his manners decorous even to formality. He
never exposed his fortunes or his fame to any risk which he could avoid. At one
time he might, in all probability, have been Prime Minister. But the object of
his wishes was the judicial bench. The situation of Chief justice might not be
so splendid as that of First Lord of the Treasury; but it was dignified; it was
quiet; it was secure; and therefore it was the favorite situation of Murray.
Fox, the father of the great man whose mighty efforts in the cause of peace, of
truth, and of liberty, have made that name immortal, was Secretary-at-War. He
was a favorite with the King, with the Duke of Cumberland, and with some of the
most powerful members of the great Whig connection. His parliamentary talents
were of the highest order. As a speaker he was in almost all respects the very
opposite to Pitt. His figure was ungraceful; his face, as Reynolds and Nollekens
have preserved it to us, indicated a strong understanding; but the features were
coarse, and the general aspect dark and lowering. His manner was awkward; his
delivery was hesitating; he was often at a stand for want of a word; but as a
debater, as a master of that keen, weighty, manly logic, which is suited to the
discussion of political questions, he has perhaps never been surpassed except by
his son. In reply he was as decidedly superior to Pitt as in declamation he was
Pitt's inferior. Intellectually the balance was nearly even between the rivals.
But here, again, the moral qualities of Pitt turned the scale. Fox had
undoubtedly many virtues. In natural disposition as well as in talents, he bore
a great resemblance to his more celebrated son. He had the same sweetness of
temper, the same strong passions, the same openness, boldness, and impetuosity,
the same cordiality towards friends, the same placability towards enemies. No
man was more warmly or justly beloved by his family or by his associates. But
unhappily he had been trained in a bad political school, in a school, the
doctrines of which were, that political virtue is the mere coquetry of political
prostitution, that every patriot has his price, that government can be carried
on only by means of corruption, and that the State is given as a prey to
statesmen. These maxims were too much in vogue throughout the lower ranks of
Walpole's party, and were too much encouraged by Walpole himself, who, from
contempt of what, is in our day vulgarly called humbug; often ran extravagantly
and offensively into the opposite extreme. The loose political morality of Fox
presented a remarkable contrast to the ostentatious purity of Pitt. The nation
distrusted the former, and placed implicit confidence in the latter. But almost
all the statesmen of the age had still to learn that the confidence of the
nation was worth having. While things went on quietly, while there was no
opposition, while everything was given by the favor of a small ruling junto, Fox
had a decided advantage over Pitt; but when dangerous times came, when Europe
was convulsed with war, when Parliament was broken up into factions, when the
public mind was violently excited, the favorite of the people rose to supreme
power, while his rival sank into insignificance.
Early in the year 1754 Henry Pelham died unexpectedly. "Now I shall have no more
peace," exclaimed the old King, when he heard the news. He was in the right.
Pelham had succeeded in bringing together and keeping together all the talents
of the kingdom. By his death, the highest post to which an English subject can
aspire was left vacant; and at the same moment, the influence which had yoked
together and reined-in so many turbulent and ambitious spirits was withdrawn.
Within a week after Pelham's death, it was determined that the Duke of Newcastle
should be placed at the head of the Treasury; but the arrangement was still far
from complete. Who was to be the leading Minister of the Crown in the House of
Commons? Was the office to be entrusted to a man of eminent talents? And would
not such a man in such a place demand and obtain a larger share of power and
patronage than Newcastle would be disposed to concede? Was a mere drudge to be
employed? And what probability was there that a mere drudge would be able to
manage a large and stormy assembly, abounding with able and experienced men?
Pope has said of that wretched miser Sir John Cutler,
"Cutler saw tenants break and houses fall For very want: he could not build a
wall."
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