1744.
The end is so near that we may follow him thither. This speech was on the last day of February, and he was soon afterwards seized with a painful and mortal complaint; but in July he could not resist returning to Houghton for a final visit. There he remained till November, beset by anxious solicitations both from the King and from the Ministry, for he was the guide and stay of both. At last, though tortured with the stone, he consented to return to London at the urgent solicitation of his sovereign, then engaged in a desperate struggle to retain Carteret as Secretary of State. Even Carteret, his old enemy, in the stress of self-preservation sought his aid. Orford set out on November 19, and in four slow days of an agony which wrung even thepractised nerves of Ranby, the surgeon (and it is difficult even now to read Ranby's narrative without emotion), he reached London. The crisis then was over, for he had put an end to it on his journey. A message despatched by the Pelhams had met him on the road and placed him in possession of the facts of the situation. He had at once written to advise the King to part with Carteret, and the King had instantly submitted.
This was Walpole's last act of power, but he remained in London to die. For four months he lingered under the hands of the surgeons, sometimes under opium, sometimes suffering tortures with equanimity and good humour. But even so his shrewd and cynical common sense did not desert him. Consulted by the Duke of Cumberland as to a marriage projected for him by the King, but repugnant to the Duke, the dying statesman advised him to consent to the marriage on condition of an ample and immediate establishment. 'Believe me,' he added, 'the marriage will not be pressed.' Walpole's knowledge of mankind left him only with his death.
His constancy, his courage, his temper, his unfailing resource, his love of peace, his gifts of management and debate, his long reign of prosperity will always maintain Walpole in the highest rank of English statesmen. Distinguished even in death, he rests under the bare and rustic pavement of Houghton Church, in face of the palace that he had reared and cherished, without so much as an initial to mark his grave. This is the blank end of so much honour, adulation, power, and renown. For a century and a half unconscious hobnails and pattens have ground the nameless stones above him, while mediocrities in marblehave thronged our public haunts. His monument, unvoted, unsubscribed, but supreme, was the void left by his death, the helpless bewilderment of King and Government, the unwilling homage and retractation offered by his foes, the twenty years of peace and plenty represented by his name.
And here another illustrious name cannot but suggest itself, though it may seem difficult to bring into anything like a parallel the two great Sir Roberts, Walpole and Peel. Both were distinguished by the same cautious and pacific sagacity. But they differed by the whole width of human nature in temperament. Walpole belonged to the school of the cold blood, and Peel to that of the warm. This, perhaps, constitutes the most important touchstone in the characters of statesmen, and success usually lies with the colder temperament. Of this principle, Fox, who was warm blooded, presents the most remarkable illustration, and Gladstone, who was not less so, the most signal exception. Peel's conscience, moreover, was as notably sensitive as Walpole's was notoriously the reverse. But though thus essentially apart, there is one capital point which the careers of Walpole and Pitt bear an almost exact resemblance to each other. Neither of them, strangely enough, reached his full height until his fall; neither acquired the full confidence of the country until he had lost that of Parliament; after having exercised almost paramount power as Ministers, neither ever reached his truest supremacy until he had left office for ever. Then, after a great catastrophe which had seemed to demolish them, it was perceived that they had soared above the mist into a higher air, clear of passion and interest; whence,though with scarce a following and without the remotest idea of a return to office, they spoke with an authority which they had never possessed when their word was law to an obedient majority in the Commons; an authority derived from experience and wisdom, without any lingering suspicion of self-interest. They lived in reserve, and only broke their self-imposed silence when the highest interests of the country seemed to forbid them to maintain it. Walpole, it is true, had to do his work mainly behind the scenes, while Peel did it conspicuously in Parliament; but the position was the same. If their eulogist had to choose the supreme period in the lives of both Walpole and Peel, he would select, not the epoch of their party triumphs, but the few exalted judicial years which elapsed between their final resignation and their death. It may seem a strain of language to use the word 'judicial,' for Walpole remained the oracle and stay of Whiggery, while Peel extended his consistent protection to the weak ministry of Lord John Russell. But Peel's protection of Russell was given in defiance of party to secure the Free Trade which he deemed vital, and Walpole's guidance of Whiggery was in disinterested support of men he disliked and despised because he deemed Whiggery, or at least opposition to Jacobitism, not less vital. Free Trade and Whiggery were, in the opinion of the two statesmen, essential to avert the revolutions which the opposite systems would have involved.
This seems a digression, but at this time Pitt and Walpole were not far apart; they secretly acknowledged each other's power and merit. Pitt had already begun to appreciate the solid sagacity of Walpole, and to repent ofsome random invective. Walpole saw the rhetorical boy developing into the man of the future, and was more and more anxious to enlist him. 'Sir Robert Walpole,' said Pitt in Parliament at a later period, 'thought well of me, and died at peace with me. He was a truly English minister.'[158]
Soonafter this memorable debate France formally declared war againstMarch 1744.Great Britain in a document reciting the injuries sustained by France at the hands of the 'King of England, Elector of Hanover,' and faction was for the moment laid on one side, though Pitt, while supporting the Government, managed to declare that perdition would attend Carteret as the 'rash author of those measures which have produced this disastrous, impracticable war.' Still Parliament adjourned with comparative harmony in May. Before it met again two events occurred of the greatest importance to Pitt.
The first was the death of that vigorous old termagant Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough. All through life she had been more bellicose, though with less success, than her illustrious husband, and of late years had devoted her peculiar powers of hatred to Walpole. This bitterness extended even beyond the grave, for by a codicil dated two months before her death she bequeathed legacies to the two men who had most distinguished themselves by their attacks on that Minister. One was Chesterfield, to whom she left 20,000l.; the other was Pitt, to whom she left 10,000l., 'for the noble defence he made for the support of the laws of England, and to prevent the ruin of his country.' Moreover, she seems to have bequeathed to him her 'manor in theCounty of Buckingham, late the estate of Richard Hampden Esq: and leasehold in Suffolk; and lands etc. in Northampton.'[159]Pitt, in acknowledging the bequest to Marchmont, her executor, demurely and ambiguously replies: 'Give me leave to return your Lordship my thanks for the obliging manner in which you do me the honour to inform me of the Duchess of Marlborough's great goodness to me. The sort of regard I feel for her memory I leave to your Lordship's heart to suggest to you.'[160]Nor was this legacy all, for she settled her Wimbledon estate on her favourite grandson John Spencer, and after him on his only son; should that only son die without issue, it was to be divided between Chesterfield and Pitt. She, moreover, induced John Spencer to make a will bequeathing his own Sunderland estates to Pitt after his own sickly son.[161]Two years afterwards Spencer himself died at the age of thirty-seven 'because he would not be abridged of those invaluable blessings of an English subject, brandy, small beer and tobacco,'[162]so that only a child stood between Pitt and this great inheritance. Fortunately the splendid contingency did not take effect. For Chesterfield died without legitimate issue, and the Pitts have long been extinct; but the descendants of John Spencer's only son have been men of a purity of character and honour which have sweetened and exalted the traditions of English public life.
The legacy was opportune in more respects than one. It came as a solace to Pitt, who was desperately ill atBath with gout in his stomach, which the waters were unavailing to remove; his friends indeed feared that he would be disabled for life. It also made him independent. Bolingbroke indeed thought it made him too independent.[163]Cynics soon declared it to be timely from another point of view, for immediately after the Duchess's death there was a crisis which was to put an end to Pitt's opposition and so to his claims on her sympathies. Carteret fell, and with his fall disappeared the object of Cobham's hatred and Pitt's philippics. The tempting contrast between Pitt receiving a legacy as the leading member of the Opposition, and Pitt immediately reconciled to the Ministry, and so ceasing to be a 'Patriot,' could not escape satire. Sir Charles Hanbury Williams lost no time in penning the coarse but vigorous lampoon which depicts the ghost of the old Duchess appearing to Pitt. 'Return, base villain, my retaining fee,' says the spectre, reminds the legatee that even Judas returned the wage of betrayal, and leaves him to the 'lash of lost integrity.'[164]But these taunts were wide of the mark. It was not Pitt's integrity that had disappeared, but the object of his opposition, now that Carteret had fallen.
The story of that fall is material to the life of Pitt; it is that second event of importance to him at this time to which we have alluded. We have seen that Walpole's last journey to London was caused by the King's struggle to retain Carteret whom the Pelhams insisted on removing. This indeed was a matter of necessity for them, as they could never enjoy real power while Carteret engrossed theKing's confidence. Moreover, owing to the ill success of the Austro-British alliance during 1744 in operations with which he was identified he had become extremely unpopular. He himself was dissatisfied with his position, for though he had the ear of the King he was constantly outvoted in the Cabinet. 'Things cannot go on as they are,' he said to the ruling brother. 'I will not submit to be overruled and outvoted on every point by four to one. If you will undertake the Government, do so. If you cannot or will not I will.' This rash declaration of war sealed his fate. As a matter of fact the main division in the Cabinet of which we have record at this time was nine to four; but the majority was no doubt steady and inflexible against Carteret. The brothers now concentrated their energies on his overthrow. But before making any open attack on so strong a position, they wisely endeavoured to secure new sources of strength by negotiation with the Opposition.
During the year 1744 the leaders of the Opposition had reunited, 'upon one principle,' says the malignant Glover, 'which was to get into place.' This may fairly be said, without disparagement, to be the legitimate object of all Oppositions. In any case these politicians may well have realised that divided and scattered they were impotent, and they may have desired to make themselves felt in Parliament with or without office. So they appointed a committee of nine to treat with the Government. The junto, as it was termed in the jargon of that day, consisted of Bedford, Chesterfield, Gower, Cobham, Pitt, Lyttelton, Waller, Bubb, and Sir John Hinde Cotton.[165]This powerful body was approached by Carteret, always tardy and unskilfulin such negotiations; but he had been anticipated by the brethren in power, who, in such intrigues, displayed all the skill that he lacked. He obtained, however, the powerful mediation of the Prince of Wales, who had a regard for him. Carteret's offers were liberal enough. He offered that the administration should be transformed, and places found for all of them; but they replied that they could make no terms with him. He turned, as we have seen, to Walpole in his despair, but in vain. Every hole was stopped. The Pelhams had secured both Walpole and the Committee.
Five of the junto, including Pitt and Lyttelton, were, it is said, in favour of joining the Pelhams without any stipulation. The minority, including Cobham, who considered that the pass had been sold, and who cursed the less scrupulous tactics of the majority, were for making conditions as regards future policy. However, all, both of the majority and the minority, were brought into the scheme; Cobham, who received a regiment, having, it is said, also obtained an assurance from Newcastle that the interests of Hanover should be subordinated to the interests of Great Britain. Bedford became First Lord of the Admiralty; Gower, Privy Seal; Waller, Cofferer; Lyttelton, a Lord of the Treasury; Bubb, Treasurer of the Navy; and Cotton, a notorious Jacobite, Treasurer of the Chambers. It should be added, however, that the narrative of this negotiation, however probable it may appear, rests on the doubtful authority of Glover, who is too venomous to be trustworthy. But in any case it is not necessary to condemn the Committee, even if Glover's statement be accepted as fact. Should so powerful a bodyof men enter the feeble Government of the Pelhams, they might well feel confident of controlling its policy with or without previous stipulation. A severer judgment may be passed when it is seen that the policy remained substantially unaltered, and that Pitt found himself able to discriminate between Carteret's policy with Carteret in office, and the same policy with Carteret out of office.
Fortified by this treaty, which included, of course, places for Pitt and Chesterfield, to be given when the King could be induced to give them, the Pelhams executed their stroke of state; and having, as we have seen, made sure of the oracle at Houghton to which the King was sure to have recourse, they sent the Chancellor to the King to inform him of the determination of the entire Cabinet to resign unless he would remove Carteret. Still the King could not be brought to abandon his favourite Foreign Minister and his favourite foreign policy. It was not until Orford gave the decision against Carteret that the Sovereign succumbed, three weeks after the delivery by the Pelhams of their ultimatum.
The fall of Carteret left the brothers, Newcastle and Pelham, absolute masters of the situation. The King had been completely defeated, and had sullenly to submit. He would scarcely speak to his Ministers. When he broke silence it would be to say, 'I have done all you asked me, I have put all the power into your hands, and I suppose you will make the most of it.' To that Hardwicke, the Lord Chancellor, with more than legal subtlety replied, 'The disposition of places is not enough if your Majesty takes pains to show the world that you disapprove of your own work.' This was more than the King could endure.'My work!' he broke out; 'I was forced, I was threatened.' The Chancellor was shocked at these expressions. He knew of nothing of the kind. Such harshness was utterly alien to the ministerial mind. The mere idea of compulsion was shocking to it. 'No means were employed but what have been used in all times, the humble advice of your servants supported by such reasons as convinced them that the measure was necessary for your service.' This was the legal and fastidious method of describing the threatened strike of the Ministry in the previous November.
Carteret resigned in the last week of November (1744), and the Pelhams used their victory wisely and well by building up during the following month a strong administration on a large basis. It comprised men of all parties, Whigs, Tories, even Jacobites, forgotten Whigs, forgotten Tories, forgotten Jacobites, and was called in the canting phrase of that day the Broad Bottom Administration, as being a coalition of all parties. The only flaw in it was that it omitted the only men worth having. Among the new officials were George Grenville and George Lyttelton, who became subordinate Lords of the Treasury and Admiralty. 'Do what you will,' Cobham had said, 'provided you take care of my boys,' from whom Pitt now seemed to be excluded; for Cobham found him positive and unbending, differing, sometimes, it may be presumed, from Cobham. When complete, this Ministry was so comprehensive as to annihilate opposition, and render the next few years unprecedentedly placid and dull from the parliamentary point of view.
Outside the forgotten worthies who were provided with places, there towered the two memorable men,Pitt and Chesterfield, the one great and the other considerable. Against them the King remained implacable. But he had at last to yield to the admission of Chesterfield. At first 'he shall have nothing,' had said the King, 'trouble me no more with such nonsense.' But now Chesterfield was to combine the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland with a special embassy to the Hague. On Pitt alone was the veto still absolute. And yet he was the only man whom the Ministers really dreaded.[166]
The Pelhams, through Cobham, had promised him the Secretaryship at War, on which his heart was set; but they were unable to fulfil their pledge, and soothed him for the time with promises that they would persevere in pressing him upon the Sovereign. With these fine words Pitt professed himself satisfied, and promised support, all the more readily as he knew himself to be inevitable. In the meantime, however, he gave up the only post he held, a course to which he was impelled both by the Marlborough legacy and the fall of Carteret; for while the first made him independent of salary, the second had alienated the Prince of Wales. So in April (1745) he resigned his groomship of the bedchamber, and met Parliament in the unadorned character of the most powerful private individual in the country.
On the army estimates he spoke for the first time, and with vehemence, as a supporter of the Government. On this occasion, too, he first utilised the apparatus of gout with the demeanour of a graceful invalid, whose endwas approaching. Were it to be the last day of his life, he exclaimed, he would spend it in the House of Commons, since he judged the condition of his country to be worse than that of his own health. Formerly these expressions would have meant that the Government was ruining the nation. But now, he explained, that though Carteret had nearly wrecked the kingdom, the present object was, by connecting Hanover with Holland, to arrive at a prompt and fair pacification. He paid warm compliments to Pelham on his patriotism and capacity for business, and commended his Government with oblique and friendly expressions directed towards the King. A dawn of salvation to this country had broken forth (which, apparently, had hitherto been obscured by the form of Carteret), and he would follow it as far as it would lead him. His 'fulminating eloquence,' we are told, 'silenced all opposition.'[167]
In February 1745 a question arose of peculiar delicacy for Pitt. Through one of the compromises sometimes required by political emergency the question of the employment of the Hanoverians, against which Pitt was so strongly pledged, was arranged by transferring them to Maria Theresa, with an extra subsidy to enable her to pay them. This somewhat transparent artifice was boldly and dexterously defended by Pitt himself. On such occasions it is well not to hesitate or refine, and Pitt spoke without visible qualms. 'It was,' he said, 'a meritorious and popular measure, which did honour to the minister who advised it, and the Prince, who so graciously vouchsafed to follow it, and must give pleasure to every honest heart. As to whathad been thrown out that the Queen of Hungary might take them into her pay, when they were dismissed from ours, what of that? She was at liberty to take them or not. They would not be forced on her, but God forbid that these unfortunate troops should by our votes be proscribed at every court in Europe.' It was enough that, 'by his Majesty's wisdom and goodness,' they were no longer voted annually as a part of our army, and so forth.[168]
It is obvious from the meagre report that Pitt was now as copious in his praise of the King as he had formerly been niggard. His Sovereign had become wise and good and gracious; the Hanoverian troops, which had been so short a time ago cowardly and contemptible troops, were now unfortunate and meritorious, well worthy the attention and employment of Maria Theresa. One or two members could not help smiling; they called the measure collusive, and declared that if we were to pay the Hanoverians at all it were better to pay them directly, when they would at least be under our direction and control, than through the Queen of Hungary, when they would not. It is not on record that any one asked what advantage would be reaped by the taxpayer under the method proposed, when he would pay at least as much as before, but without the least check as to the way in which the money was spent. Nevertheless, there were complaints enough. Pitt must have hinted that it was better that they should fight under the Hungarian flag than the British, as they did not fight in harmony by the side of British troops; for this called up a Northumbrian baronet to explain that this was contrary to the fact, and that he should raise the point in a motion. Pitt at once roseagain, not in his high line, but 'with all the art and temper imaginable,' soothed and complimented the honest member, hinted that his motion would only serve the purposes of Carteret, whom they both rejoiced to see removed, and generally allayed the debate with complete success.[169]
This is again a notable mark in his career. For the first time he appears, not as the fierce hero of declamation and invective, but as the dexterous official diplomatist, coaxing and reassuring. He was fast moving onwards.
The official character of Pitt's speeches is all the more marked because there was little to commend and much to attack in the conduct of the Ministry, which had, to say the least, been singularly unfortunate. The disastrous battle of Fontenoy was not redeemed by the capture of Louisbourg, a gallant affair for which local volunteers and local enterprise, rather than the Government, deserve the credit. And now during the Parliamentary recess from May to October there suddenly appeared a fresh danger, the one against which Walpole's policy had been mainly directed for a generation. On August 19, Charles Edward, eldest son of the exiled Prince of Wales, and grandson of King James II., raised the standard of civil war at Glenfinnan; on September 17 he was living in the palace of his ancestors at Holyrood; four days afterwards he completely defeated the forces sent against him. Had he at once marched South he might well have reached London, and had he reached London the face of history in this island might have been changed. The Cabinet was panic-stricken, not merely at the advance of Charles, but at the anger of their legal Sovereign, who seemed likely to recallCarteret to his side. Dutch troops were hastily fetched over and sent to the North, and English troops from Flanders followed. Had these reinforcements been detained by contrary winds but a few weeks Pelham declared that London could not have been defended against the Jacobites. Two days before the victory of Charles Edward, Henry Fox wrote that 'had five thousand (French) troops landed in any part of this island a week ago, I verily believe the entire conquest would not have cost them a battle.'
But Charles contented himself with a reign at Holyrood of six weeks, and this delay lost him his chances of success. When Parliament met on October 17 he was still in Edinburgh, but adequate measures had been taken to render his enterprise abortive. All this does not concern Pitt, except as giving him an opportunity of expressing his devoted loyalty to George II.; but while Charles Edward was marching on Derby a desperate struggle was going on which related entirely to him. In the new session he had begun to show signs of irritation and of impatience with the Government; the emollients of the Pelhams began to lose their virtue, and he was determined not to be fooled any longer. His amiability had disappeared, and though his speeches are unreported, it is evident that the Ministers were now made to feel the terrors of his tongue. 'Yesterday,' writes Horace Walpole, 'they had another baiting from Pitt, who is ravenous for the place of Secretary at War: they would give it him: but as preliminary, he insists on a declaration of our having nothing to do with the Continent,' a stipulation which reads strangely enough by the light of the years to come. The Pelhams saw that they could nolonger defer the fulfilment of their promises, and that it was necessary to approach the King. The moment was singularly unfavourable. The King had never forgiven the compulsion put on him to dismiss Carteret, nor the fact of his separation from Carteret. He had shrewdness enough to see that in ability and grasp of affairs Carteret towered above the other ministers except the Chancellor; and he despised Newcastle, who was principally thrown into contact with him. It was a shame, he declared, that a man who was not fit to be a chamberlain at the pettiest of German courts should be forced on the nation and on the Crown as a principal minister. All through 1745 the royal resentment smouldered, though it was kept in suspense by the rebellion. But when that movement lost in importance and became clearly doomed, the King felt more free to display his feelings. Foreign policy, with which we are not here concerned, was part of his grievance; but the main cause of irritation was the threatened intrusion of Pitt on his councils. And yet this was obviously impending and even inevitable. Pitt, at first so patient, had begun to show his teeth in public, and probably in private as well. The crisis could not be any longer avoided.
In the preceding autumn there had been conferences between the Pelhams on the one side and Pitt and Cobham on the other. On November 20, 1745, Newcastle records a meeting at which Pitt put forward his demands, and 'apprehended great difficulties in bringing about what we so much desired,' his accession to office. His conditions were finally melted down to an extension of the Place Bill so as to exclude from Parliament all officers in the Army under the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and in the Navy belowthe rank of captain; the removal of all the remaining adherents of Carteret, notably the two Finches, from Court; and a 'total alteration of the foreign system, by feeding only the war on the Continent, acting there as auxiliaries, and particularly by confining all the assistance we should give to the Dutch to the bare contingent of 10,000 men; but to increase our navy, and to act as principals at sea in the war against France and Spain. For a peace with France, at present, was not to be thought of.'
The first condition presented no complications. The second seemed inexpedient on grounds of prudence and decency. The third presented more difficulty. Newcastle had two long conferences upon it, first with Pitt and then with Cobham. Finally a meeting was held between the Chancellor, Hardwicke, Harrington, Pelham, and Newcastle on one side, and Gower, Bedford, Cobham, and Pitt on the other.[170]
The situation of affairs at this moment was this: Charles Edward was marching from Holyrood towards London. The French had won Fontenoy and were overrunning the Austrian Netherlands, without difficulty and almost without resistance. Maria Theresa was about to conclude peace at Dresden (December 25, 1745) by a renewed cession of Silesia. This was the juncture at which the Pelhams resolved to force on a Cabinet crisis in order to obtain the services of Pitt. The fact at least displays the value and importance of the personage who was the subject of contest.
The real point at issue between the Government and Pitt was this: The Government wished to give general andunlimited assurances of assistance, amounting almost to a guarantee, to the Dutch. Pitt wished the assistance definitely limited to a force of 10,000 men; and that we should then, free of all other continental complications (for both parties agreed that Austria must come to terms with Prussia), carry on a purely naval war against France and Spain.
At this conference between the Ministers and the Cobham plenipotentiaries, Newcastle was the spokesman of the Government. He declared that the Queen of Hungary had forfeited her rights to any further assistance, and that we were about to tell her that she could have no more from us. On this point all were apparently agreed, so that Austria was eliminated from the discussion. The case of Holland was, however, in the opinion of Ministers, different; her existence was necessary to us, and we must proffer help to her, if only to prevent her concluding a separate peace with France. But an offer limited to 10,000 men would not prevent such a peace; we must show a general disposition to assist. Lord Cobham answered that this sort of defensive war could never bring about a peace, that the Dutch would evade their engagements, and we should find ourselves with as formidable a continental war on our hands as if we were again actively supporting Maria Theresa. Pitt warmly supported Cobham; spoke strongly against the Dutch; 'insisted that 10,000 men in our present circumstances was a generous and noble succour.... He insisted on the necessity of coming to some precision as to the contingent in order to satisfy the people; and talk'd much of the great impression we could make upon France, when our efforts were singly at sea.'
At this point Bedford and Gower separated themselves from Cobham and Pitt. It was not possible, they said, to increase our navy. In fine, the plenipotentiaries of the Government pointed out that if France and Holland came to terms, we might have France and Spain free to devote their whole energies against us, and, as the others chimed in, 'they might easily keep the rebellion on foot for years, if not destroy us quite.'
Cobham and Pitt, however, departed unshaken, though with great civility and good-humour. Newcastle glumly sums up the position. The King may say that he was ready to take these gentlemen into the Government, but, as they will not come in, ask if the Ministry will thereupon desert him? 'To which, to be sure, no other answer can be given but that we are not in a condition to carry it on. To depend upon my Lord Granville's friends to support this administration against Lord Granville is a contradiction in itself. To bring in Mr. Pitt against his own will is impossible. And, therefore, at present there seems to be nothing to be done, if Mr. Pitt is determined (which, I should still hope, he would not finally be), but with your lordship (Chesterfield), the Duke of Bedford, my Lord Gower, to get as many individuals as we can to carry us through till the rebellion is over: and then we shall be at liberty to take such part as we shall think most consistent with our own honour and the public service.'[171]
Observe: without Pitt we are not in a condition to carry on. That is what this letter amounts to, for of Bedford and Gower the Ministry felt sure, and Cobham was an auxiliary who was on and off like a freebooter. The adhesion of Pitt,a private member, poor and almost unconnected, was vital to a Government which in the public opinion had already collected every possible element of strength. So matters continued till the meeting of Parliament after the Christmas recess in January 1746. Pitt held aloof, and had no further commerce with the Government.
A few days before Parliament met, however, he went to the Duke of Bedford, inquired as to the foreign policy of the Government, showed a disposition to come into it, and expressed a wish that some minister would talk it over with Lord Cobham, 'into whose hands they had now finally committed themselves.'[172]On this hint Newcastle hurried to Cobham, who was reasonable, and 'seemed very desirous to come into us and bring his Boys, as he called them.... The terms were, Mr. Pitt to be Secretary at War; Lord Barrington in the Admiralty; and Mr. James Grenville to have an employment of £1000 a year. He flung out Lord Denbigh, the Duke of Queensbury, and some Scotch politicians, but not as points absolutely to be insisted on.'
It is useful and edifying to be allowed behind the scenes in this way; for such negotiations are now, one would imagine, obsolete, or as nearly obsolete as the corruption of our fallen nature will allow. Still, one may drop a tear in passing over the 'Scotch politicians,' so lightly proffered, so lightly dismissed. But let Newcastle continue his narrative. 'Upon this I opened the Budget to the King, which was better received than I expected, and the only objection was to the giving Mr. Pitt the particular office of Secretary at War.' Still the Pelhams pressed the appointment. Then the goaded and distressed monarch determinedto make a desperate effort to break from the dominion of the Whig hierarchy, so as to carry out his own foreign policy, and avoid the admission of Pitt to his counsels. At this juncture Bath gained admittance to the Closet, and fortified the King's repugnance. He 'represented against the behaviour of his ministers in forcing him in such a manner to take a disagreeable man into a particular office, and thereby dishonouring his Majesty both at home and abroad; and encouraging the King to resist it by offering him the support of his friends in so doing.'[173]The King caught at this forlorn hope, and gave Bath full power to form a new Government. Bath released himself from his vow against holding office, accepted the charge with alacrity, instantly summoned Carteret, and obtained from the City a promise of supplies on terms more favourable than those to which Pelham had agreed. Carteret, it need scarcely be said, joyfully acceded. The misfortune was that there was no one else who did. The Pelham ministry resigned in a body. Bath kissed hands as First Minister, and received the seals of the Secretaries of State to transmit to Carteret, who was ill. The new Secretary at once announced by circular his appointment to the foreign ministers. But there all ended. When old Horace Walpole was told that this ministry was settled he shrewdly remarked: 'I presume in the same manner as what we call a settlement in Norfolk; when a house is cracked from top to bottom and ready to fall, we say it is settled.'[174]Winnington was to have been the new Chancellor of the Exchequer. Thrice did the King press the seal into his hand, and thrice did Winnington returnit. 'Your new ministers, sir, can neither support Your Majesty nor themselves,' said he.[175]He insisted, moreover, that they could not depend on more than 31 peers and 80 commoners. History does not confirm even so moderate a computation, but it may be presumed that this was the Court contingent on which any minister could count.
Harrington, one of the actual Secretaries of State, on whom the King confidently reckoned for assistance in the new arrangement, resigned, after a stormy scene with his master, who never forgave him. Every one resigned or tried to resign, and there was no one to fill their places. To Pelham himself Carteret had made overtures; but Pelham told the King that the Whig junto would have nothing to do with Bath or Carteret. At last, the only measure left to the hapless monarch was to shut himself up and forbid his door to the crowd that sought admittance in order to give up their keys and staves and official insignia. He was soon compelled to send for Bath and to tell him that it would not do. Bath exhorted him to be firm, and offered by means of the Prince of Wales to secure Tory support. But with Charles Edward still in arms in the Highlands, the King could not bring himself to approach the foes of his house, and under no circumstances would he owe salvation to his son. Both Princes of Wales, the real and the titular, were almost equally repugnant to him. Another version of the story states that it was Bath who told the King that the project would not work. It matters little which is correct, for the position was self-evident, but George was probably stouter than Bath.
Bath kissed hands on February 10 (1746). Two daysafterwards his ministry had come to an end, and the King had sent for Pelham to return. Carteret saw the humour of the situation and laughed it away; he owned it a mad escapade, but was all the more ready to repeat it. It was all over, the King had to surrender to the Whigs, who condescended to resume the seals on easy terms, which were the proscription of Bath's following and the admission of Pitt. The first condition was simple enough, it was the natural result of Bath's defeat.Vae victis.'We immediately desired,' writes Newcastle, 'that the Court might be purged of all their friends and dependents, that Lord Bath might be out of the Cabinet Council, the Duke of Bolton, Lord Berkeley of Stratton, Mr. William Finch, the Vice-Chamberlain, Mr. Edward Finch, the Groom of the Bedchamber, Mr. Boone, and the Lord Advocate of Scotland (which were all that were left of that sort), should be removed.' We have an impression that, in spite of all, 'the black, funereal Finches' were preserved to the Bedchamber and to the card table, but that does not concern this narrative.
As to the second condition, it was inevitable sooner or later, and took place in the form least offensive to the Sovereign. But the ministerial crisis and the desperate venture with Bath and Carteret testify to the formidable position of Pitt and to the equal aversion of the Sovereign. In no less an instance than Pitt's could this repulsion have been overcome.
Pitt himself had begged that his pretensions to the Secretaryship at War should not act as an obstacle to an accommodation with the King, for there was evidently nothing so repugnant to the Sovereign. The King had saidfirst that he would not have him in that office at any price, then that he would use him ill if he had it, then that he would not admit him to his presence to do the business of the office if he had it.[176]
There is, if the matter be candidly considered, no just cause of reproach in this obstinacy. George II. was a gentleman, and a brave gentleman. The Hanoverians were his own people, of his own blood and language. Hanover was the home in which he had been brought up, the paradise to which he always looked longingly from his splendid exile in England. The King's personal courage Pitt had publicly and wantonly aspersed; Hanover and the Hanoverians he had held up to every form of public hatred and contempt. One cannot be surprised that George II. would have nothing to say to him except under compulsion, and refused, as between one gentleman and another, to have personal relations with him. As a constitutional ruler his duty was another matter, but he would not perform a duty so odious except in the last resort. He ignored Pitt even after Pitt had entered office. It was four years after Pitt became Paymaster that Newcastle, as the result of long pressure or intrigue, induced the King even to speak to him. This was considered a triumph for the ministry.[177]
Mar. 6, 1746.
Perhaps the Pelhams understood the King's feelings. Pitt did without doubt. The King was not now pressed beyond endurance, and Pitt was content for the moment with the joint Vice Treasurership of Ireland, in which his partner was Walpole's son-in-law, Cholmondeley. The office was understood to be lucrative, but he was not destined to hold thissinecure for more than a few weeks. He had scarce time to ask for exemption from the land tax of four shillings in the pound which was charged on his salary for not residing in Ireland, or for admission to the Irish Privy Council, both customary requests.[178]Two months after he was gazetted Winnington died, and Pitt succeeded him in the rich office of Paymaster-General. This is a Privy Councillor's place, so Pitt had to be admitted to the King's presence to take the oath. The King shed tears as Pitt knelt before him. A constitutional Sovereign has these bitter moments.
During the interval between the two appointments Pitt had to pay a heavy fee for the first. A vote was demanded for 18,000 Hanoverians to be taken into British pay. Cobham's young men, one of whom, afterwards Lord Temple, 'had declared in the House that he would seal it with his blood that he never would give his vote for a Hanoverian,' voted the money in silence. Pitt however was not content to play so abject a part. He stood boldly forth, speaking, said Pelham, his new chief, with the dignity of Wyndham, the wit of Pulteney, and the knowledge blended with judgment of Walpole. Walpole's son thought differently:Pitt, he declared, added 'impudence to profligacy; but no criminal at the Place de Grève was ever so racked as he was by Dr. Lee, a friend of Lord Granville, who gave him the question both ordinary and extraordinary.' Probably both accounts are true. Lee was one of the Prince of Wales's men, and Pitt's relations with his late master were strained to the point of rupture by his acceptance of office.
Pittwas now to inhabit the Pay Office, and he gave notice to Ann, without any previous quarrel so far as we know, that they would henceforth live apart. In any case, Pitt's accession to office thus enabled him to put a convenient period to what had probably become a fretting and irksome arrangement; but Walpole notes at this time that there is gossip about 'the new Paymaster's ménage,' possibly Grattan's tradition of 'This House to Let.' This sort of chit-chat is, however, the inevitable accompaniment of a man in Pitt's position and need not again be dwelt upon. Two of his early patrons also quarrelled with him: the Prince of Wales and Cobham. But Pitt, for the moment at any rate, could afford to do without either. A more delicate question required his attention. There were habitual practices in the Pay Office which brought in immense profits to the Paymaster. It was the custom of that official to take poundage on all subsidies paid to foreign princes, and to use the great balances at his credit for his own purposes of speculation. As to this second method Pitt had no doubts, and rejected the idea. As to the first he seems, on entering upon office, to have consulted Pelham.[179]Pelham replied that Winnington had taken these perquisites, but that he himself when Paymasterhad not; Pitt could do as he chose. 'Such a manner of stating it left scarce an option in any but the basest of mankind,' remarks Camelford with characteristic bitterness. Pitt at any rate did not hesitate, and refused to take a farthing beyond his salary, which, in truth, was splendid enough. But the indirect profits of the Paymastership, which earlier in the century had founded the dukedom of Chandos and the palace of Canons, and which later endowed the peerage of Henry Fox and the glories of his exquisite residence at Kensington, besides furnishing great fortunes for his graceless sons to squander at the gaming-table, were, as Dr. Johnson would have said, beyond the dreams of avarice. It was held in that day of loose political morality to be noble, if not unique, for a man with a patrimony of a hundred a year and a legacy of ten thousand pounds to refuse to receive such profits.[180]
Lord Camelford's statement may be taken in the main to be correct without adopting the sour inference which he draws. Pitt may well have asked Pelham as to the practice of the office and Pelham have replied in the sense indicated. If so, it was nearly as creditable to Pelham as to Pitt, for one was scarcely less needy than the other. Pelham was a gambler, and so wanted all the money he could get. He was a politician, and politicians in those days required money for their purposes almost as much as gamblers. Lord Camelford implies that had Pelham not answered as he did, Pitt would have taken the percentages and the balances. This is mere surmise. But, had he done so, he could not have been blamed. These perquisites were regarded as legitimate by the practice and opinion of theday; the balances were matters of public account. They made the Paymaster's office a great prize, a recognised source of immense profits. The fact remains that Pitt, or Pitt and Pelham, thought them improper, and refused to take them.
One signal difference must however be observed. Pelham abstained silently, the abstinence of Pitt was widely known. This notoriety may have been partly due to the fact that the King of Sardinia, having heard of Pitt's refusal to deduct the percentage on the Sardinian subsidy, sent to offer him a large present, which Pitt unhesitatingly declined. But there was another reason, which colours Pitt's whole life, and which may therefore well be noted here. His light was never hid under any sort of bushel, and he did not intend that it should be. He already saw that his power lay with the people, and that it was based not merely on his genius and eloquence, but on a faith in his public spirit and scrupulous integrity. His virtues were his credentials, and it was necessary that they should be conspicuous. Pulteney and St. John had wielded greater Parliamentary power, yet Pulteney and St. John had perished from want of character. Character he saw was the one necessary thing, but character must be known to be appreciated. Pitt was perhaps the first of those statesmen who sedulously imbue the public with a knowledge of their merit. He can scarcely be called an advertiser, but he was the ancestor of advertisers. Other statesmen no doubt had paid their pamphleteers. Pitt paid nobody, but he inspired; he had hangers-on who clung to the skirts of his growing fortune. This is not to imply that he had not a genuine scorn of meannessand corruption and the baser arts of politics. He had to use them through others; he had to ally himself with Newcastle and his gang; he could not govern otherwise. But he was anxious that the public should know that he was something apart from and above these politicians. His was a real but not a retiring purity; a white column rather than a snowdrop. This was all part of his essentially theatrical character, which he had found successful in Parliament, and which gradually absorbed him, with unhappy results.
But there was another reason why it was necessary that Pitt should advertise his virtue on this occasion. He was a patriot joining the Court party, a member of the Opposition accepting a place, which, with all deductions, had a fixed and ample salary. It was not possible for him, though his friends were already established in office, to join them without some loss of popularity. It was difficult for him to keep his shield untarnished in the royal armoury. The morose Glover states that he brought himself to the level of Lord Bath in public disfavour by his acceptance of office. Pitt himself, at the time of his bitter mortification in 1754, writes to Lord Hardwicke of his 'bearing long a load of obloquy for supporting the King's measures,' without the smallest abatement of the King's hostility, and about the same time describes himself as having parted with that weight in the country which arose from his independent opposition to the measures of the Government. He must indeed have counted the cost. It seemed obvious and in the nature of things that Lytteltons, Grenvilles, and Cobhams should follow the other patriots into office when opportunity offered; they had no doubt barked loudly atministers, but they belonged to the families which always governed the country, and it was proper, indeed inevitable, that they should take up their predestined positions on the Treasury Bench. But Pitt had stood on a different pedestal. He had been marked out by Walpole for punishment and by the King for exclusion. He had thundered against the King and the King's trusted Ministers, the Walpoles and the Carterets, with a voice that overbore all others, and which apparently could not be silenced. The people seemed at last to have found an incorruptible champion. Then suddenly he was muzzled with a sinecure. Had he insisted on the Secretaryship of War and wrenched it from the reluctant sovereign, the position would have been totally different. But to pass into the sleek silence of the Vice Treasurership, and almost to disappear from sight or hearing for eight years, seemed a moral collapse. It is not one of the least remarkable features of Pitt's career that he should have survived this lucrative obscurity.
It is indeed difficult to understand how so fierce and restless a spirit could have endured the passive existence to which he had restrained himself by the acceptance of office. We seem to hear a growl but a few months after he had become Paymaster. 'In the gloomy scene which, I fear, is opening in public affairs for this disgraced country,' he writes to George Grenville in October 1746; not a cheerful tone for a young minister, but one not unfamiliar among those in subordinate positions. Still he could afford to wait. He probably contented himself with the reflection that King George could not last for ever, and flattered himself with an easy entrance to the councils of King Frederick. He could watch, too, with silent scorn, the miscarriages of his officialsuperiors, confident that high office must come to him, as it were, of its own accord. Still, he had to wait long, and the death of Frederick as well as the longevity of the monarch were little less than disastrous to his calculations. It would have been better, of course, for his historical position had he refrained from taking a subordinate office, which restrained his independence, and deprived him of the peculiar lustre of his lonely power. In these days we ask ourselves what temptation could induce him to accept a post which seemed to offer nothing but salary in exchange for the exceptional splendour of his independent position? How was it worth his while to become Vice-Treasurer of Ireland? It cannot have been for money. He was notoriously indifferent to money (though his nephew casts doubts even on this), and he was better off as to money than he had ever been before, owing to the Marlborough legacy. It may have been that as his political associates had all joined the administration, he thought that his loneliness impaired his power, and he must certainly have felt that it was impossible for him to continue in active and effective opposition to a Government which included his closest friends. That would seem to be the chief and conspicuous reason. But there was another, as one may well suppose, which was not less potent. Office is the natural, legitimate and honourable object of all politicians who feel capable of doing good work as ministers, and even of some who do not. The instances to the contrary are so few as to prove the rule. Wilberforce and Burdett, Ashley (for Ashley, though not literally outside the category of officials, cannot be considered as one), and Cobden are the names that obviously present themselves. But Ashley andWilberforce had consecrated themselves to a high career of philanthropy which was incompatible with the bond of ministry. Burdett, long a popular idol and an orator of great power, a country gentleman of the best type, and personally agreeable even to those who differed from him, was probably held to be too advanced a demagogue to be even considered for an appointment. Cobden refused office at least twice; yet had he lived he could not have kept out of it. Bright, his illustrious political twin, the Castor to his Pollux, took it and liked it. In the eighteenth century we can think of no one but Pulteney. He, indeed, strictly speaking, is no exception, for as a youth he held a subordinate post. And though in the maturity of his powers he refused the first place when apparently he might have had it, he also solicited it when it was out of his reach.
Althorp too, in the last century, is a singular example. He led the House of Commons for four years as Chancellor of the Exchequer, when his popularity and ascendancy made him the real pivot of the Government. But he hated office with so deadly a hatred that he had the pistols removed from his room lest he should end his official career with them. He really comes in the list of exceptions to the rule that office is the goal of all capable politicians.
But Pitt had nothing in common with these men. He wished to be in office, and he knew that he would be a better minister than any there, even though he may not have felt already the confidence which he afterwards expressed that he alone could save England. How then was he to obtain a foothold in the ministry? The just repugance of the King was, he knew, insurmountable, so long as he remained outside. But if admitted to office he mightwell hope much from his power of fascination, which was almost famous. The King was not an easy person for any man to charm; but Pitt no doubt felt that if he could once be placed in contact with His Majesty, he might be able to remove the royal prejudice; though in that he seems to have been wrong. He tried his hand on Lady Yarmouth, with whom at a later period he seems to have been on a familiar footing; but it is doubtful if she ever dispelled, though she may have mitigated, the King's hatred of Pitt.
Even failing the mollification of the King, he felt that by taking office he would have entered the official caste, and he would have placed his foot on one rung of the ladder of greatness. In accepting the Vice-Treasurership he had doubtless been promised the next post that was vacant, and was, as has been seen, given the Paymastership. He was thus reunited to all his political friends, and would form with them a solid proportion of the garrison of Downing Street, a proportion to be reckoned with. It would be strange indeed if in such a position and with such feeble superiors he did not make his way to some position of real business and power.
It must be remembered, too, that the state of affairs as regards office in the eighteenth century was very different from the present. Now, if a man be a bold and popular speaker, both in Parliament and on the platform, but more especially on the platform, he leaps into the Cabinet at once; he disdains anything else; a Vice-Treasurership such as Pitt accepted he would regard as an insult. But in the middle of the eighteenth century there was nothing of this. There was no such thing as platform speaking outside thereligious movement. A man made himself prominent and formidable in Parliament, but that was a small part of the necessary qualifications for office. The Sovereign then exercised a control, not indeed absolute, but efficacious and material, on the selection of ministers. The great posts were mainly given to peers; while a peerage is now as regards office in the nature of an impediment, if not a disqualification. In those days an industrious duke, or even one like Grafton who was not industrious, could have almost what he chose. But most of the great potentates preferred to brood over affairs in company with hangers-on who brought them the news, or with their feudal members of parliament. Still they formed a vital element in the governments of that time. Pelham's administration at this very time contained five dukes: he himself was the only commoner in it, and he was a duke's brother. It was necessary to have a Chancellor of the Exchequer in the House of Commons, but all the other high offices could be held preferably by peers. The two Secretaries of State were both dukes. A brilliant commoner without family connection or great fortune was an efficient gladiator to be employed in the service of these princes, but he was not allowed to rise beyond a fixed line. The peers lived, as it were, in the steward's room, and the commoners in the servants' hall; in some parlour, high above all, sate the King.
Pitt, according to the practice of the twentieth century, would have received at least the highest office outside or, more probably, office within the Cabinet on the fall of Walpole, and he certainly would have been a Secretary of State or the equivalent before 1746. As it was, in thatyear he had to climb on hands and knees into a subordinate position. It had been difficult for him to get even that far at the cost of a ministerial crisis of capital importance. The veto of the King had certainly been the principal obstacle. But the iron rules of caste forbade any idea of office for Pitt at all commensurate with his importance. He had under the system in force to get in as he could, and into much the same sort of office as his inferior but more influentially connected colleagues, the Grenvilles, the Lytteltons, and the like.
There was another weighty consideration which pointed to prompt acceptance. Pitt had no time to spare. He was no longer in his first youth, he was approaching middle age. When he accepted this subordinate post he was thirty-eight; and thirty-eight, it may be said, when the lives of statesmen were comparatively short, was a more mature period in a career than it would be considered now. At the age when Pitt became Vice-Treasurer of Ireland, North was already Prime Minister. Pitt was now seven years older than Grafton when he became Prime Minister, and fifteen years older than his own son when he first led the House of Commons as Chancellor of the Exchequer; both, of course, under circumstances abnormally propitious. These figures show sufficiently not merely that Pitt's career was, so to speak, in arrear, but that the youthfulness of ministers in those days, under the favouring breezes of birth and connection, affords no standard of comparison for the possibilities of a poor country gentleman with no such advantages. Pitt was, indeed, rather old than young of his age. His sickly youth and his habitual infirmities had aged him beyond his years. But it must benoted in passing that, in spite of the dire impetuosity of his character, all his steps in life, except his entry into Parliament, were tardy and delayed. He was forty-six when he married, and forty-eight when he first entered the Cabinet; he was thirty-eight when he first obtained office. He moved slowly, but not patiently. His glowing nature, thrown back on itself, exacerbated by rebuffs and neglect, all fused into a fierce scorn, thesæva indignatioof Swift, gathered strength and intensity in its restrained progress, until it developed into a spirit not indeed amiable or attractive, but of indomitable and superhuman force. That was the process which was at work in the shade of subordinate office.
This consideration leads us to what is the best, and probably the true, explanation of this voluntary eclipse: that in taking office he was taking leave of his youth and of his past, and embarking on a new phase of his career. Up to this time he had, like a predatory animal, lived wholly on attack, and had given no thought to consistency, and little to his future. He had only been a rattling politician, determined to make his way, thinking only of the game, and of how to develop and display his powers of oratory. He had been content to adopt Cobham's enemies as his own, and had tried on them the temper of his virgin sword, without much caring who they were or why he attacked them, so long as they were sufficiently prominent to give notoriety to their assailant. His course had been one of brilliant recklessness and of striking eloquence; but at bottom it had been nothing but faction. There have been many such swashbucklers in our history, and there will be many more. But it is rare that, as in Pitt'scase, they develop into something supreme. With Pitt these extravagancies had only been the frolics of genius. By burying himself in the sedateness and reticence of office, Pitt sought to break with his dazzling indiscretions, and mature himself for statesmanship. He retired behind a screen in order to change his dress. That, one may infer, was his design; that, certainly, was the effect.
To make an end of this topic, one may ask why Pitt, so fertile of invective himself, was not the subject of execration when he joined the Court. Great men no doubt may commit faults, even crimes, with impunity, for the lustre of their achievements throws a shadow over their errors. In such men it is recognised that all is usually on a colossal scale, deeds and misdeeds alike. As they are capable of gigantic successes, they are also capable of stupendous blunders. This is true of Pitt's whole career, but it does not explain the facility with which he was now able, before he had his famous administration to his credit, to subside into an easy placeman and vindicate the measures which he had previously denounced. A few lampoons were of course launched at so tempting an object, but he was not made a conspicuous butt. Nor does he seem to have lost, or if he did he soon regained, the ear and confidence of the people. He had at all periods rare powers of recovery. But in this case the fact is not difficult to explain. In the first place it must be borne in mind that what he did was the ordinary thing to do. Again, his personal friends, and even those who had intercourse with him, were impressed by his character and believed in his integrity. Then the refusal of the indirect profits counted for much, it gave an air of austere virtue to a proceeding otherwise questionable. Again, therewas no particular object to be gained by attacking him. Who indeed was there to attack him? No one thought it worth their while to subsidise Grub Street for the purpose of throwing dirt on a silent Paymaster, and few dared attack him to his face. He had already inspired the House of Commons with that awe of him which subsisted and increased so long as he remained there. To deliver a philippic against Pitt was no joking matter; it required a man with iron nerves who was reckless of retribution. Lee, as we have seen, had attempted one, but, in spite of Horace Walpole's eulogy, he does not seem to have repeated the experiment. Hampden also attacked him, as we shall see, in terms which would have led to a duel had not the Speaker interposed his authority. Fox and Grenville withstood him doggedly in after years. Barré, when an obscure Irish adventurer, tried an attack not altogether without success, but did not care to renew the attempt, and became, in fact, Pitt's devoted follower. But these instances must be considered as singularly rare when it is remembered how tempting a mark was presented by Pitt's career, how frank and direct was the language of Parliament, and how generous the potations which flushed its debates. Murray, Pitt's contemporary and his equal in sheer ability, cowered before him; cowered with loathing, but cowered.[181]Pitt was already surrounded, and as years went on completely encompassed, with an armour and atmosphere of terror which rendered him almost impregnable to personal collisions throughout his career in the House of Commons. Some who had nothing to lose and everything to gainbaited him from time to time, but they were always tossed back with damage. Such persistent assailants as he had, and they only appeared in force long afterwards, were mainly anonymous.
Whatever the cause may have been, Pitt, from his accession to office in 1746, remains in obscurity and almost in silence (so far as the records testify, though it is evident that these are extremely imperfect) for eight long years, at the potent period of life which ranges from thirty-eight to forty-six, the age at which Napoleon closed his career, but which was yet two years earlier than the commencement of Pitt's. During this long eclipse of ambition and stormy vigour he gives but few signs of life for the most diligent chronicler to note. But he had no sooner been appointed Paymaster than an incident took place which seemed to point to a sudden dawn of royal favour. The Duke of Cumberland's achievements in Scotland were to be rewarded by a pension of 40,000l.a year, and the King expressed a wish that the motion to this effect should be made by Pitt. It is, however, evident that this was not a mark of royal affection, but rather of a royal desire to utilise the new acquisition to the Government, and in a way so little congenial as to make Pitt feel the collar on his neck. The King may have wished to display his captive in chains. But Cumberland, who did not love Pitt, declined this mark of regard, and Pelham fulfilled the honorary duty.
Cumberland had earned this grant, as well as his name of 'the Butcher,' by his victory at Culloden, and the barbarity with which he had followed up his success. Fortunately for him, it never occurred to a grateful country to draw up a debtor and creditor account as between thenation and the Duke. Had it done so, there would have been no grant; for his defeats, both in number and in importance, represented something much more considerable than this easy and solitary triumph, which would have been amply compensated by Swift's 'frankincense and earthern pots to burn it in' at 4l.10s., with 'a bull for sacrifice' at 8l.However, mingling vengeance with gratitude, Parliament now plunged itself with zest into the horrors of the trials of some adventurous or bankrupt gentlemen who had followed Charles Edward, so that Pitt, even had he so desired, had no opportunity of breaking silence. No speech of his is recorded, indeed, till 1748.
In the meantime he had been compelled to exchange Old Sarum for the ministerial borough of Seaford, one of the Cinque Ports; for Old Sarum was no longer tenable. The lord of Old Sarum, his brother Thomas, was a liege servant of the Prince of Wales, who was now once more in violent opposition, and who indeed ran two candidates, Lord Middlesex, a member of his household, and Mr. Gage, the sitting member, at Seaford in opposition to the ministerial men, William Pitt and William Hay. This proceeding sufficiently indicates the violence and completeness of the rupture between Pitt and his former master, brought about by acceptance of office. So tense indeed was the contest that Newcastle posted down to Seaford in person, held a levee of the voters whom he wooed with copious solicitation and refreshment, and during the poll sat by the returning officer to overawe the corrupt and limited constituency. He was victorious; Lord Middlesex exchanging seats with Pitt, for after this his defeat he was brought in by Thomas Pitt for Old Sarum. Newcastle's proceedingsfurnished matter for a petition to the House of Commons. This Pitt treated with contempt and 'turned into a mere jest,'[182]but Potter, son of the Primate, a clever scapegrace, of whom we shall hearNov. 20, 1747.again, spoke vigorously in support of the petition. This, however, had little chance against the argument of a compact parliamentary majority, which rejected it by 247 to 96. But it is strange to find Pitt treating purity of election with ridicule: all the more strange when we remember that seven years afterwards he delivered one of his most famous speeches in awful rebuke of the same levity on the same subject. 'Was the dignity of the House of Commons on so sure foundations that they might venture themselves to shake it by jokes on electoral bribery?' It was thus that the House might dwindle into a little assembly serving only 'to register the arbitrary edicts of one too powerful a subject.' It was the arbitrary interference of the same too powerful subject in a parliamentary election that Pitt was now screening with jesting scorn. But Pitt thought little of consistency, and he might well have forgotten for the moment his earlier performance, when seeing and seizing the opportunity for a speech which placed him on a moral elevation above the House of Commons.
In 1748 we find him intervening comically enough in an affair, suspiciously like a local job, which affected his friends, the Grenvilles, and which proved the bitter and jealous animosity with which they were regarded.
Hitherto the summer assizes for Buckinghamshire had been held at Buckingham, and the winter at Aylesbury; but suddenly the summer assizes had also been transferredto Aylesbury. The reason seems to have been simple enough; for the gaol being at Aylesbury, prisoners had to be transferred thence and back again when the assizes were at Buckingham. Richard Grenville (afterwards Lord Temple), however, for obvious reasons, took up the cudgels for Buckingham, which was the close neighbour and borough of Stowe, and brought in a Bill to enact that the summer assizes should be held at that town. All Bucks rushed into the conflict, and as is generally the case in a local affair, the debate was extraordinarily diverting. Richard Grenville, Sir William Stanhope of Eythrope, the brother of Chesterfield, and afterwards a brother of the famous or infamous Medmenham fraternity, Potter again, who had now become secretary to the Prince of Wales, who was soon to be member for Aylesbury, probably for his services on this occasion, and also a future monk of Medmenham, George Grenville, the solemn figure of Pitt, Robert Nugent (whose daughter married George Grenville's son), Lee of Hartwell, were all visible and ardent in the thick of the battle. Henry Fox, then a friend of Pitt, was the only outside member who intervened, and then with a sort of puzzled surprise at the fury of the combatants. Sir William Stanhope, who led the attack on Buckingham, made a speech which was specially piquant. He began: 'Sir, if I did not think I could prove that this Bill is the arrantest job that ever was brought to Parliament, I should not give the House the trouble of hearing me.' He attributed the Bill to the fact that the County of Bucks had not elected two Grenvilles as their members. 'Here let me condole with that unhappy, rather that blinded, county who neglected to choose two gentlemen of such power andinterest that I am persuaded they will have more votes in this House to-day than they would have had at the General Election in the whole county in question if they had done it the honour to offer themselves for representatives.' After this bitter exordium he proceeded: 'It is the power and interest of these gentlemen that I am afraid of, not of their arguments;' with good reason, for though to posterity the claim of Aylesbury with its gaol will seem conclusive, the Bill was triumphantly carried. But Stanhope proceeded with an invective against Cobham's young patriots, so violent as to be checked by the Speaker. It is noteworthy as showing the jealousy and hostility with which their rise and power were regarded in the House, and so merits quotation:—
And to shew you, Sir, how sensible they are of the frivolousness of the latter, I could recapitulate such instances of intriguing for votes, as no man would believe who does not know those gentlemen. Conscious of the badness of their cause, they have employed every bad art to support it, and have retained so much of their former patriotism, as consisted in blackening their adversaries and acquiring auxiliaries. They have propagated such tales, that men have overlooked the improbabilities, while they wondered at the foolishness of them; and they have solicited the attendance of their friends, and of their friends' friends, with as much importunity as if their power itself was tottering, not the wanton exercise of it opposed: the only aid they have failed to call in was reason, the natural but baffled enemy of their family: a family, Sir, possessed of every honour they formerly decried, fallen from every honour they formerly acquired: a family, Sir, who coloured over ambition with patriotism, disguised emptiness by noise, and disgraced every virtue by wearing them only for mercenary purposes: a family, Sir, who from being the most clamorous incendiaries against power and places, are possessed of more employments thanthe most comprehensive place-bill that ever was brought into parliament would include; and who, to every indignity offered to their royal master, have added that greatest of all, intrusion of themselves into his presence and councils; and who shew him what he has still farther to expect, by their scandalous ingratitude to his son; a family, Sir, raised from obscurity by the petulance of the times, drawn up higher by the insolence of their bribing kinsman, and supported by the timidity of two ministers, who, to secure their own persons from abuse have sacrificed their own party to this all-grasping family, the elder ones of which riot in the spoils of their treachery and places, and the younger....
And to shew you, Sir, how sensible they are of the frivolousness of the latter, I could recapitulate such instances of intriguing for votes, as no man would believe who does not know those gentlemen. Conscious of the badness of their cause, they have employed every bad art to support it, and have retained so much of their former patriotism, as consisted in blackening their adversaries and acquiring auxiliaries. They have propagated such tales, that men have overlooked the improbabilities, while they wondered at the foolishness of them; and they have solicited the attendance of their friends, and of their friends' friends, with as much importunity as if their power itself was tottering, not the wanton exercise of it opposed: the only aid they have failed to call in was reason, the natural but baffled enemy of their family: a family, Sir, possessed of every honour they formerly decried, fallen from every honour they formerly acquired: a family, Sir, who coloured over ambition with patriotism, disguised emptiness by noise, and disgraced every virtue by wearing them only for mercenary purposes: a family, Sir, who from being the most clamorous incendiaries against power and places, are possessed of more employments thanthe most comprehensive place-bill that ever was brought into parliament would include; and who, to every indignity offered to their royal master, have added that greatest of all, intrusion of themselves into his presence and councils; and who shew him what he has still farther to expect, by their scandalous ingratitude to his son; a family, Sir, raised from obscurity by the petulance of the times, drawn up higher by the insolence of their bribing kinsman, and supported by the timidity of two ministers, who, to secure their own persons from abuse have sacrificed their own party to this all-grasping family, the elder ones of which riot in the spoils of their treachery and places, and the younger....