It is perhaps scarcely necessary to explain that the italics are not the Duke's, but it seemed necessary to give emphasis to so daring a flight.
'These dispositions being thus made,' he continues, 'it was my first view to show you that regard in the person of your friends, which it was impossible to do in your own, to the degree which you might reasonably expect. The two first vacant offices, that of Treasurer of the Navy and Cofferer, were by my recommendation given to your two first friends, Mr. Grenville and Sir George Lyttelton,' etc. etc. 'Legge at the Exchequer, unsuitable for you, two of your friends as Cofferer and Treasurer'; these were thesedatives timidly launched to Pitt, gnashing his teeth at Bath over his own impotence and the desertion of his friends. So may a despairing traveller have attempted to assuage with a few casual comfits the hunger of a Bengal tiger crouching for a spring.
Pitt controlled himself. We have seen his reply[258]to Newcastle's shuffling apologies. He continued to write to Lyttelton, but with less cordiality. To George Grenville he wrote a tepid note of congratulation. To Temple, who had been omitted from the arrangements, he addressed himself more cordially, and sent the portrait for which he had been sitting to Hoare. It represents no formidable orator, but a simpering man of the world; yet, after the fashion of mankind, who secretly cherish the portraits least like themselves, Pitt commended the resemblance. But he took occasion to add a phrase which reveals the full bitterness of his heart. 'In this portrait,' he writes, 'I shall have had the honour to present myself before you in my very person; not only from the great likeness of the portrait, but, moreover, that I have no right to pretend to any other existence than that of a man en peinture.' The wrath pierces through the confused sentence like a sudden sting: it is not often indulged, but it cannot be wholly suppressed.
Soon afterwards (May 1754) Temple and his brother George paid Pitt a flying visit at Bath, where no doubt explanations were exchanged and plans concerted. For, putting Pitt on one side, the Minister knew little of human nature who could think that he would conciliate Temple by promoting his brother George.
In June 1754, Pitt at length left Bath and arrived inLondon. He had now been fourteen months absent from the metropolis. In the meantime he had been chosen for Newcastle's borough of Aldborough at the General Election in the previous April, a somewhat embarrassing connection under existing circumstances; though embarrassments of this kind are apt to be less irksome in politics than they may appear. And Pitt wrote to thank the Duke in terms of Oriental submission. 'I thank you for writing to tell me of the great honour you have done me at Aldborough, for which seat I declined the offer of many others, being anxious to be known as your servant.' With whatever grimace Pitt may have written this, it strikes one as carrying the joke too far.[259]
But when he returned to London in June, he no longer affected to conceal his discontent. His complaints were obvious and well founded enough. He had not been consulted, but had only been informed. Nor was the information calculated to gratify him. He had been told at first that Fox, whom Bubb at this time calls Pitt's 'inveterate enemy,' had been offered the seals; then by the next post that Fox had refused them and that they had been accepted by Robinson. The excuse had then been tendered that Pitt's health would not allow him to accept an office of so much business and fatigue; to which he had replied that he himself should be the best judge of that. He ought at least to have been offered the Exchequer, which had been given to the underling Legge.[260]The King in any case should have been reconciled to him. When he saw the new minister Newcastle asked him his opinionof the arrangements. This Pitt at first refused to give, but on being pressed declared that 'your Grace may be surprised, but I think Mr. Fox should have been at the head of the House of Commons.' He met Fox. They had mutual explanations, and no doubt assurances of common vengeance to exchange. For Fox was as loud in complaint as Pitt. 'Nothing,' he wrote, 'can be more contemptuous than the usage I receive.'[261]
Parliament had risen, so Pitt, after settling the arrears in his office, went back to the country. Early in September we find him at Astrop Wells. On October 2 he called on Newcastle with reference to some business in his office. Bubb's account of this interview is well known. When they had settled the business which had brought Pitt, the Duke wished to enter on affairs in North America, where things were looking black, and Washington, then a major, had been compelled to surrender to the French at Fort Necessity. 'Your Grace,' said Pitt, 'knows I have no capacity for such things,' and declined to discuss them.[262]Newcastle, who, the same day, wrote an account of the interview to Hardwicke, makes no mention of this incident. And yet it is too good, too Pitt-like, not to be true. We can reconcile the two statements by presuming that it was what an opening is to a game of chess, and that Pitt, having enjoyed his sarcasm, could not resist the appeal of military plans. 'I then acquainted him with what was designed for North America, and also with my Lord Granville's notions, which had not been followed. He talked up the affair of North America very highly—that it must besupported in all events and at all risks—that the Duke's scheme was a very good one as far as it went—that it might do something: that it did not go near far enough—that he could not help agreeing with my Lord Granville—that he was for doing both, sending the regiments and raising some thousand men in America—that we should do it once for all—that it was not to be done by troops from Europe—that mere France would be too strong for us—that we should have soon to countenance the Americans, &c.—that the Duke's proposals for artillery, &c., were infinitely too short. This discourse, joined with Lord Anson's opinion, has made me suspend at least the stopping the orders for the raising two regiments, &c., and for providing all the artillery promised by the Duke.'[263]
What a scene of confusion! Here are three stages revealed: the orders, the stopping the orders, the suspending the stopping the orders! Pitt, it is evident, though beginning with a refusal, ended by speaking with authority.
Hardwicke, however, who had made a merit to Pitt of having sustained his claim to be Secretary, waxed suspicious on receiving Newcastle's letter. 'I am glad,' he replies, 'your Grace has talked to Mr. Pitt upon these measures. As he expressed himself so zealously and sanguinely for them, I hope he will support them in Parliament, and I dare say your Grace did not omit the opportunity of pressing that upon him. There is something remarkable in that gentleman's taking a measure of the Duke's so strongly to heart, and arguing even to carry it further. I think that sett used to be against warlike measures.'[264]
Suspicion tainted every political breeze. The vigilant celibates in Cranford did not keep a closer watch on their neighbours' proceedings than did the public men of those days on each other. The mere fact of Pitt's commending a project of Cumberland, his former enemy, at once implied to Hardwicke that he was in harmony and understanding with Fox, Cumberland's right-hand man. And indeed Bubb assures us that this was the case. Fox and Pitt were agreed as to the division of the spoils, when spoils there should be. Fox was to be head of the Treasury and Pitt Secretary of State; 'but neither will assist the other.'
All this came to nothing, and therefore need not detain us now; for Pitt was occupied with something far more vital to him than Fox, or Newcastle, or the distant echoes of American warfare. He had come up from Wotton, the residence of George Grenville, where in the last days of September he had plighted his troth to Lady Hester Grenville, the sister of the Grenvilles, and he was now hurrying back to join her at Stowe. The engagement was in some respects remarkable. Pitt was now forty-six and Lady Hester was thirty-three. When Pitt first went to Stowe in 1735 she was fourteen, and in the nineteen years that had elapsed they must have seen each other constantly. How was it then that the cripple of forty-six suddenly flung away his crutches to throw himself at the feet of this mature young lady? It seems inexplicable, but love affairs are often inexplicable. And we know little or nothing of Pitt's loves. Except the childish passage at Besançon, there is only the statement of Horace Walpole, a spiteful gossip if ever there was one, that Lady Archibald Hamilton had lost the affections of Frederick Prince of Wales by givinghim Pitt as a rival.[265]This lacks confirmation and even probability. Were it true, it might be a clue to phases of Pitt's connection with Leicester House. He seems, too, as we have seen in a letter of Lyttelton's, to have had a tenderness for Lyttelton's sister Molly. Then there was another Molly, Molly West, with whom, it is said, he had been in love, the sister of his friend Gilbert, who afterwards married Admiral Hood, Lord Bridport. Want of means, we are told, prevented their union. But the authority for this is unknown to us.[266]
This much at least is certain, that no man ever had a nobler or more devoted wife. She survived him to witness the glories and almost the death of her second son, dying in April 1808. At Orwell there is a picture of her by Gainsborough, painted in 1747, dressed in white with jewels, with a pleasant rather than a beautiful face. There is another portrait at Chevening painted in 1750, which represents her with auburn hair, a long upper lip, and a nose slightly turned up; comely and intelligent, but no more. Mrs. Montagu rather confirms this impression: 'I believe Lady Hester Grenville is very good-humoured, which is the principal article in the happiness of the Marriage State. Beauty soon grows familiar to the lover,'[267]and so forth; from which we may infer that Lady Hester was not at any rate a reigning toast. Her appearances are rare but full of tenderness; she watched over her husband with exquisite devotion; furthering and anticipating his wishes, which were often fancifuland extravagant; shielding his moments of nervous prostration with the wings of an angel. On her rested often, if not always, the care of his affairs, often, if not always, disordered, and all the burdens of household management. For many months she was his sole channel of communication with the outer world. The wives of statesmen are not invariably successful, though they are generally devoted; but none was ever more absorbed in her high but harassing duty. In all the bitterness of that bitter time, when her husband seemed surrounded by implacable enmities, no one found a word to say against her. Pitt's choice seems to have been as wise as it was deliberate.
Camelford, from whom the worst interpretation can always be obtained, says: 'His marriage was unexpected. He was no longer young, and his infirmities made him older than his years, when, upon a visit to Mr. Grenville at Wotton, Lady Hester made an impression upon him that was the more extraordinary as she was by no means new to him. The first hints he gave of his intentions were eagerly seized by her, saying she should be unworthy the honour he proposed to her if she could hesitate a moment in accepting it. With a very common understanding and totally devoid of tenderness, or of any feeling but pride and ambition, she contrived to make herself a good wife to him by a devotion and attachment that knew no bounds. She lived only in his glory, and that vanity absorbed every other idea of her mind. She was his nurse, his flatterer, his housekeeper and steward, and, though her talent was by no means economy, yet she could submit to any privation that would gratify his wants or his caprices.If he loved anyone it must be her who had no love but for him, or rather for his reputation. Yet I saw no sacrifices on his part for her ease and quiet or to the essential comforts of her life.'
As to Lady Hester's having a 'very common understanding' and being 'totally devoid of tenderness' we need not rest on tradition, though that is all the other way; for the superiority of her understanding and her tenderness are amply proved by the admirable letters published from the Pretyman Papers by Lord Ashbourne; and her devotion to her husband is attested by Camelford himself. How he became acquainted with the details of courtship, usually mysterious enough, and in those days more veiled than in these, we need not trouble to inquire. When it took place Pitt was taking time which he could ill spare to write letters of anxious and affectionate solicitude to Camelford at Cambridge, and receiving in return the most unbounded assurances of grateful devotion.
Pitt's love letters, alas! survive; the treasures of his wife, but the despair of posterity. That a great genius presumably in love should send such stilted, pompous, artificial documents as tokens of his passion to the object of his affections is one of the mysteries of brain and heart. They are as wretched in their way as the letters of Burns to Clarinda, and shall not be quoted here.
Having paid his betrothed a flying visit at Stowe, the blithe bridegroom had as usual to proceed to Bath, where he remained a fortnight inditing these execrable epistles of rhetorical affection.
OnNovember 14, the very day of the opening of1754.Parliament, Pitt brought forward a bill for the relief of the Chelsea Pensioners, who, from receiving their pensions a year in arrear, fell inextricably into the hands of usurers. He was in haste to perform this useful duty, for on November 16 he was married by special licence to Lady Hester at Argyll Buildings, Dr. Ayscough officiating; and Solomon and Esther, as Lady Townshend called them, thence departed for the honeymoon to West's house of Wickham in Kent. That interval of seclusion did not last long, but it would seem to have effected a striking transformation. The marriage marks a new ascent in Pitt's career; love seemed to have transformed him; always powerful and eloquent, he became sublime. Into his former qualities there had passed an inspiration kindred to the divine passion which makes the poet. The timid warblers of the grove, as he was afterwards to call them, the politicians who sought quiet lives and safe places, the arch-jobber himself who had for years deluded him, were in an instant to realise that a new terror was added to life. For on November 25 he was once more in the House of Commons. At this time, just before or just after the meeting of Parliament, he had come to open words with Newcastle. The Duke hadoffered the usual palliatives. 'Fewer words, if you please, my Lord,' replied Pitt contemptuously, 'for your words have long lost all weight with me.' Fox had said much the same to Newcastle in March. The new Minister had therefore been grossly insulted by the two first men in the House of Commons. He must have felt that there were menacing symptoms in the political horizon. It is strange, therefore, to find Walpole writing that, as 'Newcastle had secured by employments almost every material speaker in Parliament,' it was hoped that the session might pass in settling election petitions.[268]
It seems incredible that the Duke can have so flattered himself. But no doubt he relied on two main considerations. One was that, though official discipline was then incomparably more lax than now, it was scarcely possible for Pitt or Fox to mean mischief so long as they kept their places, and these they had not resigned. The other was this. The General Election had just been conducted under his auspices, and had returned a House of Commons devoted to himself. Indeed in all England there were only forty-two contests. In some Continental countries a general election always returns a ministerial majority; there are mysteries connected with the proceeding of which only ministers have the key. This to some extent was the case in England at this period; and no Secretary of the Treasury, no Martin or Robinson, understood his particular business better than Newcastle. But whatever his illusions, they were soon destined to be disturbed, for on November 25 Pitt opened fire on him. Of that famous scene and outburst we are fortunate enough to possess two brilliantdescriptions: one by Horace Walpole, and one, even more graphic, which has the additional value of being written by Pitt's rival, Henry Fox. Fox, writing in a white heat of generous admiration, describes it summarily as 'the finest speech that ever Pitt spoke, and perhaps the most remarkable.' This last epithet was probably due to the fact that the speech was apparently made on the spur of the moment. The occasion was one of those election petitions on which the Duke had relied as a sedative and a pastime for his faithful Commons. Wilkes, the pleasant, worthless demagogue, who was afterwards to cause so much trouble, had petitioned against the return of Delaval, the sitting member for Berwick. Delaval had defended his seat in a speech full of wit and buffoonery, which kept the House in a roar of laughter; much the same speech, one would guess, that Pitt himself had delivered on the proceedings at his own election for Seaford when those were attacked. But to-day he was in a different mood, and, as the debate proceeded, came down from the gallery where he was seated, and intervened with a frown. He was 'astonished to hear this merriment when such a matter was concerned. Was the dignity of the House on so sure a foundation that we could afford to shake it with scoffs?' In an instant the House was cowed into silence, like schoolboys found in fault by their master. You could have heard a pin drop as he continued.
'Had it not, on the contrary, been diminishing for years, till now we were brought to the very brink of a precipice where, if ever, a stand must be made? Were we ourselves within the House to try and lessen that dignity when such attacks were made upon it from without that it was almost lost? On the contrary, it wanted support, for it wasscarcely possible to recover it.' He appealed to the Speaker (Onslow) with profuse compliments, for the Speaker only could restore it—yet scarcely even he. Then he eloquently adjured all Whigs to rally and unite in defence of their liberties, which were attacked, nay, dying, 'unless,' he passionately added, 'you will degenerate into a little assembly serving no other purpose than to register the arbitrary edicts ofonetoo-powerfulsubject;' laying an emphasis on the words 'one' and 'subject' that might well send a shudder to the soul of Newcastle, when the echo should reach him. He ended by a recapitulation as to 'our being likely to become an appendix to—I know not what: I have no name for it.' 'All,' adds Fox, 'whether pleased or displeased, declare this speech to be the finest that ever was made.'[269]The effect of this sudden menace in the midst of the Duke's comfortable arrangements to appease and silence everybody, was appalling. It came with the shattering effect of a shell, and a shell falling in some quiet picnic. The Ministers were in consternation; every member sat confounded. Murray, pale and miserable, shrunk his head in silence. Wilkes used to narrate his dread, as he heard the awful tone of Pitt's exordium, lest the thunder that he saw was gathering should fall on him. Never, he said, when at Westminster School had he felt greater terror when summoned for a flogging, never when let off a greater relief than on this occasion; terror when uncertain where the bolt would fall, relief when he found it was destined for another.[270]Fox himself only came in as Pitt was finishing,just in time to witness the devastation which had been caused. Legge, on the part of the Government, had to rise and humbly deprecate the wrath of the orator.
Pitt allowed no respite. On the same evening a discussion arose as to the dates on which the various petitions would be taken. That relating to Reading was fixed for a particular day, and that for Colchester on a day soon afterwards. Pitt moved the postponement of the Colchester petition; as the Reading one would take time, and concerned a noble lord, Lord Fane, for whom he had a particular regard. A malignant fate here tempted the new Secretary of State to a needless and unhappy intervention. He declared that the Reading petition would be a short case, and, so far as concerned the sitting member, a poor case; that Lord Fane had only a majority of one.
This gave Pitt his opportunity, and he soundly trounced the unfortunate Minister. What did Sir Thomas know about it? It was ignorant presumption to lay down the law about a case which had not been heard. If this was the method of the Minister, there would be short work with elections. He himself had little thought to see so melancholy a day as this, but he was not to be taught his duty by Sir Thomas or any one else. Sir Thomas replied, 'with pomp, confusion, and warmth,' to deprecate the misleading effects of mere eloquence. He hoped that words would not be allowed more than their due weight. For his own part, he was performing the duties of an office which he had never desired. Pitt in his rejoinder affected to believe this last statement, with the unkind commentary that if anybody else had wished for the post, Sir Thomas would not have had it. Then,artfully cooling down, he showed that he was only aiming at Newcastle, for he professed the highest respect for Sir Thomas with this cruel, backhand blow at the Duke, 'that he thought him, Sir Thomas, as able as any man that had of late years filled that office, or was likely to fill it.' Fox could no longer resist joining in the sport of baiting his hapless leader. He also could only explain and excuse Sir Thomas's pronouncing hastily and summarily on a case which he had not heard by his long residence abroad, and by his consequent and total inexperience of parliamentary matters.
It was clear that neither of the formidable lieutenants was in the least appeased, or likely to contribute to the tranquillity of the session. Still it was also clear that the members of the House were loyal to Newcastle and his deputy, and that they were not moved from their allegiance by the oratory to which they had listened. But when the display was over, the frightened ministerialists gathered into small groups whispering their terrors to each other. Pitt's fury breaking out at this moment might be due, thought Fox, in some measure to accident. 'But break out I knew it would. And the Duke of Newcastle may thank himself for the violence of it (he) having ... owned to Pitt that he had acquainted the King with part of their last conversation; adding, like an idiot, "to do you good, to do you good," and that he had not mentioned that part which could do him harm.'[271]We do not know what is the interview to which this refers; it can hardly be that which occurred at the beginning of October in which Pitt had said, 'Your Grace, I suppose, knows that I have no capacity for such things.' So we are at a loss to knowthe immediate cause of Pitt's outbreak, though no divination is required to know that ever since Pelham's death he had been explosive.
Nothing can better illustrate the extraordinary power which Newcastle wielded in the House of Commons than the dumb terrified fidelity of the great majority who clung to his knees in spite of the attacks of Pitt and Fox. Hapless majority! They had neither voice nor faith; they despised almost equally their nominal chief Robinson, and their real chief Newcastle; so they huddled together for warmth and sympathy. And this was a House of Commons produced by a general election carried on under the auspices of a consummate manipulator and by long years of cozening, patronage, and corruption. The success had been complete, a devoted and passive majority had been returned, and this was the result. It was a strange and instructive spectacle. This docile flock was shepherdless, it was not thought to need any superintendence, it had only to receive its instructions from Newcastle through the channel of some such agent as Robinson. What Newcastle thought well to give, it was prepared gladly to take. Could Minister want more? Yet, before the session was a fortnight old, Newcastle was to learn, but not completely, the futility of such a scheme of government. He had promised the King that the new House of Commons would need no leader, that indeed the position of leader of the House of Commons was both dangerous in power and superfluous in practice. He was yet to learn that there was something more formidable; a ship without captain or helmsman, and two loose cannon banging about at large.
For, two days after the annihilation of Robinson, Pitt again took the field, this time against Murray, the most formidable antagonist that he ever had to face after the resignation of Walpole. It was on the vote for the army. Barrington and Nugent had made fulsome speeches, dwelling on the popularity of the King and the Ministry, declaring, indeed, that there were no Jacobites in England. People, said Nugent, sometimes reared those whom they thought would be Jacobites, but who turned out very differently. So had he seen in his rural retirement a hen, which had hatched duck's eggs, watch with apprehension her nurslings betake themselves to the water. Pitt rose and declared with solemn pleasantry that this image had greatly struck him, 'for, sir, I know of such a hen.' The hen, it appeared, was the University of Oxford. This, we think, in its demure unexpectedness, is the best stroke of humour in all his speeches. But he begged the House not to be sure that all she hatched would ever entirely forget what she had taught them. Then followed an innuendo at old Horace Walpole which is immaterial and obscure. Sir Roger Newdigate, whose name is still cherished by budding poets, rose, as member for the University, to make a meek defence. Pitt rose again, and told 'inimitably' the story of a recent adventure at Oxford. He was with a party at the Angel Inn, one of whom was asked to sing 'God save Great George our King' (one can hardly imagine that it was Pitt who called for this). The chorus was re-echoed by undergraduates outside who had been attracted by the song, 'but with additions of the rankest treason.' Then walking down the High Street he examined a print in a shopwindow of a young Highlander in a blue ribbon, and was shocked to read the mottoHunc saltem everso Juvenem. This Latin prayer was a flagrant proof of the disloyalty of that learned body. 'In both speeches every word wasMurray; yet so managed that neither he nor anybody else could or did take public notice of it, or in any degree reprehend him. I,' it is Henry Fox who speaks, 'sate next Murray,who suffered for an hour.'[272]Two episodes seem to attach themselves to this terrible onslaught. One is the famous and dramatic menace. Fixing his eyes on Murray the orator paused and proceeded: 'I must now address a few words to Mr. Solicitor.—They shall be few, but they shall be daggers.' Murray's agitation was now visible. 'Judge Festus trembles,' thundered Pitt; 'well, he shall hear me some other day,' and sat down.[273]Murray could not muster a reply. We may be sure that he then mentally resolved that, whether Festus or not, he would be a Judge as soon as possible. Yet Granville had embraced him that very day and bid him pluck up resolution. The other episode is this. Foote went with Murphy (afterwards Editor of the 'Test') to hear Pitt, who happened to be putting forth his full powers in an attack on Murray. 'Shall we go home now?' asked Murphy at last. 'No,' replied Foote, 'let us wait till he has made the little man vanish entirely.'[274]
The plan of ignoring the House of Commons and keeping all power in a junto of two or three, or even one, was already breaking down. 'It is the universal opinion,' writesFox, in the same letter as that in which he describes Pitt's onslaught on Murray, 'that business cannot go on as things are now, and that offers will be made to Pitt or me. On this subject Pitt was with me two hours yesterday morning. A difficultNov. 27, 1754.conversation.' Difficult indeed, for both parties fenced with each other, and neither was sincere. Pitt had long distrusted Fox and his connection with Cumberland. We have seen that in March he was writing confidentially that he wished 'to see as little power in Fox's hand as possible,' and again in the same letter, 'Fox is too odious to last for ever.' On the other hand, Fox, who was genial but ignoble, was determined to take the best place that offered, with a secret leaning to the lucrative possibilities of Pitt's office. Fox was not in error as to the offers. He wrote on November 28, and on November 29 Newcastle was beginning to seek assistance. On that morning the King sent for Fox and treated him with friendly confidence. It then appeared that the royal leaning towards Fox was caused by the King's having found out that Frederick Prince of Wales had made overtures to Fox, who had rejected them, but had not divulged them for the purpose of paying court to the King.[275]
The object of the Court was to separate Fox and Pitt. This last, doubtful and suspicious, had at first assured the Chancellor and Newcastle that he would not league with Fox. This was probably the secret of the Minister's confidence. But when Pitt realised that the Duke was trading on the division between his two formidable auxiliaries he sought, or appeared to seek, an honest and hearty co-operation with his rival.[276]
'Could you bear to act under Fox?' Hardwicke had asked him, and 'Leave outunder; it will never be a word between us: Mr. Fox and I shall never quarrel,' had been the reply.
Alas! for the loves of statesmen, often ardent and always precarious. The vague bait was no sooner dangled before Fox than he began to eye it with avidity and to contemplate the abandonment of Pitt. He sought the advice of two friends, Cumberland and Marlborough. The last advised him to ask for admission to the Cabinet and to be satisfied with that advantage. Cumberland dissuaded him, as it would seem, from parting company with Pitt, and used these remarkable words: 'I don't know him, but by what you tell me, Pitt is what is scarce—he is a man.' But at last both dukes concurred in Marlborough's advice, with the proviso that Fox should make it a condition that he was not to oppose Pitt; a singular reservation when it is remembered that his help was only sought against Pitt, as he was soon made distinctly to understand. Fox apparently took Pitt into his confidence, and they exchanged cordial notes. He submitted to Pitt his letter to the King, and Pitt approved it with some omissions. Nothing must be said, he declared, which remotely implied that he would do the least thing to keep his place.[277]So Fox wrote to say that, understanding the King was determined to have no leader in the House of Commons, but wished to have him take a forward and spirited part on behalf of the Ministry, he desired some mark of his Majesty's favour to show that he enjoyed his Majesty's confidence. Waldegrave,who conducted the negotiation, was given to understand that the distinction aimed at was a seat in the Cabinet. He was further told that Fox would never accept Pitt's rich place, which the King had said was destined for him in the event of Pitt's dismissal, lest it be said that he was answering Pitt for money. So the stipulation about not opposing Pitt was already out of his contemplation. The negotiations extended over months. The King had first seen Fox on November 29, 1754, but did not signify to Fox his admission to the Cabinet till April 26, 1755, two days before his Majesty left for Hanover. Fox was also admitted to the Council of Regency during the King's absence.
During these months of negotiation his opposition to the Ministry ceased, and Pitt was left alone. But he communicated constantly and secretly with Pitt as to the offers made. When he had closed with them, without waiting for the cock to crow, he forswore Pitt.[278]He was no doubt made to understand distinctly, as he must always have known, that it was the condition of his elevation. This treachery cost him dear; for Pitt, who seems to have been at once apprised of the desertion, probably by a Minister whose interest it was to keep the two apart, never forgave it. Nor could a man much less irritably and jealously proud have done otherwise. So much for the question of honour. As to the question of policy it is clear that a real union between Pitt and himself would have been irresistible. But Fox at the first temptation forsook this honourable alliance, and forsook it for a feather, as the lure was justly described.
It should be mentioned that this account of Fox's behaviour is founded on the narrative of Horace Walpole,and that Waldegrave, who is far more trustworthy, says that 'Fox during the whole negotiation behaved like a man of sense and a man of honour.' But this only regards his negotiation with Newcastle, in which Waldegrave acted as the channel. Walpole, on the other hand, was notoriously partial to Fox, and in his confidence, so that his statement may be taken as accurate. In no other way, indeed, can the breach between the two statesmen be adequately explained. On April 26 they are on the most confidential footing. On May 9 there is a public rupture. Fox, indeed, attributes this sudden breach to Pitt's wish to be well at Leicester House; but then Fox had to find an ostensible reason, as he did not know that Pitt was aware of his desertion.
Apr. 27, 1755.
The day after the admission of Fox to the Cabinet, Newcastle despatched old Horace Walpole to Pitt to see if they could not come to terms. Old Horace, who has suffered from the constant malignity of his nephew, but who appears to have been a laborious and public-spirited man, with a not uncommon itch for a coronet, undertook the commission with alacrity; but found, as all did who attempted to negotiate for Newcastle, that his powers were far from ample, and shrunk from the moment that they were given. It is probable that these overtures were only made in consequence of some secret agreement between Fox and Pitt that Pitt's claims should be pushed; for it is otherwise inexplicable that they should have been made simultaneously with the capture of Fox, and that Newcastle on the slenderest grounds should at once have withdrawn the commission. The hypothesis of a sham negotiation, entered upon to keep to the letter of some understanding arrived at through Fox, is highly congenial to the characterof Newcastle; nor is it likely that Fox can have joined the Government, when in the closest communication with Pitt, without some such stipulation.
Whatever the nature of the overture may have been, Pitt received Walpole, with whom he was on cordial terms, not unfavourably. He stipulated that he should be admitted to the Cabinet, but not, it would appear, immediately (for the King was going abroad next day); and that in case of a vacancy he should be promised the seals of Secretary of State. No one could deem these conditions excessive, and Walpole approved them. But Newcastle would have none of them, and soundly rated his emissary. It is clear that the negotiation was illusory and unreal; for what less terms could Newcastle have expected Pitt to demand?[279]
May 9, 1755.
A fortnight afterwards Pitt went to Lord Hillsborough's, where he met Fox. When Fox had gone he declared that all was at an end between Fox and himself; that the ground was altered; Fox was a Regent and a Cabinet Minister, and he was left isolated. Fox returned, and Pitt, in great heat, repeated what he had said with even more violence. He would not accept the seals from Fox (this seems to confirm our hypothesis as to the sham negotiation through Walpole), for that would be to acknowledge a superiority and an obligation. 'What, then,' said Fox, 'would put us on an equality?' 'A winter in the Cabinet and a summer's Regency,' replied Pitt, in allusion to what Fox had accepted.
Next day Hillsborough expostulated with Pitt, who, however, remained unmoved, and begged him to convey as a message to Fox that all connection between them was at an end. Pitt added that though he esteemed Fox hewished to have no further conversation on this subject. In spite of this, during the next few days they had a further conference at Holland House, but with no better result.[280]
On this second occasion (May 12, 1755) Pitt formally declared their connection at an end. Fox asked if Pitt suspected him of ill faith in the recent negotiations. Pitt, on his honour, held him blameless. 'Then,' asked Fox, 'are our lines incompatible?' 'Not incompatible, but convergent,' a word that Fox professed not to understand. In the future it was possible they might act together, not now. On this or some proximate occasion, Pitt blurted out what was at least one cause of offence. 'Here is the Duke of Cumberland King and you his minister.' The Duke, like Fox himself, was only an ordinary member of the Council of Regency, so that Pitt's taunt was absurd. But Pitt was looking to the young court of Leicester House which detested and distrusted Cumberland; hence this outburst of jealousy and wrath. Pitt indeed, the day before, had seen the Princess of Wales; who, it was presumed, had insisted on an open and immediate rupture with Fox as the price of her support. But beneath all there was we think, in spite of all professions, undying suspicion of Fox's rectitude in the recent negotiation with Newcastle.[281]
Itwas soon clear to Newcastle that Fox after all might not suffice, and that Pitt must be again approached. The King, then in Hanover and beyond Newcastle's control, was negotiating new treaties of subsidy on behalf of his German dominions; one with Hesse-Cassel for a contingent of 12,000 men to act in defence of Hanover or Great Britain, the other with Russia for an army of 40,000 men for the defence of Hanover. It was terrible for the Duke to contemplate what Pitt might say and do with regard to such unpopular and indefensible instruments. Moreover, Pitt was now supported by the court, every day more and more important, of Leicester House. It was probably Hardwicke, who as the moving brain of the Cabinet saw the vital importance of securing Pitt, and who was, we think, sincerely favourable to Pitt's pretensions, if only from hatred of Fox, who suggested these negotiations; and it was his son Charles Yorke who entered upon them. Yorke was to act as a skirmisher, to get in touch with Pitt, and to report on the temper in which he found him. They met on July 6 (1755), and talked over the abortive conference with Walpole. Pitt declared that he had then waived the immediate bestowal of the Secretaryship of State, but had asked not merely that Newcastle should speak on his behalf before the King left for Hanover,and urge that he was the proper person to lead the debates in the House of Commons; but that Lady Yarmouth should also be interested in his cause, so that she might use her influence with the King during their stay abroad.
Of Newcastle himself he spoke with supreme disdain. It was a waste of time to bring him assurances of friendship and confidence from Newcastle. All that was over. He would never owe Newcastle a favour, he would accept nothing as an obligation to Newcastle. This is not in Yorke's account, because probably it would be shown to Newcastle. But it comes authentically enough from Pitt's brother-in-law, James Grenville, to Bubb. If Newcastle were really in earnest, he would say that he could listen to no proposition but this: 'This is our policy; and the post of Secretary of State, in which you shall support it, is destined for you.'
Yorke reported to his father, and Hardwicke saw Pitt on August 8 (1755), with power to offer a seat in the Cabinet. After compliments, to use Eastern language, which were usually the preface of such interviews, in which both parties assured each other of high mutual esteem, which Pitt went so far on this occasion as to declare for Newcastle, in strange contrast with his language to Yorke, they came at once to the point. Before he could take what was required, 'a clear, active, and cordial part in support of the King's measures in the House of Commons,' Pitt desired to know what those measures might be. Hardwicke at once specified them. 'Twas all open and above board; the support of the maritime and American war, in which we were going to be engaged, and the defenceof the King's German dominions, if attacked on account of the English cause. The maritime and American war he came roundly into, tho' very orderly, and allowed the principle and obligation of honour and justice as to the other, but argued strongly as to the practicability of it. That subsidiary treaties would not go down; the nation could not hear' (obviously 'bear') them. That they were a connection and a chain, and would end in a general plan for the Continent which the country would (obviously 'could') not possibly support.' Then he went into financial considerations. The maritime and American war would alone add two millions a year to the National Debt, which could not bear an addition of one million. He would treat Hanover like any other foreign dependency of the British Crown; the worst that could happen was that it should be occupied by the enemy for a time and restored at a peace, and that then compensation might be given to the King. As to the subsidies, Hessian and Russian, he asked questions but did not commit himself. But he inquired, with peculiar emphasis, what others, such as Fox, Legge, Lee, and Egmont, thought of them. At last he said he must consult his friends, one of whom, Legge, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, he was about to visit. But why, asked Hardwicke, should he not see Newcastle himself? 'With all my heart, if he would see me,' replied Pitt. To the offer of a seat in the Cabinet he said neither yea nor nay, but he was, thought Hardwicke, gratified by the overture.[282]
One cannot but note the strange contrast between Pitt'slanguage about Newcastle to Hardwicke and that which he had used to Yorke. 'He expressed great regard for your Grace and me.' But this was the base coinage in political use at that time, and Pitt had by this time become a master of dissimulation. Fox hated Newcastle to the full as much as did Pitt. In truth, every one seems to have secretly hated or despised him, or both; a melancholy reward for an industrious ministerial existence. But so great was his political influence that scarce any one could afford to say so.
One Minister was now, however, to display a rare courage, and to oppose both the King and his Minister on a critical point. In the middle of August, after the conversation with Hardwicke, the treaty of subsidy with Hesse-Cassel arrived for the necessary confirmations. When it came before Legge as Chancellor of the Exchequer, he, no doubt with the connivance of Pitt, flatly refused his signature. Newcastle had always distrusted Legge, as, indeed, he distrusted everybody, and had given him the seals of the Exchequer with great reluctance. He was now aghast. War was imminent; the King would soon return with his pockets full of odious treaties of subsidy; Fox was still a malcontent; Legge was in open revolt; it was evident that he must face the formidable interview with Pitt. So he expressed the necessary wish, though one may guess his reluctance, and Pitt saw the Duke on September 2 (1755) for two hours and a half. The record of this interview is contained in a long letter from Newcastle to Hardwicke,[283]couched in thequavering notes of a distracted Minister. It begins with a wail of despair, the reluctant acknowledgment of the paramount importance of Pitt. 'I never sat down to write to your lordship with more melancholy apprehensions for the Publick than at present. I see nothing but confusion and it is beyond me to point out a remedy.'
This was the result of Pitt's verbal refusal to join him, made by a Minister who held the great mass of the House of Commons in the hollow of his hand, who clung to office as to life, and yet, though he knew Pitt was indispensable to its retention, would not once more, as in 1746, face his Sovereign and say so. Nothing can better illustrate the trembling plank on which the Duke was content to walk, wavering and helpless, depending only on Hardwicke's counsel and his own jobs. He did not dare face the King, he was bullied by the disorderly chiefs in the House of Commons, and he was always chaffering, but always afraid. So he and his like are satisfied to bear the yoke for the semblance of power.
All began smoothly between Pitt and the Duke, all was apparently open, friendly, and civil; but when Newcastle referred to the conversation with Hardwicke, he was taken aback by finding that Pitt declared that nothing had passed that was material. He thus compelled Newcastle to recapitulate the points of policy, no doubt for purposes of comparison.
So the Duke had to state that the eve of the King's departure had been too troubled to lay Pitt's claim before his Majesty; for an address against the journey had been threatened in the House of Commons and actually proposed in the House of Lords. But that when alarmingevents had happened in America, Hardwicke and he had represented to the King the urgent necessity of forming a system in the House of Commons, which means, it may be presumed, abandoning the plan of conducting the House without a leader, and of enlisting Pitt as an active Minister there. That thereupon the King had graciously expressed his readiness to admit Pitt to his Cabinet. Pitt received this offer coolly, and proceeded at once to larger issues.
As to the King's voyage he spoke with unsparing candour. The King had nearly ruined himself by his unpardonable departure to Hanover at such a crisis. He should only have been allowed to go there over the dead bodies of his people. 'A King abroad at this time, without one man about him that has an English heart, and only returning to bring home a packet of subsidies.'
Of course, he proceeded to say with scarcely disguised sarcasm, the King's countenance was more to him than any other consideration. But if it was expected that he should take an active and efficient part in Parliament he must observe that a mere summons to the Cabinet would not be sufficient. In his present office he could silently acquiesce in ministerial measures. But activity could only be exercised in a responsible situation.
Then he took a line which was clear, bold, and statesmanlike. The whole machinery of the House of Commons was, he said, paralysed by the plan of leaving it without a responsible Minister. That plan must be abandoned. The House could not perform its proper functions without a responsible Minister, even though a subordinate one, who should have access to the Sovereign and to the royal confidence. For that purpose the leader or agent must havea responsible office ofadviceas well as ofexecution. 'That was the distinction he made throughout his whole conversation. He would support the measures which he himself had advised, but would not like a lawyer talk from a brief. That it was better plainly to tell me so at first.'
This surely was no inordinate claim from indisputably the first member of the House of Commons, whom the King had kept at bay for so many years, and to keep whom still in subjection every possible manœuvre, childish or cunning, was being adopted. 'Why,' said he bluntly to Newcastle, 'cannot you bring yourself to part with some of your sole power?' This of course produced voluble asseverations from the Duke. Sole power! What an idea! He had no conception of what Pitt could mean. He was in his present place, not by his own choice, far from it! but by the King's command, and, though he was devoted to the King, he would retire to-morrow if he was distasteful to the House of Commons. (This was a safe promise, for, as we have seen, the House of Commons was with but few exceptions at his absolute disposal.) Pitt replied that he himself had no objections to a Peer as First Lord of the Treasury, but there must be men of ability and responsibility in the House of Commons, a Secretary of State and a Chancellor of the Exchequer, that they must be sufficiently supported, and they must have access to the Crown, not a nominal, but an habitual, free, familiar access. In speaking of the Chancellor of the Exchequer he burst out into so enthusiastic a eulogy of Legge, 'the child, and deservedly the favourite child of the Whigs,' that Newcastle suspected that all this was concerted between his rebelliousChancellor of the Exchequer and his insubordinate Paymaster.
Pitt and the Duke next proceeded to analyse their own expressions; a task which the statesmen of that day seem to have avoided, to our detriment, as much as possible. Newcastle had spoken of the proposed seat in the Cabinet as a designation. 'What did this mean?' asked Pitt. 'Did it mean the seals of Secretary of State, though not immediately?' The Duke was obliged to shuffle out, for in truth he had no power to promise any such thing. Designation only meant that the seat in the Cabinet would design him as the King's man of confidence. 'Then the Secretaryship of State is not intended,' was the fierce rejoinder. The Duke replied that he was not authorised to offer more than a seat in the Cabinet. If, rejoined Pitt, 'the Secretaryships of State are to remain as they are, there is an end of any question of my giving active support to the Government in the House of Commons.'
They had arrived at an impassable barrier, Pitt would take nothing but the seals which the King would not give him, and Newcastle was determined not to force on another crisis with the King on account of Pitt; whom, in truth, he dreaded little less as a colleague than as a foe. So they turned to matters of public policy, 'and then,' writes the hapless Minister, 'nothing can equal my astonishment and concern.' He tried Pitt first with the Hessian Treaty, and then with the Russian. For the Hessian Treaty the Duke characteristically urged every reason but the true one, and for the Russian that it was the fruit of four years of negotiation, and that it would seem strange to drop it now. But Pitt was obdurate.He would be no party to a system of subsidies. If the Duke of Devonshire attacked the Hessian subsidy in the House of Lords, as was his intention, Pitt would echo the attack in the House of Commons. If the Russian Treaty were dropped he might acquiesce in the Hessian from regard for the King; as, for the same reason, he would always speak with the utmost respect of Hanover. But no consideration would make him support both, or a system of subsidies. It was his regard for the King, presumably, which impelled him to make a further suggestion, which Newcastle did not venture to transmit even to Hardwicke. Out of the fifteen millions sterling that the King was said to have saved why, asked Pitt, should he not give Hesse 100,000l., and Russia 150,000l., to be out of these bad bargains? Newcastle was driven to his usual resource of the Chancellor, and suggested a conference with him in the ensuing week. Pitt agreed to this with, we may presume, a shrug of the shoulders.
Neither in truth expected anything from such a meeting, for the pleas and the powers had both been exhausted. Newcastle realised this, and ends his remarkable record of the conversation with a despairing glance at his own prospects. What was he to do? There were as usual three courses to pursue. The first, which he should infinitely prefer, would be his own retirement. This is a common cant of ministers, and with Newcastle it was more than usually insincere. Fox, he said, might succeed him at the Treasury, and Pitt for a session at any rate would have to acquiesce. The second would be for Newcastle, remaining First Minister, to throw himself into the arms of the Pitt group, with Pittas Secretary of State and Legge at the Exchequer. But the King would never hear of this. Newcastle puts it significantly thus: 'Whether this is in any shape practicable, I leave to your Lordship and all who know the King to determine.' The third course was the one adopted, 'to accept Mr. Fox's proposal, made by my Lord Granville,' the first allusion that we have to this particular negotiation. Fox was to be the real, efficient, and trusted leader of the House of Commons. But there must be conditions. Cumberland, the patron of Fox, must give his support, so must Devonshire and Hartington. There must be a new Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Fox must act cordially with the person whom the King might appoint to that office. Murray, and indeed every one, must put their shoulders to the wheel and exert themselves on behalf of the Administration. Lastly, it might be necessary to take in the venal but inevitable Bubb.
Hardwicke answered Newcastle's report without a moment's delay, in a shrewd letter.[284]His first remark was that Pitt had taken much higher ground with the Duke than with him, perhaps because the bad news from the Ohio had made the Paymaster deem himself more valuable and necessary. He doubted whether the praises of Legge were sincere; they were probably intended to indicate a closer connection between them than really existed. But Hardwicke went straight to the two main points. The first was the general principle that the King must have a recognised Minister, what he called oddly enough 'a Minister with the King' in the House ofCommons. The other question was whether Pitt should be Secretary of State.
As to the first, if the Minister is to be subordinate, that is, not the Premier, he sees no great harm in it. 'For I have long been convinced,' continues the sagacious man, 'that whoever your Grace shall make use of as your first man and man of confidence in the House of Commons, you will find it necessary, if he be a man of reputation and ability accompanied with the ambition naturally incident to such a character, I say under those circumstances, your Grace will find it necessary to invest him with more power than, from the beginning, you thought fit to impart either to Mr. Legge or Sir Thomas Robinson.'
From this we may gather that the Chancellor had never believed in the plan of a leaderless House of Commons. How indeed could he, as a man of sense, much more as a man of rare capacity? Such a plan could only be deemed possible by an alien King and a mountebank Minister. As to the personal point, Hardwicke is not less acute. Pitt, he declares, has stiffened his demand since their interview. Pitt, he is convinced, intended to draw from the Duke a promise that it should be made a point with the King that he should be made Secretary of State within a given time; and so, when he failed in this, he proceeded to discuss measures in a more peremptory tone than he would otherwise have employed.
'Now,' says Hardwicke, 'this comes to a point which you and I have often discussed together. Whether you can think it right or bring yourself to declare to him that you really wish him in the Secretary's office,and will in earnest recommend him to the King on that foot.'
This inestimable sentence throws a flood of light on Newcastle's professions to Pitt, and on the reality of the efforts that Newcastle had employed to soften the King. It is clear, we think, from this secret utterance that Newcastle had been sincere in neither case.
Hardwicke urges that the Duke should close with Pitt. He thinks that if Newcastle were loyally to give this assurance Pitt 'would close and take his active part immediately.' Without this he is sure that Pitt believes 'that the intention is to have the use of his talents without gratifying his ambition.' In writing this Hardwicke of course knew, as Newcastle knew, that Pitt's apprehension was well founded. 'My poor opinion,' continues the Chancellor, 'is that without it all further meetings and pourparlers with this gentleman will be vain. Your heart can only dictate to you whether you should do it or not.'[285]Justly distrusting the Duke's heart, the Chancellor proceeds to appeal to his instincts. He discards, of course, the idea of Newcastle's resignation. A friend, consulted on such a point, rarely deems it decent to do otherwise; certainly no confidant of Newcastle's could have done so and retained his intimacy.
As to relying on Pitt and Legge, he agrees that nothing but the pressure of necessity could make the King adopt this course. Of course he does not say that the Duke could at any moment bring about this pressure, though that no doubt was the case. Newcastle, by his Parliamentary influence, could always produce a deadlock,as was soon to be proved. But Newcastle could, thinks Hardwicke, have Pitt without Legge. If Pitt had the seals he would not insist on Legge.
The third course is that urged by Granville: to take Fox on Granville's conditions, which we may safely presume to have been those afterwards adopted. Hardwicke insinuates objections. Fox has the strong protection of Cumberland and the personal inclination of the King, but his election will be profoundly distasteful to Leicester House. Pitt, on the other hand, has 'no support at Court, and the personal disinclination of the King. He must therefore probably depend, at least for a good while, upon those who bring him thither.' Then comes the sentence about Fox and Leicester House which conveys a hint that Pitt, on the contrary, is well there. It is impossible to be more adroit. Hardwicke knew that Newcastle was fully aware that he hated Fox, and so put his objections in this indirect and skilful way. He failed, probably because Newcastle felt that to accept Fox would at any rate not necessitate a critical struggle with the King, and that Fox himself was more malleable.
Of all strange confidants it was Bubb whom Pitt, on leaving Newcastle, proceeded to take into his inmost counsels. There are always parasites of this kind in politics, universally mistrusted, and yet constantly taken into confidence on grounds of convenience. Always sympathetic, always warm, always ready to betray at the first symptom of personal advantage, they are nevertheless useful parts of the political machine, and not so contemptible as might appear. They profess little, they deceive nobody except for a fleeting moment, and theyare employed, with full knowledge of their character, to sound others and report the result, to suggest from their own base experience, to bring statesmen into relation with necessary people, and do the work with which statesmen will not soil their hands. But they are perilous and slippery agents, they attract in the warmth of the moment excessive confidence, and while these indiscretions are still ringing in their ears they are already in the tents of the enemy. Still, such as they are, they will always exist, and always be utilised, for they are part of the fatality of politics.
So to Bubb Pitt betook himself on the day after that on which he had seen Newcastle, and gave a spirited account of the interview. He then spoke fully of his relations with Fox, in which really lay the key to the situation. He wished well to Mr. Fox, he did not complain of him, but he could not act with him; they could not co-operate because they were not on the same ground. Fox was not independent (sui juris), but he was. He had been ready during the last session to go all lengths against the Duke of Newcastle; but when it came to the pinch Fox always failed him (under the constraint, it may be presumed, of the Duke of Cumberland).Fox had risen on his shoulders;[286]he did not blame him for it. Fox had taken the smooth part, and left him the brunt; he did not complain. Fox, too, lived with his greatest enemies, Carteret, Stone, and Murray. And Newcastle had told him that Fox had recently offered himself to his Grace. Bubb declared that this was false, to his knowledge. Pitt replied that no one knew better than himself how great a liar Newcastle couldbe, and that if Fox denied this he should readily take his word against the Duke's. But all that he had recapitulated showed how impossible it was for two men to act together who stood on so different a footing as Fox and himself.
Bubb now scented business of the kind to which he himself was addicted, and broke in with, 'As we who are to unite in this attackare to part no more,'[287]it would be proper to think what was to be held out to the confederates if they succeeded.
Pitt declined to enter into this premature traffic, 'it would look too like a faction, there was no country in it'; but expressed himself, in the fashion of the day, with warmth and confidence as to Bubb himself. He thought Bubb of the greatest consequence; nothing was too good for such a man; no one was more listened to in the House and in the country. He wished to be connected with Bubb in the strictest sense politically, as he already was by marriage.[288]
Bubb demurely records these confidences, and was left happy; glad to find, as he writes, that he should receive such support in an opposition which, on patriotic and conscientious grounds, he must have pursued even had he stood alone.[289]
Once more we have to deplore the hapless destinies of political alliance and of Parliamentary twins, united in bonds of principle, who are to part no more. This conversation took place on September 3 (1755). On November 20Pitt was dismissed, because of his adherence to the virtuous course which Bubb had resolved to pursue without flinching, even if isolated, with or without Pitt. Bubb records the removal in a terse entry of his diary, and the next, not less terse, records his acceptance of a lucrative post tendered by Newcastle. History has to note some such incidents, but we know of none so cynically and complacently narrated by the renegade himself.
Hardwicke made one last desperate effort to move Pitt, but without success. He writes to Newcastle on September 15 (1755): 'I have had a long conversation with thegentlemanyour Grace knows, but with little effect. I talked very fully and strongly to him upon every part of the case, both as topersonsandmeasures. He made great professions of his regard and firm attachment to your Grace and me, but adhered to hisnegative. He puts that negative upon two things: His objections to the two treaties of subsidy ... his other objection arose fromMr. F., with whom he declared he could not act.'[290]
On this scene, coming more and more into prominence as the King became older, and as the Prince of Wales, or rather Bute and his clique, waxed bolder, appears the mysterious and elusive influence of Leicester House. It is difficult to trace or measure this combination, except in the naked fact of an old King and a young heir, nor is it easy to trace the connection of Pitt with this party. Every movement in Leicester House was jealously watched by the politicians, much as a late Sultan is said to have tracked the movements of the least menial of his dethroned and secluded predecessor. We read of thePrincess being stirred to wrath by her father-in-law's project of marrying her son to the daughter, supposed to be active and ambitious, of a woman she detested. Then there is the suspicion that the Heir Apparent was surrounded by persons who were more or less Jacobite; Bute himself having, it was presumed, Jacobite leanings. But the King at once desisted with rare good sense from any idea of the projected marriage, though no doubt it would have given him pleasure. And the danger of an Hanoverian sovereign becoming a Jacobite under any influence seems too fantastic for a pantomime. The real apprehension was no doubt that Leicester House might shake off the domination and destroy the long monopoly of the Whigs, as indeed it eventually did. And certainly Leicester House, with the throne full in view, was becoming more and more inclined to assert itself. Human nature and family relations had, as usual in such cases, much to do with the matter. The Hanoverian Kings did not love their heirs apparent. George the First hated his, but he had no other son to love, and indeed little capacity for loving, except mistresses who found favour with no one else. George the Second hated his with a peculiar hatred, and was thus able to devote what fatherly affection he had to give to his second son, the Duke of Cumberland. These parental preferences, however justifiable, do not tend to affection between sons. And so there was no love lost between Prince Frederick and his family on the one side, and Duke William on the other. These feelings, as is usually the case, survived, when Frederick died, with increasing intensity between the widow and her brother-in-law. She saw him on the right handof the King, enjoying all his confidence, as was natural, and herself and her bashful son of no account; so that a new jealousy was added to the original rancour.
Understanding these facts, we are able to follow the course of Pitt. Fox was essentially the Duke of Cumberland's man, and so by the force of circumstances Pitt became allied, but not at this moment closely allied, to Leicester House. He had been a friend and servant of the dead Prince of Wales, then had quarrelled with him, but the original brand was not altogether effaced. Now he was the one champion whom the faction of the late Heir Apparent could adopt; and so the politicians began to see behind Pitt the influence of the coming King, his mother, and their favourite. Thus, when Newcastle had to make the option between Fox and Pitt, it was not merely the choice between two rival orators, but between two rival Courts, the Old and the New. We may be sure that no element in this business was more essentially present to the Minister's mind.
All this seems petty but essential; but all was petty then, as is proved by the mere fact of Newcastle being at the head of the Ministry and master of the House of Commons; and it is all essential to the reader who would understand the history of those times, because the complication of these byways and intrigues is so extreme. There was the King with Lady Yarmouth and Cumberland; there were Newcastle and Hardwicke, with the House of Commons at their feet, and anxious to remain at their feet if that were possible; there was the influence of Cumberland apart from the King, and represented by Fox; there was Bedford, powerful from his propertyand connections, with a clique hungry for office; there was Pitt with his Grenville relations, who were ready to give him their support, but not less ready to withdraw it if something better should offer. And around and below these was the great shifting mass of politicians by profession and cupidity, the parliamentary Zoroastrians, who worshipped the rising sun, when they could discern it; the sun which should shed upon them office, salary, and titles; striving, sweating, cringing, as Bubb, the most shameless of them all, emphasises in capital letters, 'and all for quarter-day.' It was through this scene of confusion and intrigue that Pitt had to thread his way, not very scrupulously; for he had always lived in this society, had lost whatever thin illusions he had ever possessed, and followed the clues which his experience had taught him to prize. He played the game.