Page:EB1911 - Volume 21.djvu/698

Rh lowest point. The king and the House of Commons were alike unpopular. The cry for parliamentary reform was scarcely less loud and vehement than afterwards in 1830.

The Opposition consisted of two parties which had once been hostile to each other, but at this conjuncture seemed to act together with cordiality. The larger of these parties consisted of the great body of the Whig aristocracy, headed by Charles, marquess of Rockingham. In the House of Commons the adherents of Rockingham were led by Fox, whose dissipated habits and ruined fortunes were the talk of the whole town, but whose commanding genius, and whose sweet, generous and affectionate disposition, extorted the admiration and love of those who most lamented the errors of his private life. Burke, superior to Fox in largeness of comprehension, in extent of knowledge, and in splendour of imagination, but less skilled in that kind of logic and in that kind of rhetoric which convince and persuade great assemblies, was willing to be the lieutenant of a young chief who might have been his son. A smaller section of the Opposition was composed of the old followers of Chatham. At their head was William, earl of Shelburne, distinguished both as a statesman and as a lover of science and letters. With him were leagued Lord Camden, who had formerly held the Great Seal, and whose integrity, ability and constitutional knowledge commanded the public respect; Barre, an eloquent and acrimonious declaimer; and Dunning, who had long held the first place at the English bar. It was to this party that Pitt was naturally attracted.

On the 26th of February 1781 he made his first speech in favour of Burke's plan of economical reform. Fox stood up at the same moment, but instantly gave way. The lofty yet animated deportment of the young member, his perfect self-possession, the readiness with which he replied to the orators who had preceded him, the silver tones of his voice, the perfect structure of his unpremeditated sentences, astonished and delighted his hearers. Burke, moved even to tears, exclaimed, &ldquo;It is not a chip of the old block; it is the old block itself.&rdquo; &ldquo;Pitt will be one of the first men in parliament,&rdquo; said a member of the Opposition to Fox. &ldquo;He is so already,&rdquo; answered Fox, in whose nature envy had no place. Soon after this debate Pitt's name was put up by Fox at Brookes's Club. On two subsequent occasions during that session Pitt addressed the house, and on both fully sustained the reputation which he had acquired on his first appearance. In the summer, after the prorogation, he again went the western circuit, held several briefs, and acquitted himself in such a manner that he was highly complimented by Buller from the bench, and by Dunning at the bar.

On the 27th of November the parliament reassembled. Only forty-eight hours before had arrived tidings of the surrender of Cornwallis and his army. In the debate on the report of the address Pitt spoke with even more energy and brilliancy than on any former occasion. He was warmly applauded by his allies; but it was remarked that no person on his own side of the house was so loud in eulogy as Henry Dundas, the lord advocate of Scotland, who spoke from the ministerial ranks. From that night dates his connexion with Pitt, a connexion which soon became a close intimacy, and which lasted till it was dissolved by death. About a fortnight later Pitt spoke in the committee of supply on the army estimates. Symptoms of dissension had begun to appear on the treasury bench. Lord George Germaine, the secretary of state who was especially charged with the direction of the war in America, had held language not easily to be reconciled with declarations made by the first lord of the treasury. Pitt noticed the discrepancy with much force and keenness. Lord George and Lord North began to whisper together; and Welbore Ellis, an ancient placeman who had been drawing salary almost every quarter since the days of Henry Pelham, bent down between them to put in a word. Such interruptions sometimes discompose veteran speakers. Pitt stopped, and, looking at the group, said with admirable readiness, &ldquo;I shall wait till Nestor has composed the dispute between Agamemnon and Achilles.&rdquo; After several defeats, or victories hardly to be

distinguished from defeats, the ministry resigned. The king, reluctantly and ungraciously, consented to accept Rockingham as first minister. Fox and Shelburne became secretaries of state. Lord John Cavendish, one of the most upright and honourable of men, was made chancellor of the exchequer. Thurlow, whose abilities and force of character had made him the dictator of the House of Lords, continued to hold the Great Seal. To Pitt was offered, through Shelburne, the vice-treasurership of Ireland, one of the easiest and most highly paid places in the gift of the Crown; but the offer was without hesitation declined. The young statesman had resolved to accept no post which did not entitle him to a seat in the cabinet; and a few days later (March 1782) he announced that resolution in the House of Commons.

Pitt gave a general support to the administration of Rockingham, but omitted, in the meantime, no opportunity of courting that ultra-Whig party which the persecution of Wilkes and the Middlesex election had called into existence, and which the disastrous events of the war, and the triumph of republican principles in America, had made formidable both in numbers and in temper. He supported a motion for shortening the duration of parliaments. He made a motion for a committee to examine into the state of the representation, and, in the speech (May 7, 1782) by which that motion was introduced, avowed himself the enemy of the close boroughs, the strongholds of that corruption to which he attributed all the calamities of the nation, and which, as he phrased it in one of those exact and sonorous sentences of which he had a boundless command, had grown with the growth of England and strengthened with her strength, but had not diminished with her diminution or decayed with her decay. On this occasion he was supported by Fox. The motion was lost by only twenty votes in a house of more than three hundred members. The Reformers never again had so good a division till the year 1831.

The new administration was strong in abilities, and was more popular than any administration which had held office since

the first year of George III., but was hated by the king, hesitatingly supported by the parliament, and torn by internal dissensions. It was all that Rockingham could do to keep the peace in his cabinet; and before the cabinet had existed three months Rockingham died. In an instant all was confusion. The adherents of the deceased statesman looked on the duke of Portland as their chief. The king placed Shelburne at the head of the treasury. Fox, Lord John Cavendish, and Burke immediately resigned their offices; and the new prime minister was left to constitute a government out of very defective materials. It was necessary to find some member of the House of Commons who could confront the great orators of the Opposition; and Pitt alone had the eloquence and the courage which were required. He was offered the great place of chancellor of the exchequer and he accepted it (July 1782). He had scarcely completed his twenty-third year.

The parliament was speedily prorogued. During the recess a negotiation for peace which had been commenced under Rockingham was brought to a successful termination. England acknowledged the independence of her revolted colonies; and she ceded to her European enemies some places in the Mediterranean and in the Gulf of Mexico. But the terms which she obtained were quite as advantageous and honourable as the events of the war entitled her to expect, or as she was likely to obtain by persevering in a contest against immense odds. There is not the slightest reason to believe that Fox, if he had remained in office, would have hesitated one moment about concluding a treaty on such conditions. Unhappily Fox was, at this crisis, hurried by his passions into an error which made his genius and his virtues, during a long course of years, almost useless to his country. He saw that the great body of the House of Commons was divided into three parties &mdash; his own, that of North, and that of Shelburne; that none of those three parties was large enough to stand alone; that, therefore, unless two of them united there must be a miserably feeble administration,