Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/156

Rh 146 PITT Adding- head of the treasury. He had been an early, indeed a hereditary, ton niin- friend of Pitt, and had by Pitt s influence been placed, while still istry. a young man, in the chair of the House of Commons. He was universally admitted to have been the best Speaker that had sat in that chair since the retirement of Onslow. But nature had not be stowed on him very vigorous faculties ; and the highly respectable situation which lie long occupied with honour had rather unfitted than fitted him for the discharge of his new duties. His business had been to bear himself evenly between contending factions. He had taken no part in the war of words ; and he had always been addressed with marked deference by the great orators who thundered against each other from his right and from his left. It was not strange that when, for the first time, he had to encounter keen and vigorous antagonists, who dealt hard blows without the smallest ceremony, he should have been awkward and unready, or that the air of dignity and authority which he had acquired in his former post, and of which he had not divested himself, should have made his helplessness laughable and pitiable. Nevertheless, during many mouths, his power seemed to stand firm. He was a favourite with the king, whom he resembled in narrowness of mind, and to whom he was more obsequious than Pitt had ever been. The nation was put into high good humour by a peace with France. The enthusiasm with which the upper and middle classes had rushed into the war had spent itself. Jacobinism was no longer formidable. Everywhere there was a strong reaction against what was called the atheistical and anarchical philosophy of the 18th century. Bonaparte, now first consul, was busied in constructing out of the ruins of old institutions a new ecclesiastical establish ment and a new order of knighthood. That nothing less than the dominion of the whole civilized world would satisfy his selfish ambition was not yet suspected ; nor did even wise men see any reason to doubt that he might be as safe a neighbour as any prince of the house of Bourbon had been. The treaty of Amiens was therefore hailed by the great body of the English people with ex travagant joy. The popularity of the minister was for the moment immense. His want of parliamentary ability was, as yet, of little consequence ; for he had scarcely any adversary to encounter. The old Opposition, delighted by the peace, regarded him with favour. A new Opposition had indeed been formed by some of the late ministers, and was led by Grenville in the House of Lords and by &quot;Windham in the House of Commons. But the new Opposition could scarcely muster ten votes, and was regarded with no favour by the country. On Pitt the ministers relied as on their firmest support. He had not, like some of his colleagues, retired in anger. He had expressed the greatest respect for the conscientious scruple which had taken possession of the royal mind ; and he had promised his successors all the help in his power. In private his advice was at their service. In parliament he took his seat on the bench be hind them, and in more than one debate defended them with powers far superior to their own. The king perfectly understood the value of such assistance. On one occasion, at the palace, he took the old minister and the new minister aside. &quot; If we three,&quot; he said, &quot;keep together, all will go well.&quot; Relations But it was hardly possible, human nature being what it is, and between more especially Pitt and Addington being what they were, that Pitt and this union should be durable. Pitt, conscious of superior powers, Adding- imagined that the place which he had quitted was now occupied by ton. a mere puppet which he had set up, which he was to govern while he suffered it to remain, and which he was to fling aside as soon as he wished to resume his old position. Nor was it long before he began to pine for the power which he had relinquished. He had been so early raised to supreme authority in the state, and had enjoyed that authority so long, that it had become necessary to him. In retirement his days passed heavily. He could not, like Fox, forget the pleasures and cares of ambition in the company of Euripides or Herodotus. Pride restrained him from intimating, even to his dearest friends, that he wished to be again minister. But he thought it strange, almost ungrateful, that his wish had not been divined, that it had not been anticipated by one whom he regarded as his deputy. Addington, on the other hand, was by no means inclined to descend from his high position. He was, indeed, under a delusion much resembling that of Abou Hassan in the Arabian tale. His brain was turned by his short and unreal caliphate. He took his elevation quite seriously, attributed it to his own merit, and con sidered himself as one of the great triumvirate of English statesmen, as worthy to make a third with Pitt and Fox. Such being the feelings of the late minister and of the present minister, a rupture was inevitable ; and there was no want of persons bent on making that rupture speedy and violent. Some of these persons wounded Addington s pride by representing him as a lacquey, sent to keep a place on the treasury bench till his master should find it convenient to come. Others took every opportunity of praising him at Pitt s expense. Pitt had waged a long, a bloody, a costly, an unsuccessful war. Addington had made peace. Pitt had suspended the constitutional liberties of Englishmen. Under Addington those liberties were again enjoyed. Pitt had wasted the public resources. Addington was carefully nursing them. It was sometimes but too evident that these compliments were not unpleasing to Addington. Pitt became cold and reserved. During many months he remained at a distance from London. Meanwhile his most intimate friends, in spite of his declarations that he made no complaint, and that he had no wish for oflice, exerted themselves to effect a change of ministry. His favourite disciple, George Canning, young, ardent, ambitious, with great powers and great virtues, but with a temper too restless and a wit too satirical for his own happiness, was indefatigable. He spoke ; he wrote ; he intrigued ; he tried to induce a large number of the supporters of the Government to sign a round robin desiring a change ; he made game of Addington and of Addington s relations in a succession of lively pasquinades. The minister s partisans retorted with equal acrimony, if not with equal vivacity. Pitt could keep out of the affray only by keeping out of politics altogether ; and this it soon became impossible for him to do. Had Napoleon, content with the first place among the sovereigns of the Continent, and with a military reputation surpassing that of Marlborough or of Turenne, devoted himself to the noble task of making France happy by mild administration and wise legislation, our country might have long continued to tolerate a Government of fair intentions and feeble abilities. Unhappily, the treaty of Amiens had scarcely been signed when the restless ambition and the insupportable insolence of the first consul convinced the great body of the English people that the peace so eagerly welcomed was only a precarious armi stice. As it became clearer and cleaier that a war for the dignity, the independence, the very existence of the nation was at Land, men looked with increasing uneasiness on the weak and languid cabinet which would have to contend against an enemy who united more than the power of Louis the Great to more than the genius of Frederick the Great. It is true that Addington might easily have made a better war minister than Pitt, and could not possibly have been a worse. But Pitt had cast a spell on the public mind. The eloquence, the judgment, the calm and disdainful firmness which he had during many years displayed in parliament deluded the world into the belief that he must be eminently qualified to superin tend every department of politics ; and they imagined, even after the miserable failures of Dunkirk, of Quiberon, and of the Holder, that he was the only statesman who could cope with Bonaparte. This feeling was nowhere stronger than among Addington s own colleagues. The pressure put on him Avas so strong that he could not help yielding to it ; yet, even in yielding, he showed how far he was from knowing his own place. His first proposition was that P some insignificant nobleman should be first lord of the treasury and cl nominal head of the administration, and that the real power should S1 be divided between Pitt and himself, who were to be secretaries of n state. Pitt, as might have been expected, refused even to discuss o: such a scheme, and talked of it with bitter mirth. &quot;Which secretaryship was offered to you ? &quot; his friend Wilberforce asked. &quot; Really,&quot; said Pitt, &quot; I had not the curiosity to inquire.&quot; Adding ton was frightened into bidding higher. He offered to resign the treasury to Pitt, on condition that there should be no extensive change in the Government. But Pitt would listen to no such terms. Then came a dispute such as often arises after negotiations orally conducted, even when the negotiators are men of strict honour. Pitt gave one account of what had passed ; Addington gave another; and, though the discrepancies were not such as necessarily implied any intentional violation of truth on either side, both were greatly exasperated. Meanwhile the quarrel with the first consul had come to a crisis. On the 16th of May 1803 the king sent a message calling on the House of Commons to support him in withstanding the ambitious and encroaching policy of France ; and on the 22d the House took the message into consideration. Pitt had now been living many months in retirement. There had been a general election since he had spoken in parliament, and there were two hundred members who had never heard him. It was known that on this occasion he would be in his place, and curiosity was wound up to the highest point. Unfortunately, the shorthand writers were, in consequence of some mistake, shut out on that day from the gallery, so that the newspapers contained only a very meagre report of the proceedings. But several accounts of w r hat passed are extant ; and of those accounts the most inter esting is contained in an unpublished letter written by a very young member, John William Ward, afterwards earl of Dudley. When Pitt rose, he was received with loud cheering. At every pause in his speech there was a burst of applause. The peroration is said to have been one of the most animated and magnificent ever heard in parliament. &quot;Pitt s speech,&quot; Fox wrote a few days later, &quot;was admired very much, and very justly. I think it was the best he ever made in that style. &quot; The debate was adjourned ; and on the second night Fox replied to it in an oration which, as the most zealous Pittites were forced to acknowledge, left the palm of eloquence doubtful. Addington made a pitiable appearance between the two great rivals ; and it was observed that Pitt, while exhort ing the Commons to stand resolutely by the executive Government