Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/455

Rh CHATHAM 443 Wilkes, Pitt vigorously maintained their illegality, thus defending at once the privileges of Parliament and the free dom of the press. During 1765 he seems to have been totally incapacitated for public business. In the follow ing year hs supported with great power the proposal of the Roekingham administration for the repeal of the American Stamp Act, arguing that it was unconstitutional to impose taxes upon the colonies. He thus endorsed the contention of the colonists on the ground of principle, while the ma jority of those who acted with him contented themselves with resisting the disastrous taxation scheme on the ground of expediency. The Repeal Act, indeed, was only passed pari pzssu with another censuring the American Assembly, and declaring the authority of the British Parliament over the colonies &quot;in all cases whatever;&quot; so that the House of Commons repudiated in the most formal manner the prin ciple Pitt laid down. His language in approval of the resist ance of the colonists was unusually bold, and perhaps no one but himself could have employed it with impunity at a time when the freedom of debate was only imperfectly conceded. Pitt had not been long out of office when he was solicited to return to it, and the solicitations were more than once renewed. Unsuccessful overtures were made to him in 1763, and twice in 1765, in May and June, the negotiator in May being the king s uncle, the duke of Cumberland, who went down in person to Hayes, Pitt s seat in Kent. It is known that he had the opportunity of joining the marquis of Rockingham s short-lived administration at any time on his own terms, and his conduct in declining an arrangement with that minister has bsen more generally condemned than any other step in his public life. Even Thackeray, his admiring biographer, has admitted that in this m tter he was &quot; neither kind as a man nor wise as a politician.&quot; la the autumn of 1766 Rockingham was dismissed, and Pitt was entrusted by the king with the task of forming a Government entirely on his own condi tions. The result was a cabinet, strong much beyond the average in its individual members, but weak to powerless- ness in the diversity of its composition. Burke, in a memorable passage of a memorable speech, has described this &quot; chequered and speckled &quot; administration with great humour, speaking of it as &quot; indeed a very curious show, but utterly unsafe to touch and unsure to stand on.&quot; Pitt chose for himself the office of Lord Privy Seal, which necessitated his removal to the House of Lords ; and he became Viscount Pitt and Earl of Chatham. By the acceptance of a peerage the great commoner lost at least as much and as suddenly in popularity as he gained in dignity. One significant indication of this may be mentioned. In view of his probable accession to power, preparations were made in the city of London for a banquet and a general illumination to celebrate the event. But the celebration was at once countermanded when it was known that he had become earl of Chatham. The instantaneous revulsion of public feeling was somewhat unreasonable, for Pitt s health seems now to have been beyond doubt so shattered by his hereditary malady, that he was already in old age though only fifty-eight. It was natural, therefore, that he should choose a sinecure office and the ease of the Lords. But a popular idol nearly always suffers by re moval from immediate contact with the popular sympathy, be the motives for removal what they may. One of the earliest acts of the new ministry was to lay an embargo upon corn, which was thought necessary in order to prevent a dearth resulting from the unprece- dentedly bad harvest of 1766. The measure was strongly opposed, and Lord Chatham delivered his first speech in the House of Lords in support of it. It proved to be almost the only measure introduced by his Government in which he personally interested himself. His attention had been directed to the growing importance of the affairs of India, and there is evidence in his correspondence that he was meditating a comprehensive scheme for transferring much of the power of the company to the Crown, when he was withdrawn from public business in a manner that has always been regarded as somewhat mysterious. It may be questioned, indeed, whether even had his powers been unimpaired he could have carried out any decided policy on any question with a cabinet representing interests so various and conflicting ; but, as it happened, he wag incapacitated physically and mentally during nearly the whole period of his tenure of office. He scarcely ever saw any of his colleagues though they repeatedly and urgently pressed for interviews with him, and even an offer from the king to visit him in person was declined, though in the language of profound and almost abject respect which always marked his communications with the court. It has been insinuated both by contemporary and by later critics that being disappointed at his loss of popularity, and con vinced of the impossibilty of co-operating with his colleagues, he exaggerated his malady as a pretext for the inaction that was forced upon him by circumstances. But there is no sufficient reason to doubt that he was really, as his friends represented, in a state that utterly unfitted him for business. He seems to have been freed for a time from the pangs of gout only to be afflicted with a species of mental alienation bordering on insanity. This is the most satisfactory, as it is the most obvious, explanation of his utter indifference in presence of one of the most momentous problems that ever pressed for solution on an English statesman. Those who are able to read the history in the light of what occurred later may perhaps be con vinced that no policy whatever initiated after 1766 could have prevented or even materially delayed the declaration of American independence ; but to the politicians of that time the coming event had not yet cast so dark a shadow before as to paralyze all action, and if any man could have allayed the growing discontent of the colonists and prevented the ultimate dismemberment of the empire, it would have been Lord Chatham. The fact that he not only did nothing to remove existing difficulties, but remained passive while his colleagues took the fatal step which led directly to separation, is in itself clear proof of his entire incapacity. The imposition of the import duty on tea and other commodities was the project of Charles Townshend, and was carried into effect in 1767 without consultation with Lord Chatham, if not in opposition to his wishes. It is probably the most singular thing in connection with this singular administration, that its most pregnant measure should thus have been one directly opposed to the well-known principles of its head. For many months things remained in the curious posi tion that he who was understood to be the head of the cabinet had as little share in the government of the country as an unenfranchised peasant. As the chief could not or would not lead, the subordinates naturally chose their own paths and not his. The lines of Chatham s policy were abandoned in other cases besides the imposition of the import duty ; his opponents were taken into confidence ; and friends, such as Amherst and Shelburne, were dismissed from their posts. When at length in October 1768 he tendered his resignation on the ground of shattered health, he did not fail to mention the dismissal of Amherst and Shelburne as a personal grievance. Soon after his resignation a renewed attack of gout freed Chatham from the mental disease under which he had so long suffered. He had been nearly two years and a half in seclusion when, in July 1769, he again appeared in public at a royal levee. It was not, however, until 1770 that he resumed his seat in the House of Lords. He had