66

rience when any one, after such an interregnum in times of difficulty, comes (as they also term it) to their assistance," and "consents to stand by them." This Lord North did for George III. in 1772; and his conduct never was forgotten by that Prince. Indeed, the gratitude and personal affection is very remarkable which he showed ever after; at least till the fatal Coalition on which so many political reputations were shipwrecked, and so total a loss was made of both court and popular favour; and it forms one of the not very numerous amiable traits in his character. A striking instance has already been given in speaking of this Monarch.

It must be acknowledged that he was singularly fortunate in the minister whom he thus obtained, and, indeed, in the change which he made. The Duke of Grafton, though a man endowed with many valuable qualities for his high station, remarkable for a liberality on ecclesiastical matters rare in any rank, and any one thing rather than the character painted by the persevering malice and audacious calumnies of Junius, who made him and the Duke of Bedford, together with Lord Mansfield, the choice objects of his unsparing and systematic abuse, was nevertheless of no great weight in debate, and of habits which the aristocratic life in those days had little fitted to meet the unceasing claims of official duty upon a statesman's time and attention. The indus

try of professional slanderers, too, being counteracted by no brilliant political achievements, had concurred with the discontents prevailing at home, and dissentions yet more formidably showing themselves in

the colonies, to lower his reputation in the country, and to make the task of government such as he plainly

shrank from.

The helm thus abandoned, fell into the hands of Lord North, then in the vigour of his faculties, in no respect disadvantageously known to the country, and an undoubted favourite with the House, which for some time he had led. His success there was very considerable. Few men in any station have, indeed, left behind them a higher reputation as a debater, and above all, as the representative of the government. We now speak of his fame after his accession to the chief command in the public councils, as well as the warfare of parliament, had consolidated his authority, exhibited his debating powers, and multiplied his victories. It was his lot to maintain the conflict in times of unprecedented difficulty, and against antagonists such as no minister ever had to meet, if we except Mr. Addington, who was speedily overthrown in the rencounter. The resistance of our whole American empire had ended in a general rebellion, and all the military prowess failed to quell it, as all the political measures of the government had failed to prevent it, or rather had ripened discontent into revolt. A series of political disappointments first, and then of military disasters, had made our American affairs hopeless, when the war extended itself to Europe, and our hitherto invincible navy could not prevent the English coasts and even harbours from being insulted, while our West India islands were ravaged, and our trade in those seas was swept away by the enemy's marine. Nor had the nation the accustomed consolation and government the usual topic of defence, that our disasters

befel us through the proverbially fickle fortune of war and the chances of the elements. Every one failure could be traced to the perverse course of impolicy and injustice combined, in which the colonial revolt took its rise. The Americans, unprepared for resistance, and unwilling to risk it, had been driven on by the tyrannical bigotry which presided over our councils, and for which the King was really answerable, although by the fictions of the constitution his servants only could be blamed. Add to this, that the opposition was led first by Mr. Burke, and afterwards by Mr. Fox, both in the prime of their extraordinary faculties, ranking among their zealous adherents such men as Barrè, Dunning, Lee, supported by the whole phalanx of the Whig aristocracy, and backed always by the prodigious weight of Lord Chatham's authority; occasionally by the exertions of his splendid eloquence, burning brighter than ever as it approached the hour of its extinction. The voice of the people, at first raised against the colonies, soon became loud against the government; and each blunder and each disaster made the storm of public indignation rage more and more violently. Even in point of numbers the parliamentary forces were not so unequally matched as we have seen them during subsequent seasons of warlike discomfiture; for while Mr. Pitt has had majorities of three or four to one in his support, under all the failures of his continental projects, Lord North was frequently reduced to fight with majorities so scanty, as rather resembled the more recent balance of parliamentary power, than the ordinary workings of our constitution. Such was the strife, and in such untoward circum

stances, which Lord North had to maintain, with the help only of his attorney and solicitor-general, Thurlow and Wedderburne, to whom was afterwards added Dundas. But a weight far more than sufficient to counterbalance this accession was about the same time flung into the opposite scale, and rendered its preponderance still more decided. Mr. Pitt signalized his entrance into Parliament by the most extraordinary eloquence, at once matured and nearly perfect in its kind, and by lending all its aid and all its ornament to the opposition. Nothing daunted, the veteran minister persevered in maintaining the conflict, and was only driven from the helm after he had fought triumphantly for six years against the greater part of the Whig chiefs, and desperately for two more against the whole of the body thus powerfully reinforced.

All contemporary reports agree in representing his talents as having shone with a great and a steady lustre during this singularly trying period. Without any pretensions to fill the higher ranks of eloquence, with no accomplishments of learning beyond the scholarship which a well-educated Englishman gains at Oxford, with political information such as the historical reading of well-informed men could give, he displayed so thorough an acquaintance with official and Parliamentary business as easily supplied all defects in those days of scanty political acquirement, while his clear excellent sense, which never failed him and constantly gave him the victory over men of more brilliant genius; his natural tact, still further improved by practice and deep knowledge of men; his ready fluency; his cool determined courage--would altogether have made him a most

accomplished debater, even independent of those peculiar qualities in which he, and indeed all his family, excelled most other men-qualities of singular virtue in any station of either house of Parliament, but in him who holds the first place, of most sovereign efficacy in retaining and rallying his followers, and in conciliating the audience at large-a wit that never failed him, and a suavity of temper that could never be ruffled. Combating his powerful adversaries at such a disadvantage as he, for the most part, was compelled to work up against, from the almost unbroken series of failures which he was called to defend or extenuate his tactics were greatly admired as well as his gallantry. Nothing perhaps in this way ever showed both skill and boldness more than his unexpectedly granting a motion for inquiring into the State of the Nation, supposed in parliamentary procedure to be a vote of distrust in the Ministry; for when, to a long and powerful speech introducing that proposition, he contented himself with making an able and complete reply, and then suddenly professed his full readiness to meet the question in detail, by going at once into the committee, the enemy were taken altogether unprepared, and the whole affair evaporated in smoke.

To give examples of his unbroken good-humour, as enviable as it was amiable, and perhaps still more useful than either, would be to relate the history of almost each night's debate during the American war. The rage of party never was carried to greater excess, nor ever more degenerated into mere personal violence. Constant threats of impeachment, fierce attacks upon himself and all his connexions, mingled execration of