UN Laudo manentem; si celeres quatit Pennas, resigno quæ dedit when the thought struck him that the next words, "et mea virtute me involvo,” would appear unbecoming if taken (as they might be) for a compliment to himself. Mr. Wraxall, who was present, describes him as instantly casting his eyes upon the floor, while a momentary silence elapsed, which turned upon him the attention of the whole House. He drew his handkerchief from his pocket, passed it over his lips, and then, recovering as it were from his temporary embarrassment, he struck his hand with great force upon the table, and finished the sentence in the most emphatic manner, omitting the words referred to: Laudo manentem; si celeres quatit Pennas, resigno quæ dedit, [et mea "The effect was electric; and the cheers with which his friends greeted him as he sat down, were followed with that peculiar kind of buzz, which is a higher testimony to oratorical merit than the noisier manifestations of applause." Lord North, in following Mr. Pitt that night, spoke of his eloquence as "amazing," and added, "It is no small presumption of my innocence that I could hear his thur.der without being dismayed, and even listen to it with a mixture of astonishment and delight." But the Coalition was too strong to be dissolved. The vote of cen sure was passed by a majority of seventeen, and the Earl of Shelburne resigned. דיי The King now sent for Mr. Pitt, and urged him, in the most pressing terms, to ac cept the office of prime minister; but, with that strength of judgment which never deserted him in the most flattering or the most adverse circumstances, he steadfastly rejected the offer, satisfied that it would be impossible to resist the combined force of Lord North and Mr. Fox in the House. To gratify the King, however, while endeavoring to form a ministry to his mind, Mr. Pitt remained in office for six weeks, carrying on the government with a dignity of deportment, and an ease and dexterity in the dispatch of business, which excited the admiration of all, and produced the frequent remark, "there is no need of a ministry while Mr. Pitt is here." In the mean time, the King, though urged by repeated addresses from the House, continued to shrink back from the Coalition; and it is now known that he seriously meditated a retirement to Hanover, as the only means of relief from the painful situation to which he was reduced. It was Thurlow that deterred him from so hazardous a step. "Your Majesty may go to your Electoral dominions," said the Chancellor, bluntly; "nothing is easier; but you may not find it so easy to return when you grow tired of staying there. James II. did the same; your Majesty must not follow his example." He therefore advised the King to submit with patience, assuring him that the Coalition could not remain long in power without committing some error which While propitious, I praise her, and bless her glad stay; [Why, wrapped in my virtue], her gifts I resign • More than twenty years after, Mr. Canning, while defending himself under circumstances somewhat similar, in respect to Catholic emancipation, began to quote the passage so finely turn ed by Pitt; but as he uttered the words "Laudo manentem," it suddenly occurred to him how they had been used before, and he instantly varied them, in his graceful manner, saying, “or, rather to use the paraphrase of Dryden," "I can applaud her when she's kind; But when she dances in the wind, And shakes her wings, and will not stay, I puff the prostitute away." Age of Pitt and Fox, page 155. NN would lay them open to successful attack. The King saw the wisdom of his advice. He permitted the Coalition ministry to be formed, April 2, 1783, but with an express reservation that he was to be understood as no way concerned in their meas ures. Soon after the close of this session, Mr. Pitt visited France in company with Mr. Wilberforce, and spent some months in studying the institutions of the country. He was treated with great distinction; and, as Mr. Wilberforce states, "it was hinted to him, through the intervention of Horace Walpole, that he would be an acceptable suitor for the daughter of the celebrated Necker, afterward Madame De Staël. Necker is said to have offered to endow her with a fortune of £14,000 a year." But he declined the proposal, and remained unmarried to the end of life. With all the diversity of his powers, there were two characters which Mr. Pitt would have been quite unable to sustain-to play the part of the lover or the husband would have been equally beyond his reach. The measure foretold by Thurlow came earlier than was expected. During the first week of the next session (November 18th, 1783), Mr. Fox brought forward his East India Bill. In opposing this scheme, Mr. Pitt spoke the sentiments of most men in the kingdom. The firmest Whigs, like Lord Camden, the most strenuous enemies of oppression, like Wilberforce, united with the supporters of the Crown and the entire moneyed interest of the country to denounce it in the strongest terms. There were two features which exposed the bill to this general reprobation. First, it put the civil and military government of India in the hands of Commissioners, appointcd, not, as usual in such cases, by the Crown, but by Parliament. Considering the manner in which Fox came into office, this was calculated to awaken the very worst suspicions. It looked like a direct defiance of the sovereign-like a determination on the part of the Coalitionists to make use betimes of their ascendency in Parliament, and establish themselves so firmly in power, through this immense increase of patronage, that the King would be unable to remove them. As already stated in the memoir of Mr. Fox, few men at the present day believe he had any such scheme of desperate ambition. He was actuated, there is reason to think, by humane sentiment. He did not mean to have his plan crippled in its execution by the personal animosity of the King, and he therefore gave to Parliament the first appointment of the Commissioners for four years; and while he expected, no doubt, to add greatly to the strength of his administration by these means, the idea of his aiming at an imperium in imperio, or "a perpetual dictatorship" over England, is now generally discarded. Still, the jealousy which prevailed was perfectly natural. Mr. Fox had made it for himself; and Mr. Pitt used it against him, only as the best men in the kingdom believed it to be founded in truth. Secondly, the bill stripped the Company of all their commercial rights, and placed their property in the hands of another board of Commissioners. This was a much more doubtful measure. "It was tantamount," as Lord Camden truly said, "to a commission of bankruptcy or a commis sion of lunacy against them; it pronounced them to be unable to proceed in their trade, either from want of property or from want of mental capacity." Nothing could justify it but the extremest necessity; and though Mr. Fox was convinced of that necessity, he ought, in prudence at least, to have delayed such a measure until the other part of his plan had been tried; until experience had shown that the The reason which he was reported to have given, viz., that "he was married to his country," if not a mere jest, was probably, as Lord Brougham remarks, a fabrication of the day, like the words ("Oh, my country!') which were represented to have been the last that he uttered on his death-bed. "Such things," as his Lordship justly remarks, “ were too theatrical for so great a man, and of too vulgar a cast for so consummate a performer, had he stooped to play a part in such circumstances." abuses in India were incapable of redress by a change of its civil and military gov ernment—that the Company were fit only to be treated as bankrupts or lunatics. It is unnecessary to dwell on the means by which the East India Bill was defeated, and the Coalition ministry driven from power. They have been detailed in the memoir of Mr. Fox. What share Mr. Pitt had in Lord Temple's communications with the King has never been made known; but the course taken was regarded by all concerned as an extreme measure on the part of the Crown to repel an extreme measure of Mr. Fox, which endangered the rights of the King and the balance of the Consti tution. The great body of the people gave it their sanction, and rejoiced in a step which they would have resisted, in almost any other case, as an invasion of their rights. Mr. Pitt now came in as Prime Minister at the age of twenty-four (December 22d, 1783), under circumstances wholly without precedent in the history of English politics. Against him was arrayed an overwhelming majority in the House, led on by the most eloquent men of the age, inflamed by a sense of injury and disappointed ambition. So hopeless did his prospect appear, that a motion for a new writ to fill his place for the borough of Appleby was received with a general shout of laughter. In the contest which followed, and which turned the eyes of the whole empire on the House of Commons for nearly three months, the young minister's situation was not only trying beyond measure, in a political point of view, but, as Wraxall observes, "appeared at times to be not wholly exempt from personal danger. Fox might be said, without exaggeration, to hold suspended over his head the severest marks of the indignation of the offended House. His removal from the King's presence and councils as an enemy of his country-his impeachment or his commitment to the Tower-any or all of these propositions might, nay, might certainly have been carried in momer.ts of effervescence, when the passions of a popular assembly, inflamed by such a conductor as Fox, seemed to be ripe for any acts of violence." Under these circumstances, Mr. Pitt displayed a presence of mind, a skill and boldness in repelling attack, a dexterity in turning the weapons of his adversaries against themselves, and making the violence of their assault the very means of their final discomfiture, which we can not even now contemplate, as remote spectators of the scene, without wonder and admiration. Mr. Fox's first step was to demand, rather than request of the King, that Parliament should not be dissolved, intimating, in his speech on the subject, that it would not be safe to adopt such a measure" merely to suit the convenience of an ambitious young man." Mr. Pitt, who had wisely determined to fight the battle for a new Parliament in and through the present House, replied by a friend (for he had not yet been re-elected as a member), that he had no designs of this sort, and "that if any idea of proroguing or dissolving Parliament should be entertained any where, Mr. Pitt would instantly resign." To make himself still more sure, Mr. Fox next moved a resolution, declaring "the payment of any public money for services, voted in the present session, after Parliament should be prorogued or dissolved (if such events should take place before an act should have passed appropriating the supplies for such services), to be a high crime and misdemeanor." To this Mr. Pitt made no objection, and the motion was carried by general consent. These things combined brought Mr. Pitt apparently to the feet of Mr. Fox. The majority were not to be broken down by a new election, and if they stopped the supplies, he had no longer the resource of proroguing Parliament, and using the money on hand as absolutely necessary for continuing the government: he must resign, or bring the country at once into a state of anarchy. So certain did Mr. Fox consider the result, that he said on the floor of the House, "To talk of the permanency of such an administration would be only laughing at and insulting them ;" and at the close • Historical Memoirs, vol. iv., p. 724. of the saine speech, he spoke of "the youth of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the weakness incident to his early period of life, as the only possible excuse for his temerity!" The Mutiny Bill had been already delayed by Mr. Fox for a month, and the same decisive step was soon after taken with the supplies. Mr. Pitt was thus distinctly warned of the inevitable consequences of his persisting in a refusal to resign, while. he was insulted for many weeks by one resolution after another, passed by large majorities, reflecting in the severest terms on the means by which he had gained pow er, and declaring that his ministry did not possess the confidence of the House or the country. As to the first point, he repelled with indignation the charge of having come into office by indirect or unworthy means. "I declare," said he, " that I came up no back stairs. When my Sovereign was pleased to send for me, in order to know whether I would accept of employment, I was compelled to go to the royal closet; but I know of no secret influence! My own integrity forms my protection against such a concealed agent; and whenever I discover it, the House may rest assured 1 will not remain one hour in the cabinet! I will neither have the meanness to act upon advice given by others, nor the hypocrisy to pretend, when the measures of an administration in which I occupy a place are censured, that they were not of my advising. If any former ministers are hurt by these charges, to them be the sting! Little did I conceive that I should ever be accused within these walls as the abettor or the tool of secret influence! The nature and the singularity of the imputa. tion only render it the more contemptible. This is the sole reply that I shall ever deign to make. The probity and rectitude of my private, as well as of my public principles, will ever constitute my sources of action. I never will be responsible for measures not my own, nor condescend to become the instrument of any secret advisers whatever. With respect to the questions put to me on the subject of a dissolution of Parliament, it does not become me to comment on the expressions composing the gracious answer of the sovereign, delivered by him from the Throne. Nei ther will I compromise the royal prerogative, nor bargain it away in the House of Commons !" The King, whose residence was then at Windsor, waited with deep emotion for a daily account of the conflict going on in the House; and such was his anxiety during part of the time, that hourly expresses were sent him with a report of the debates. It was, indeed, more his battle than that of the ministry. His correspondence shows that he had resolved to stake every thing on the firmness of Mr. Pitt. His honor as a sovereign forbade the thought of his receiving back Lord North and Mr. Fox, after the means they were using to force themselves again into power: if Mr. Pitt sunk in the conflict, it was the King's determination to sink with him. After a night of the greatest disaster, when the ministry had been five times beaten-twice on ques tions directly involving their continuance in office-his Majesty wrote to Mr. Pitt in the following terms: "As to myself, I am perfectly composed, as I have the self-satis faction of feeling that I have done my duty. Though I think Mr. Pitt's day will be fully taken up in considering with the other ministers what measures are best to be adopted in the present crisis, yet, that no delay may arise from my absence, I shall dine in town, and consequently be ready to see him in the evening, if he should think that would be of utility. At all events, I am ready to take any step that may be proposed to oppose this faction, and to struggle to the last period of my life. But I can never submit to throw myself into its power. If they at the end succeed, my line is a clear one, and to which I have fortitude enough to submit." These words, pointing directly to a withdrawal from England (with the case of James II. in 10 Lord North felt this blow so keenly, that Wraxall says, he had never but once seen him so much agitated during his whole parliamentary career. full view), if not to consequences even more fatal, must have wrought powerfully on the mind of Mr. Pitt. It was not merely his love of office or scorn of being beaten that nerved him with such energy for the conflict; it was sympathy and respect for his Sovereign, and the hope of averting those terrible civil commotions which seemed inevitable if Mr. Fox, at the head of the Commons, drove the King, supported by the nobility, into the desperate measure contemplated." As the contest went on, Mr. Pitt having been beaten on an East India Bill which he introduced, Mr. Fox moved the same night for leave to bring in another of his own, which he declared to be the same as his former one in all its essential principles. He then turned to Mr. Pitt, and demanded to know whether the King would dissolve Parliament to prevent the passing of such a bill. All eyes were turned to the treasury bench, and a scene ensued of the most exciting nature. "Mr. Pitt," says the Parliamentary History, "sat still-the members on all sides calling upon him in vain to rise." Sir Grey Cooper then broke out into some very severe remarks, and closed with saying, that if the gentleman persisted in his silence, the House ought "to come to a resolution" on the subject. "On Mr. Pitt's sitting still, the cry was very loud of Move, move!" calling on Sir Grey to bring forward a resolution. Mr. Fox then made some very cutting observations on "the sulky silence of the gentleman," his treating the House with so little decency," &c., when "the House still called most vehemently on Mr. Pitt to rise." General Conway now came out with great warmth, and attacked the character and motives of ministers in the bitterest terms, declaring that 'the present ministry, originating in darkness and secrecy, maintained themselves by artifice. All their conduct was dark and intricate. They existed by corruption, and they were now about to dissolve Parliament, after sending their agents about the country to hribe men." Mr. Pitt now rose, not to answer the interrogatories put him, but with a call to order. As Conway was advanced in years, Pitt treated him with respect, but demanded that he should "specify the instances of corruption" charged: and told him that "what he could not prove, he ought never to assert.” 'No man," said he, in his loftiest tone, "shall draw me aside from the purpose which, on mature deliberation, I have formed. Individual members have no right to call upon me for replies to questions involving in them great public considerations. Nor is it incumbent on me to answer interrogatories put in the harsh language that has been used." Turning again to Conway, whose age ought to have taught him more moderation, he reproved his intemperance of language in a way which called forth a burst of applause from the House, by quoting the noble reply of Scipio to Fabius, "Si nullâ aliâ re, modestiâ certe et temperando linguam adolescens senem vicero!"'13 Some of Mr. Fox's friends now became anxious for a compromise. Among them was Mr. Powys, who had been so scandalized by the Coalition and the East India Bill, that he joined Mr. Pitt in opposing them, but went back to Fox the moment he was dismissed and Pitt was put in his place. He now urged a coalition between them as the only possible means of giving peace and harmony to the country. 11 The King's determination was again expressed in a letter to Mr. Pitt, written on the morning of the day when Lord Effingham moved a resolution in the House of Lords, condemning the conduct of the majority in the Commons. "I trust," said he, "that the House of Lords will this day feel, that the hour is come for which the wisdom of our ancestors established that respectable corps in the state, to prevent either the Crown or the Commons from encroaching on the rights of each other. Indeed, should not the Lords boldly stand forth, this Constitution must soon be changed; for if the two only remaining privileges of the Crown are infringed--that of negativing bills which have passed both Houses of Parliament, and that of naming the ministers to be employed-I can not but feel, as far as regards my person, that I can be no longer of utility to this country, nor can with honor continue in this island." 12 See the report of this debate, vol. xxiv., 421-4. 13 Youth as I am, I will conquer the aged, if in nothing else, at least in modesty and command wer my tongue. |