PITT'S MISTAKE IN REFUSING IT.

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strengthened the Government with a statesman of Fox's genius and renown. For such an object, he says, it was wise and patriotic to fling aside the paltry recollections of past animosity and party discord. Again, between the proposed coalition of 1804 and that of 1783 no resemblance can be traced. The latter involved questions of domestic policy on which considerable difference of opinion could not but arise. In 1804 the reverse was the case. Everything had to be put aside in the face of an overwhelming danger, a war of life and death with the greatest military power in Europe. "Who would desire," asks Lord Stanhope, to wrangle about Reform in Parliament or to nibble at the Treason and Sedition Bills, when Bonaparte, with a hundred thousand of the best troops of Europe, was encamped at Boulogne ?" This question, as it seems to us, effectually disposes in itself of the defence Lord Stanhope attempts of Pitt's conduct in calmly acquiescing in the King's unconstitutional exclusion of the Whig leader.* That defence turns on two points: first, the state of the King's health; and second, the King's alternative of another Addington ministry. Now it is obvious that the King's health could not outweigh the vital consideration of the national safety. Moreover, it could not have suffered from Fox in 1804 more than in 1806, and it would not have suffered. George the 3rd always knew when resistance

"The King's personal repugnance to Mr. Fox frustrated our arrangement which, by uniting the more liberal section of the Tories with the Whigs, would have constituted an enlightened party,-progressive in its policy, and directed by the ablest statesmen of the age."-SIR T. ERSKINE MAY, Constitutional History,' ii. 41.

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THE NEW GOVERNMENT.

became impossible. On the second point it may be observed that if the King had recalled Addington, he could not have held his ground even for the briefest period; and the Coalition would have been successful after all. The true explanation of Pitt's conduct is to be found in Lord Stanhope's admission that he was determined to be First Lord of the Treasury and Prime Minister, while he knew that Fox, on the other hand, wished the office to be held by some neutral person. Pitt's motto was Aut Cæsar aut nullus; and we cannot doubt but that the King's action relieved him from a great difficulty, the difficulty of opening a negotiation with Fox in which the very first condition would have been inadmissible.

The Ministry which Pitt proceeded to form was, himself excepted, very little stronger than Addington's. In fact, it included no fewer than six of Addington's late colleagues, namely, Lord Eldon, Chancellor; Duke of Portland, President of the Council; Lord Westmoreland, Privy Seal; Lord Chatham, Master of the Ordnance; Lord Castlereagh, President of the Board of Control; and Lord Hawkesbury, Home Secretary. The new appointments included Lord Harrowby, Foreign Secretary; Lord Camden, War and Colonial Secretary; Lord Melville, Admiralty; Duke of Montrose, Board of Trade; and Lord Mulgrave, Duchy of Lancaster. It is noticeable that Castlereagh and Mr. Pitt himself were the only two members of the House of Commons in the Cabinet. Canning became Treasurer of the Navy, but he deplored the exclusion of Fox and Grenville.

The weakness of the Ministry was soon apparent in

ITS INHERENT WEAKNESS.

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the House of Commons, where the majorities it obtained on several important divisions were actually less than those which had induced Addington to resign. They were confronted by the Foxites, the Grenvilles, and Addington and his personal friends; and Pitt's only effective debater in the Commons was the brilliant but too impetuous Canning. His position was, in truth, an indefensible one as the head of a Ministry he had largely assisted to overthrow, and whose policy he had visited with the most contemptuous censure. To this painful strait he had been reduced, as Sir George Lewis says,* by his own conduct; whereas, powerful as he had been in government, he might, had he acted with more openness, resolution, and straightforwardness, have been still more powerful in Opposition, and, uniting with Fox and Lord Grenville, have dictated his own terms to the King and Addington. "When Demosthenes was asked what was the first, and second, and third qualification of an orator, he answered 'Delivery'; in like manner, if we were asked what is the first, and second, and third qualification of an English statesman, we would answer, 'Intelligibility.' As in oratory the most eloquent words and the wisest counsels will avail but little if they are not impressed in voice and manner on the mind of an audience; so integrity and public spirit will fail to command confidence, if the course adopted is intricate and inexplicable."

That Pitt's conduct was fairly capable of a very unfavourable construction, is apparent from the criticism

* Sir G. C. Lewis, British Administrations,' p. 253.

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SHERIDAN'S RETORT UPON PITT.

upon it which he drew from Sheridan by an imprudent reference to his support of Addington. "He represents it," said Sheridan, "as an insidious and hollow support. I say I gave it with the most perfect good faith. But supposing I had not supported him with firmness and fidelity-what then? I never had professed to do so, either to that Administration or to this House. I supported them because I approved of many of their measures; but principally was I induced to support them because I considered their continuance in office a security against the return to power of the right honourable gentleman opposite, which ever appeared to me as the greater national calamity. If, indeed, I had recommended the noble lord* to his Majesty, if I had come down to the House and described him as the fittest man in the country to fill the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer, because it was a convenient step to my own safety, in retiring from a situation which I could no longer fill with honour; if, having seduced him into that situation, I had afterward tapered off from a prominent support when I saw that the minister of my own choice was acquiring greater stability and popularity than I wished for; if, when I saw an opening to my own return to power, I had entered into a combination with others, whom I meant also to betray, from the sole lust of power and office, in order to remove him; and if, under the dominion of these base appetites, I had then treated with ridicule and contempt the very man whom I had before held up

* Sheridan's speech was made after Addington had been created Viscount Sidmouth.

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to the choice of my Sovereign, and the approbation of this House and the public, then, indeed, I should have merited the contempt of all good men, and should have deserved to be told that I was hollow and insincere in my support, and had acted a mean and perfidious part."

Before the end of the year Pitt felt the necessity of obtaining additional support, and turned to seek it in the very quarter which he had taunted Sheridan for favouring. Between him and Addington the worst possible terms had existed for several months. Pitt was contemptuous, and Addington sulky. But Pitt now wanted votes, and Addington wanted place. With the enthusiastic acquiescence of the King, who overflowed delightedly "at the very proper state of Mr. Pitt's mind," and intimated that "none of Mr. Pitt's services to the public had been more predominant than the proposing Mr. Addington, then a young man, for Speaker of the House of Commons," a formal reconciliation was effected (December 23rd). Its suddenness set the world laughing. Only two days before, writes one of the Grenvilles, upon Pitt touching his hat as he passed by Addington, Addington observed to Dyson, who was riding with him, that even that greeting was new to him. Addington was made President of the Council, the Duke of Portland resigning through ill health, and went to the Upper House as Lord Sidmouth; a promotion by which Pitt freed himself from his rival influence in the Commons. His friend, Lord Buckinghamshire, received the Chancellorship of the Duchy of Lancaster. Another change was rendered necessary by the illness of