THE RESIGNATION OF BUTE.
Notwithstanding the large majority ministers had obtained in both houses of parliament on the subject of the newly-signed treaty, causes were at work which soon effected their overthrow. Pitt was resolutely bent on driving Bute from office; his stern opposition being ostensibly founded on an assertion that he had thrown away the best advantages in the treaty of peace. He was joined in his opposition by the old Duke of Newcastle, whose halls again became the resort of politicians. Meetings were held at his residence, in which nobles and commons alike concerted together the means of making the peace unpopular, and bringing Bute into still greater contempt with the public. Pens, dipped in gall, were set to work to demonstrate to the people that Martinique, Guadaloupe, St. Lucie, Pondicherry, and the Havannah ought to have been retained in the treaty of Fontainebleau; that compensation in money ought to have been obtained from both France and Spain; that, by demolishing the forts in Honduras, English subjects were deprived of the log-wood trade, and subjected to the jealous rage of the Spaniards; and that an opportunity of humbling the house of Bourbon had been completely thrown away. In maintaining these propositions, dark insinuations were thrown out, reflecting upon the characters of Bute, the king’s mother, and the Duke of Bedford. They had all, it was said, touched French gold. Epigrams, scandals, and stories, also, concerning Bute and the princess dowager, rang from one end of the country to the other. And the conduct of the princess and Bute seemed to justify the scandal, although it does not appear to have rested on sure grounds. Thus they precluded, as much as possible, all access to the king, except to Bute’s relatives connexions, and dependents; and when Bute visited the princess it was generally in the evening, and then in a sedan-chair belonging to a lady of the household of the princess, and with close-drawn curtains. His enemies did not fail to take advantage of his imprudent conduct, and they soon succeeded in making him the most unpopular man in the three kingdoms. This soon became manifest to the royal favourite; for addresses on occasion of this peace were refused by the counties of York and Surrey, and they came in slowly and ill-supported from other quarters. Bute, however, was too proud and unconciliating to make any attempt to set himself right in public opinion, and he suffered his enemies to work on, till his character became unredeemable, and his downfall was effected.
Still Bute might possibly have enjoyed his high station for some time longer had there not existed at this time a necessity for an increase of taxation, and for a loan of three millions and a half, to enable government to pay debts contracted during the war. This necessity could not be fairly imputed to Bute, but he was unfortunate in his plan of raising the loan, and in his choice of new taxes. Instead of throwing the loan open to competition, he disposed of the shares privately, and they immediately rose to eleven per cent, premium; whence he was charged with gratifying himself or his dependents with £350,000 at the public expense. His new tax was produced in the shape of ten shillings duty per hogshead on cider and perry, which was to be paid by the first purchaser, while an additional duty of eight pounds per ton was proposed to be laid on French wines, and half that sum on other wines. The tax on cider raised such a storm of opposition from the country members generally, without reference to party, that Bute was induced to alter both the sum and the mode of levying it—four shillings per hogshead was to be paid, and it was to be levied upon the grower, through the medium of the exciseman. This was not an unreasonable tax, for ale and porter were already taxed both directly and indirectly, and no argument could show that while a liquor produced from malt contributed to the public exigencies, a liquor produced from apples should be exempt. Englishmen, however, were always averse to the visits of the excisemen; and the city of London, the cities of Exeter and Worcester, and the counties of Devonshire and Herefordshire, the interests of which were concerned in the matter more nearly than the citizens of London, petitioned the commons, the lords, and the throne, against the bill. A general threat was made, that the apples should rot upon the ground rather than be made into a beverage subject to such a duty and such annoyances. In the house of commons, also, Pitt spoke long and eloquently against the bill; inveighing bitterly against the intrusion of officers into the private dwellings of Englishmen; quoting the well-known maxim that in England “every man’s house is his castle.” Stern opposition was, moreover, made in the house of lords; and, had Bute been wise, he would have bowed deferentially to the public feeling, and have adopted some other mode of raising the money less repugnant to the temper and disposition of the people. Bute, however, to use a figurative expression, proudly bared his head to the tempest which was playing around him. He was determined that the bill should pass, and he carried his point despite the fierce opposition of the whole country. The bill passed into a law, and although there were four different kinds of cider, varying in price from five to fifty shillings per hogshead, they were all taxed alike.
Yet Bute was not made of such stern material that he could defy the people with impunity. He had gained this victory over them, but he evidently felt that their voice was omnipotent, and that if he longer resisted it, he might possibly one day, and that soon, be doomed to suffer disgrace by defeat. Under these circumstances, almost as soon as the bill passed into a law, he surprised his friends and his enemies alike, by suddenly tendering his resignation. Opinions varied as to his motives for taking such a step. Some of his enemies said that he had retired from the rising storm of national indignation, and that Pitt had politically killed him; others that the king and queen, whose strict morality of conduct was well known, had at length taken umbrage at his intimacy with the queen dowager; while others asserted that he abandoned his post from a consciousness of guilt, and a dread of impeachment for certain acts not yet made known to the public. On the other hand, his friends asserted that his retirement arose from his hatred of the intrigues of a public life, and represented him as panting in the midst of the toils of his office for literary and rural retirement. His own reason, as expressed to a friend, was, that he found himself powerless in his own cabinet. “Single in a cabinet of my own forming,” he observed, “no aid in the house of lords to support me, except two peers, [Denbigh and Pomfret]; both the secretaries of state silent, and the lord chief justice, whom I myself brought into office, voting for me, yet speaking against me; the ground I tread upon is so hollow, that I am afraid, not only of falling myself, but of involving my royal master in my ruin. It is time for me to retire.” Bute retired as proudly as he had exercised his office, for he neither asked for pension nor sinecure, and his retirement was followed by that of Sir Francis Dashwood, chancellor of the exchequer, and of Fox, who were elevated to the peerage: the former as Baron le Despencer, and the latter as Baron Holland. Mr. George Grenville succeeded to the premiership, and also to the place which had been occupied by Dashwood, uniting in himself the offices of chancellor of the exchequer and first lord of the treasury. But Bute still acted behind the scenes. He pulled the strings, and Grenville and the rest of the cabinet answered his motions, as mechanically as though they had been so many puppets. Grenville, indeed, seems to have been chosen by the king and Bute, as a willing instrument for carrying their plans into ready execution.