The King, it is well known, was exceedingly averse to the re-admission of Mr. Fox into office. He pressed the task of forming an administration upon Mr. Pitt, who, being convinced that no effective support could be hoped for, at that time, either in parliament or from the expression of public opinion, steadily refused the offer. The coalition ministry therefore came into power. In the session of 1783 Mr. Pitt again introduced the question of parliamentary reform, in the shape of three resolutions, which provided that one hundred members should be added to those returned by the counties and the metropolis, and that all boroughs should be disfranchised where a majority of voters had been proved guilty of corruption. These resolutions were rejected.
On the meeting of parliament in November, Mr. Fox brought forward his celebrated India Bill. It was quickly carried through the lower house, but was thrown out in the upper, partly through the personal influence exerted by the King; and on the next day, December 18, Mr. Fox and Lord North received their dismissal. Mr. Pitt did not now hesitate to take his place at the head of government. He felt himself in a much stronger position than at the close of the Shelburne administration. He foresaw that the India Bill would become unpopular, though as yet little outcry had been made against it, and he resolved, with a courage, ability, and penetration, which those who condemn his conduct most strongly cannot deny, to assume office in the teeth of a majority of the House of Commons, and to hold it in spite of the majorities continually arrayed against him. Nor, though strongly urged, would he resort to a dissolution; knowing that such a measure would be fatal unless the new parliament should prove much more favourable to him than the existing one, being aware that Mr. Fox’s popularity, though shaken by the coalition, was not overthrown, and trusting to the growing unpopularity of the India Bill to dispose the nation more favourably to his own administration. It was therefore resolved to continue the sitting parliament; and the house adjourned on the 26th of December to the 12th of January. During the recess Mr. Pitt gained the applause of all parties by his disinterestedness in giving the valuable sinecure of Clerk of the Pells to Colonel Barré, on condition of his resigning a pension of 3000l. a year; thus effecting a saving to the country of that amount.
On the 12th the new ministry was twice left in a minority, once of thirty-nine, the second time of fifty-four. This not inducing them to resign, a series of motions was made to compel them to do so. It was never ventured however to stop the supplies. Between January 12 and March 8, fourteen motions, besides those which passed without a division, were carried against the ministers with various but on the whole decreasing majorities, the last only by a majority of one. This ended the struggle. The minister saw that the time was now come when a dissolution was likely to tell in his favour, and it took place accordingly, March 25.
He was now returned for the University of Cambridge. In the ensuing session his attention was principally engaged by the Westminster scrutiny, the state of the revenue, and the affairs of India. In the first he took a part which widened the breach between Mr. Fox and himself; and he had the mortification of being exposed to the charge that he cherished personal animosity against his illustrious antagonist, and of being deserted by many of his usual adherents, and finally left in a minority, March 3, 1785, when the scrutiny was ended by a vote of the house. Lord Hood and Mr. Fox were then returned. In his financial measures Mr. Pitt had eminent success. By economy, by resolutely facing the difficulties of the question, and, no doubt, by the assistance of that general prosperity, agricultural as well as commercial, which was beginning to succeed the depression of the American war, the revenue, which at his accession to office was considerably below the expenditure, was improved so much as, by the spring of 1786, to afford the promise of a million surplus. This was devoted to the formation of an effective sinking-fund. Mr. Pitt prided himself on this more than any other of his measures, and resisted all temptation to encroach upon it even during the pressing difficulties of the latter years of his administration. The merit of having devised the scheme was claimed by Dr. Price: be this as it may, the principal merit, that of having rigidly carried it into execution, is Pitt’s. Later authorities have denied the advantage of the system altogether. The India Bill, the other leading measure of this session, differed from Mr. Fox’s chiefly in these important points, that the members of the Board of Control, like other members of administration, were removable at pleasure, and that nearly all the patronage of India was left in the hands of the Board of Directors. In 1785, for the last time, Mr. Pitt again brought forward the subject of parliamentary reform. His plan was to transfer the members of thirty-six decayed boroughs to the metropolis and to various counties, and as other boroughs decayed, to give their franchises to populous and increasing towns. But the boroughs being regarded, in the words of his biographer, as “a species of valuable property and private inheritance, the voluntary surrender of their rights was not to be expected without an adequate consideration.” This was not treated as a government measure, and was rejected by a large majority.
The other passages of most importance in Mr. Pitt’s political life, before the French Revolution, were his decided support of the impeachment of Warren Hastings, though without going the whole length of Mr. Burke and other opposition members, in 1786, and the conclusion of a commercial treaty with France on a more liberal footing than had yet been contemplated by the countries; the successful opposition which he made to the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, in 1787, notwithstanding the support he had received from the Dissenters a few years before; his conduct on the Regency Bill, in opposition to the ill-advised assertion of Mr. Fox, that the Prince of Wales was entitled as a matter of right to the full possession of the powers of royalty, as sole Regent, in 1788–9; and his support of the abolition of the Slave Trade, for which he spoke and voted, but without making it a ministerial question. Indeed, in consequence of Mr. Wilberforce’s illness, Pitt was the first to bring that national disgrace and crime under the notice of the house, and he exerted his best eloquence in favour of its immediate abolition, and against the temporising course which was adopted.
It does not appear that in the beginning of the French Revolution Mr. Pitt anticipated any bad consequences to Great Britain, or that he expected or wished to be led into that protracted war, which, though ultimately triumphant, involved us in imminent danger, enormous expense, and a debt still pressing us to the ground. At least, in opening his budget in 1792, he spoke with more than usual confidence of the favourable prospects of the revenue, and prognosticated many years of peace. At the same time he was already impressed with suspicion and fear of those in England who regarded with complacency the dawning of the Revolution; and in the same session he declared himself opposed to the introduction of Mr. Grey’s motion for reform in parliament, on the express ground that men’s minds were in a state of fermentation, which rendered any innovation inexpedient and dangerous. But the events of the summer and autumn changed Mr. Pitt’s views more widely. After the deposition of Louis XVI., on the 10th of August, the British minister at Paris was recalled; and as soon as the news of that unhappy sovereign’s death reached England, the French minister in London was ordered to quit the kingdom. War was declared by France, February 1, 1793. We do not attempt to compress the history of that eventful period into these pages. The policy of our government was to make the sea the scene of our chief exertions, and our fleets were victorious in every quarter of the globe. By land the conduct of the war was most unsuccessful. We were indeed cautious of risking our own troops on the continent; but the national wealth was profusely spent in subsidizing other nations, in combining alliances against France, which one after another proved utterly unable to withstand the energy of the French government and the talent of the republican generals, and in trifling expeditions, injurious if they failed, and useless if successful. Meanwhile the enormous expenditure of the day caused a corresponding increase of the public burdens, and, as was foreboded, a ruinous accession to the public debt. A large party, who were far from joining with those that would willingly have made England the subject of an experiment similar to the one going on in France, denied both the necessity and the expediency of the contest in which we were engaged; party spirit reached a frantic height; and these men, as sincere friends to their country as those who most strenuously supported the arbitrary measures of government, were denounced, and confounded with the small minority really hostile to domestic order. And no doubt the oppressive conduct of the administration drove many persons to extremes, which, in cooler moments and under a more equitable policy, they would not have countenanced. Then came the trials of Muir and Palmer in Scotland, in 1793, of Hardy and Horne Tooke in 1794, the Alien Bill, the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, and other measures calculated, in the language of the times, to prevent the spread of revolutionary principles, for which the minister was hailed by one party as the saviour of his country from anarchy, and denounced by another as a pillar of despotism, an enemy to the free constitution of his country, a deserter from the principles of his youth, and a persecutor of those associates who still adhered to them. Increased discontent was met by increased severity; and, after the insults offered to the King’s person as he proceeded to open the session of parliament in 1796, the famous bills, for the prevention of seditious meetings and for the better security of his Majesty’s person and government, commonly called the Pitt and Grenville Acts, were introduced and carried, not without the utmost indignation and the most determined opposition by all means short of forcible resistance, both within the walls of parliament and without.
Mr. Fox and the other chief members of opposition, finding their utmost efforts unsuccessful, seceded openly from the House of Commons when the Seditious Meetings Bill went into committee. Meanwhile the country was beset by the most serious difficulties. The drain of specie produced by our subsidies to foreign powers, the large advances required from the Bank by government, and the disposition to hoard money produced by the fear of invasion and of domestic anarchy, gave reason to apprehend that the Bank would be unable to meet its engagements; and in 1797 it was relieved by the Restriction Act from the obligation of paying cash in exchange for its notes. In the same year the mutiny at the Nore broke out; and in 1798 the rebellion in Ireland made a most formidable addition to the dangers and distresses of the nation. Meanwhile our exertions had been powerless to check the victorious arms of France on the continent of Europe, and a strong desire for peace was felt by many who had been Mr. Pitt’s staunch supporters, and advocates of the revolutionary war. This led to his retirement from office in 1801, unless that event is rather to be ascribed to the King’s fixed determination not to grant the Irish Catholics that full relief, which had been held out as one inducement to procure the consent of Ireland to the Act of Union. It is to Mr. Pitt that the merit of carrying through that important measure is due; a measure which would probably have been attended with much more beneficial results if the policy of its author with respect to Catholic Emancipation had been adopted. But even the importance of the object is insufficient to justify, and can only palliate, the corrupt means which were used in gaining the assent of the Irish parliament to the Union, which was very unpopular with the Irish nation.
Mr. Pitt resigned his office in February, 1801, and was succeeded by Mr. Addington, who concluded the peace of Amiens in 1802, the preliminaries having been signed the autumn before. Mr. Pitt defended the conditions of this treaty when attacked in parliament, therein taking a different part from several of his late colleagues. But his retirement in the first instance was regarded as not much more than nominal, and he was generally thought to be the adviser of the ministry after he ceased to belong to it. This state of affairs however was short-lived. His support gradually subsided, first into coldness, then into avowed disapprobation, and finally into hostility not less decided than that of the regular opposition. In the early part of 1804, after the lapse of twenty years of violent hostility, Pitt and Fox were again seen speaking and voting on the same side. A fruitless attempt was made by the ministry to procure the accession of the former; and as it became clear that the existing government could not stand, and as the lapse of time and change in affairs had removed many of the most irreconcileable grounds of party variance, a strong hope was felt that an administration, uniting the best talents and most powerful interests of the country, might be formed by the junction of the three parties represented by Mr. Pitt, Mr. Fox, and Lord Grenville. This hope appears to have been defeated by the King’s personal objections to admit Mr. Fox to office. It is asserted by Mr. Rose that Mr. Pitt used his utmost endeavours to overcome that prejudice, “conceiving a strong government as important to the public welfare, and as calculated to call forth the united talents as well as the utmost resources of the empire; in which endeavour he persisted till within a few months of his death.” Unfortunately for his own fame, and probably for the interests of the country, he did not think fit to make this union of parties a condition of his own return to office. Lord Grenville, his relation, friend, and coadjutor, refused to become a member of an exclusive ministry, and Mr. Pitt took his station at the head of a cabinet singularly deficient in men of commanding talent, and more than half composed of Mr. Addington’s colleagues. The disappointment of the nation was great; but the late period of the session (he was gazetted First Lord of the Treasury May 12) was of material service in enabling him to face the difficulties of his position; and he employed the autumn in seeking to gain strength by forming an alliance with some other party. Lord Grenville however proved firm in his resolution not to accept office while Mr. Fox was excluded; and the minister, assuredly with deep mortification, was compelled to make overtures of reconciliation to Mr. Addington, who was created Viscount Sidmouth, and appointed President of the Council in January, 1805. This alliance after all proved inefficient to strengthen the government, while it was fruitful in jealousies, which led to Lord Sidmouth’s speedy retirement from office in July; and in the same session the dismissal, and ultimately the impeachment, of his old and valued friend and ablest coadjutor, Mr. Dundas, now created Viscount Melville, added another and a still more distressing embarrassment to those by which the minister was already beset.
On his return to office Mr. Pitt had again recourse to his former policy of raising up continental alliances against France; and he succeeded in uniting Austria and Russia in the confederacy which was crushed by the decisive battle of Austerlitz, December 2, 1805. At this time his constitution was rapidly giving way, exhausted by a life of excessive labour, which he sought to relieve by the immoderate use of wine, a habit first induced by the original defects in his constitution. In December he was ordered by his physicians to Bath, but he received no benefit from the change of place, and returned to his residence at Putney by slow stages. He expired January 23, 1805.
In addition to his other offices, Mr. Pitt held the sinecure of Warden of the Cinque Ports, worth about 3000l. per annum, which, unsolicited, was bestowed on him by the King in 1792, as a mark of personal esteem. But the pressure of public business left no time for the regulation of his domestic affairs, and, notwithstanding his large income, he expended his small patrimonial estate, and died deeply involved in debt. The parliament was not slow to acknowledge his long services. His remains were interred at the public expense; a monument was erected to him in Westminster Abbey; 40,000l. were voted to discharge his debts; and, in conformity to his dying request, a pension of 1500l. was conferred on his nieces, daughters of the Earl of Stanhope.