A history of England

by Charles Oman

Shelburne took office, therefore, with a comparatively weak following. So many of the old leaders had refused to aid him, that he was constrained to give the post of Chancellor of the Exchequer and leader of the House of Commons to a young man of twenty-three, William Pitt, the second son of the great Earl of Chatham. This appointment, startling though it appeared, was a very wise one. The younger Pitt was the most remarkable man of his age. He had inherited from his father high principles, an enthusiastic belief in the future of England, and a sympathy for the cause of reform. He had been reared as a Whig, but had no sympathies for the old parliamentary jobbing and corruption of the party. His personal integrity was as great as that of his father, and his hatred of intrigue and bribery even greater. Though quite new to the House of Commons, he made a sensation on his first appearance in it, which showed that men saw that the mantle of his father had fallen upon his shoulders. His self-confidence and belief in his own powers were as great as those of Chatham had been, but he was devoid of the theatrical pomposity which had sometimes marred the effect of his parent's eloquence. As Chatham had believed himself the destined saviour of England from the dangers of foreign war, so it was his son's aim and end to deliver England from internal faction, and to build up a great constitutional party which should combine loyalty to the crown with liberal and progressive legislation. This party, as Pitt imagined, would consist of the more enlightened Whigs, the section of the party which had once followed his father, and now obeyed Shelburne. That it would ever grow to be known as the "Tory party," would at this moment have been beyond his comprehension.

Fall of Shelburne.

The Shelburne ministry only held office for nine months (July, 1782, to April, 1783). From the first it was doomed to fall before the hostility of the Whig opposition. It survived long enough to ratify the final conclusion of the peace negotiations which the Rockingham cabinet had begun. But it fell before a factious motion of Fox, who moved a vote of censure on the very reasonable and moderate terms on which peace had been bought from France. This motion was supported by the ominous combination of the old Tory supporters of Lord North with the discontented sections of the Whig party. It drove Shelburne to instant resignation.

Fox and North combine.

But no one could have foreseen the strange sequel to this vote. To the surprise of all save those who were in the secret, it was suddenly announced that Fox and North were about to unite their forces, not for a single division, but for a permanent alliance. Lord North seems to have imbibed in his long tenure of power—from 1770 to 1782—a craving for office at any price. Seeing that the king was too weak for the moment to replace him in his old seat, he plotted an unnatural union with his foes the Whig clans. He could command the allegiance of that section of the Tories who cared more for place and power than for their loyalty towards the crown, of the men who had aided King George from purely personal and corrupt motives. Now he offered Fox and the Duke of Portland, the Whig leaders, the invaluable aid of this solid phalanx of votes, if they would admit him into their alliance. Having no political aims or principles of his own save a desire to possess power and patronage, he could undertake to fall in with any schemes that they might desire. To their great discredit the Whigs closed eagerly with this immoral proposal, and took North into partnership, though they had been spending the last ten years in vehement abuse of his methods of government and his mean subservience to the king.

The Coalition Ministry.

Hence came into existence the "Coalition Ministry" of April, 1783, in which the followers of North and Fox sat together under the nominal control of the Duke of Portland, one of the chiefs of the old Whig families. The cynical immorality of the combination displeased every one. The king was enraged with his old hireling North for leading away half the Tories to join the hated Whig oligarchs. The nation was puzzled and disgusted to see men who had so often abused each other, combining from no better motive than mere lust for power and office. But unpopular though the new cabinet was, it was for the moment supreme in Parliament by means of its overwhelming majority of votes.

Pitt's Reform Bill rejected.

The continued existence of the Coalition Government would probably have led to a return to the ancient corruption of Walpole and Newcastle. What the principles of the new Whig administration were, was sufficiently shown by the fate of a Reform Bill, to abolish rotten boroughs and increase the representation of populous districts, which William Pitt brought forward in the summer of 1783. The ministry frowned on a measure which would diminish their power to buy votes, and the bill was rejected by a majority of 144.

But, fortunately for England, the Coalition was not to last for long. It fell partly because of its unpopularity with the nation, and partly because the king tried against it the last of his autocratic methods of interfering with politics.