Lord Chatham, His Early Life and Connections

by Earl of Archibald Philip Primrose Rosebery

No more of Pitt's speeches are recorded during the session, which, with the enviable ease of those days, having opened on November 16, 1742, closed on April 21, 1743. In the interval before the ensuing session an event occurred, not in itself memorable, but notable for the contest that followed. In July 1743 occurred the long-expected death of Wilmington, the nominal head of the Government. In itself this departure would not have caused a ripple on the surface of politics, but it opened a critical succession. Pulteney, now Earl of Bath, at once laid claim to it; and his pretensions were warmly supported by Carteret, who was the minister in attendance on the King in Germany. Henry Pelham, supported by his brother Newcastle, also applied for the vacant post. As between these two groups it seemed certain that Bath, through Carteret, who was on the ground, would have the preference. Pelham, indeed, at the instance of Walpole, had, before the King left England, applied to his Majesty for the reversion of the moribund Minister's place, and had, if Coxe may be trusted, received a definite promise. It seems difficult to credit this, for George was a man of his word, yet the Pelham brothers were unfeignedly astonished when the reversion was given them; so that had Pelham indeed received such a pledge, he must have expected that the King would break it. Six weeks of dire suspense followed the death of Wilmington; an interval which was probably caused by the anxiety of the Sovereign to consult Walpole, while he intimated to Pelham that his decision would be conveyed to the Ministry by Carteret. This seemed a deathblow to the chances of Pelham, though the King's aversion to Bath was notorious. But a letter at length arrived from Carteret, in which he announced, with unaffected regret but with a generous promise of support, that the prize had fallen to Pelham. The brothers were elated, if such an expression can ever be applied to the timid and cautious Pelham. Newcastle was transported by the 'agreeable but most surprising news;' so much so, as to acknowledge that Carteret's letter was 'manly.'

Walpole, in writing his congratulations, looked warily to the future. 'Recruits,' he advised, should now be sought 'from the Cobham squadron.... Pitt is thought able and formidable, try him or show him.... Whig it with all opponents that will parley, but 'ware Tory.' Newcastle, on reading this letter to his brother, wrote back: 'I am afraid, one part of it, viz. the taking in of the Cobham party and the Whigs in opposition, without a mixture of Tories, is absolutely impracticable; and, therefore, the only question is whether, in order to get the Cobham party, etc., you will bring in three or four Tories, at least, with them, for, without that, they will not come, and this is what I have the greatest difficulty to bring myself to.' Orford's advice was not followed, and Pelham's appointments were few and narrow. Two of Lord Bath's followers, a friend of the Prince of Wales, and a friend of his own, the only surviving name of the four, Henry Fox, were gratified, and that was all. And even this limited arrangement was not completed before Parliament met.

Dec. 1, 1743.

The opening of the new session was anticipated with keen interest, as the Ministry was known to be rent with divisions, and hatred of the Hanoverians had immeasurably swollen in consequence of rumours of the favour that the King had shown to his electoral subjects. He had been surrounded by Hanoverian Guards to the exclusion of the English Guards; he had worn at Dettingen a yellow sash, which it appears was a Hanoverian symbol of authority; the Hanoverians had refused to obey the orders of Lord Stair, and so forth. We can easily imagine the buzz of angry legend and comment; for national antipathies have no difficulty in obtaining substantial affidavits in their support. Of this wild but not unreasonable intemperance Pitt, it is scarcely necessary to say, was the mouthpiece. In the debate on the Address he spoke with his accustomed violence. He called Carteret 'an execrable or sole minister, who had renounced the British nation, and seemed to have drunk of the potion described in poetic fictions which made men forget their country.'[151] So far as this tirade concerned Carteret's authority, nothing could be more absurd or wide of the truth. He could indeed scarcely have chosen a more unfortunate epithet than 'sole.' So far from being a sole minister, Carteret, as we have seen, had just received a crushing defeat in the elevation of Henry Pelham to the first place in the Ministry, and the rejection of his own candidate; though he had strained all his influence in the cause.

Nor had this 'sole minister' any parliamentary following; his only strength lay with the King, where it had just been found signally inadequate. The supreme minister in the last resort, and behind the scenes, was, in truth, Walpole. It was his decision and his alone that had turned the scale against Carteret and Pulteney. Carteret was congenial to the King, for he worked with his Sovereign in matters of foreign policy; and, as we have seen, he could talk politics to the Sovereign in the King's own language. But, while the King tried to carry out his own views in Continental affairs, in domestic politics he looked to Walpole alone. Still, invective must necessarily have an object, and, by aiming at the King's confidential Foreign Minister, Pitt was able to wound the King as well. It is hinted by Yorke, the parliamentary chronicler, that Pitt's acrimony was dictated by jealousy of Carteret's influence with the Prince of Wales.[152] As to this there is no proof, and conjecture is idle. Carteret and Frederick had indeed been long connected, but this would scarcely impel one of the Prince's court to attack one of the Prince's friends. Moreover, were this the motive, Pitt's attacks would have been of a different and milder character, enough to damage Carteret, but not enough to embroil Pitt with the Prince, who was not merely his master, but the head of his political connection. It is clear that Pitt's sole object was to destroy Carteret as minister, not for the ignominious purpose of subverting him in a court camarilla, but to show his own power by demolishing the conspicuous man, the vizier of the King who proscribed himself. The mere fact that Carteret represented the King's Continental policy, and that Pitt had apparently determined, in the jargon of that day, to storm the Closet, seems sufficient reason for Pitt's bitterness. He denounced Carteret as he denounced Hanover, as darling accessories of a monarch whom he was determined to harass in every way until his attacks should produce compliance or surrender. But it was the fate of Pitt to have to recant his abuse of Carteret, as solemnly and as publicly as he recanted his abuse of Walpole. 'His abilities,' said Pitt in 1770 of Carteret, 'did honour to this House and to this nation. In the upper departments of Government he had not his equal. And I feel a pride in declaring that to his patronage, to his friendship, and instruction, I owe whatever I am.'[153] It was a generous, almost an extravagant statement. But it shows how little importance should be attached to the early philippics of Pitt, as of other aspiring and brilliant young men. Invectives are one of the least subtle and most piquant forms of advertisement, but they do not facilitate the task of biographers.

The Sovereign he attacked openly and unsparingly. It was proposed, in the Address to the Throne, to congratulate the King on his escape from the dangers of the battle of Dettingen. This Pitt deprecated. 'Suppose, Sir,' he asked, 'it should appear that His Majesty was exposed to few or no dangers abroad, but those to which he is daily liable at home, such as the overturning of his coach or the stumbling of his horse, would not the address proposed, instead of being a compliment, be an affront and insult to the Sovereign?' No affront or insult could at any rate be more stinging or more unfounded than his wanton insinuation. George II. had the courage of his race, and had displayed it at Dettingen. At first his runaway horse had almost carried him into the French lines, so he dismounted and fought on foot for the rest of the day; not leaving the field until he had created a number of knights banneret; the last British king to take the field, and the last bannerets to be so created.[154]

It was vile then to disparage the King's courage, but political life in those days had no scruple and little shame. The sneers at Hanover with which this speech was sprinkled were better founded and deserved. But a serious and reasonable argument, not yet obsolete, pervaded Pitt's violent rhetoric on this occasion. It was that though the balance of power concerned all states, it concerned our island state least and last of all. Moreover, he attacked our recent policy on other grounds. On our attitude to Austria, then fighting for its integrity under Maria Theresa, he heaped scorn from another point of view. We had promised her abundant assistance when she was fighting Prussia alone; when France intervened we shrank back and left her in the lurch. That, he declared, was not our only discredit. When Prussia attacked the Queen of Hungary, and Spain, Poland, and Bavaria laid claim to her father's succession, we should have known that the preservation of the whole was impossible, and advised her to yield the part claimed by Frederick. But the words from the Throne and the speeches of the courtiers had persuaded the Austrian Government that Great Britain was determined to support her. So great was the determination, that even Hanover added near one-third to her army at her own cost, the first extraordinary expense, it was believed, that Hanover had borne for her purposes since her fortunate conjunction with England! But then the French intervened. Hanover was in danger, and so we promptly retired. We gave some money, indeed, but that was because our ministers contrived to make a job of every parliamentary grant. The Queen, seeing that she was deserted, came to terms with Frederick, but much worse terms than he had originally offered. Then was the time for us to have insisted on her making peace with France and the phantom Emperor. But we had advised her against this, for no conceivable reason except apparently that we wished to go on paying the 16,000 Hanoverians whom we were employing. As regards the battle of Dettingen, he declared that we had no idea of fighting, but that the French had caught us in a trap. The ardour of our troops was restrained by the cowardice of the Hanoverians; we ran away in the night, leaving our dead and wounded behind us. Never would he consent to call the battle a victory, it was only a fortunate escape.

Were we to continue fighting? he asked. We ourselves had nothing to gain by it, though Hanover, no doubt, would continue to receive four or five hundred thousand pounds a year from us if we did. But we should consider, even the Hanoverians should consider, that we could not carry on a long war as in the reign of Queen Anne. We were not far from a national bankruptcy, and should soon have to disband our army. What, then, if the Pretender should land at the head of a French force?

This outline is given to show the singular but forcible mixture of shrewd argument, wayward extravagance, and bitter scoffs, which at this time constituted Pitt's parliamentary armament.