The Pelhams, through Cobham, had promised him the Secretaryship at War, on which his heart was set; but they were unable to fulfil their pledge, and soothed him for the time with promises that they would persevere in pressing him upon the Sovereign. With these fine words Pitt professed himself satisfied, and promised support, all the more readily as he knew himself to be inevitable. In the meantime, however, he gave up the only post he held, a course to which he was impelled both by the Marlborough legacy and the fall of Carteret; for while the first made him independent of salary, the second had alienated the Prince of Wales. So in April (1745) he resigned his groomship of the bedchamber, and met Parliament in the unadorned character of the most powerful private individual in the country.
On the army estimates he spoke for the first time, and with vehemence, as a supporter of the Government. On this occasion, too, he first utilised the apparatus of gout with the demeanour of a graceful invalid, whose end was approaching. Were it to be the last day of his life, he exclaimed, he would spend it in the House of Commons, since he judged the condition of his country to be worse than that of his own health. Formerly these expressions would have meant that the Government was ruining the nation. But now, he explained, that though Carteret had nearly wrecked the kingdom, the present object was, by connecting Hanover with Holland, to arrive at a prompt and fair pacification. He paid warm compliments to Pelham on his patriotism and capacity for business, and commended his Government with oblique and friendly expressions directed towards the King. A dawn of salvation to this country had broken forth (which, apparently, had hitherto been obscured by the form of Carteret), and he would follow it as far as it would lead him. His 'fulminating eloquence,' we are told, 'silenced all opposition.'[167]
In February 1745 a question arose of peculiar delicacy for Pitt. Through one of the compromises sometimes required by political emergency the question of the employment of the Hanoverians, against which Pitt was so strongly pledged, was arranged by transferring them to Maria Theresa, with an extra subsidy to enable her to pay them. This somewhat transparent artifice was boldly and dexterously defended by Pitt himself. On such occasions it is well not to hesitate or refine, and Pitt spoke without visible qualms. 'It was,' he said, 'a meritorious and popular measure, which did honour to the minister who advised it, and the Prince, who so graciously vouchsafed to follow it, and must give pleasure to every honest heart. As to what had been thrown out that the Queen of Hungary might take them into her pay, when they were dismissed from ours, what of that? She was at liberty to take them or not. They would not be forced on her, but God forbid that these unfortunate troops should by our votes be proscribed at every court in Europe.' It was enough that, 'by his Majesty's wisdom and goodness,' they were no longer voted annually as a part of our army, and so forth.[168]
It is obvious from the meagre report that Pitt was now as copious in his praise of the King as he had formerly been niggard. His Sovereign had become wise and good and gracious; the Hanoverian troops, which had been so short a time ago cowardly and contemptible troops, were now unfortunate and meritorious, well worthy the attention and employment of Maria Theresa. One or two members could not help smiling; they called the measure collusive, and declared that if we were to pay the Hanoverians at all it were better to pay them directly, when they would at least be under our direction and control, than through the Queen of Hungary, when they would not. It is not on record that any one asked what advantage would be reaped by the taxpayer under the method proposed, when he would pay at least as much as before, but without the least check as to the way in which the money was spent. Nevertheless, there were complaints enough. Pitt must have hinted that it was better that they should fight under the Hungarian flag than the British, as they did not fight in harmony by the side of British troops; for this called up a Northumbrian baronet to explain that this was contrary to the fact, and that he should raise the point in a motion. Pitt at once rose again, not in his high line, but 'with all the art and temper imaginable,' soothed and complimented the honest member, hinted that his motion would only serve the purposes of Carteret, whom they both rejoiced to see removed, and generally allayed the debate with complete success.[169]
This is again a notable mark in his career. For the first time he appears, not as the fierce hero of declamation and invective, but as the dexterous official diplomatist, coaxing and reassuring. He was fast moving onwards.
The official character of Pitt's speeches is all the more marked because there was little to commend and much to attack in the conduct of the Ministry, which had, to say the least, been singularly unfortunate. The disastrous battle of Fontenoy was not redeemed by the capture of Louisbourg, a gallant affair for which local volunteers and local enterprise, rather than the Government, deserve the credit. And now during the Parliamentary recess from May to October there suddenly appeared a fresh danger, the one against which Walpole's policy had been mainly directed for a generation. On August 19, Charles Edward, eldest son of the exiled Prince of Wales, and grandson of King James II., raised the standard of civil war at Glenfinnan; on September 17 he was living in the palace of his ancestors at Holyrood; four days afterwards he completely defeated the forces sent against him. Had he at once marched South he might well have reached London, and had he reached London the face of history in this island might have been changed. The Cabinet was panic-stricken, not merely at the advance of Charles, but at the anger of their legal Sovereign, who seemed likely to recall Carteret to his side. Dutch troops were hastily fetched over and sent to the North, and English troops from Flanders followed. Had these reinforcements been detained by contrary winds but a few weeks Pelham declared that London could not have been defended against the Jacobites. Two days before the victory of Charles Edward, Henry Fox wrote that 'had five thousand (French) troops landed in any part of this island a week ago, I verily believe the entire conquest would not have cost them a battle.'
But Charles contented himself with a reign at Holyrood of six weeks, and this delay lost him his chances of success. When Parliament met on October 17 he was still in Edinburgh, but adequate measures had been taken to render his enterprise abortive. All this does not concern Pitt, except as giving him an opportunity of expressing his devoted loyalty to George II.; but while Charles Edward was marching on Derby a desperate struggle was going on which related entirely to him. In the new session he had begun to show signs of irritation and of impatience with the Government; the emollients of the Pelhams began to lose their virtue, and he was determined not to be fooled any longer. His amiability had disappeared, and though his speeches are unreported, it is evident that the Ministers were now made to feel the terrors of his tongue. 'Yesterday,' writes Horace Walpole, 'they had another baiting from Pitt, who is ravenous for the place of Secretary at War: they would give it him: but as preliminary, he insists on a declaration of our having nothing to do with the Continent,' a stipulation which reads strangely enough by the light of the years to come. The Pelhams saw that they could no longer defer the fulfilment of their promises, and that it was necessary to approach the King. The moment was singularly unfavourable. The King had never forgiven the compulsion put on him to dismiss Carteret, nor the fact of his separation from Carteret. He had shrewdness enough to see that in ability and grasp of affairs Carteret towered above the other ministers except the Chancellor; and he despised Newcastle, who was principally thrown into contact with him. It was a shame, he declared, that a man who was not fit to be a chamberlain at the pettiest of German courts should be forced on the nation and on the Crown as a principal minister. All through 1745 the royal resentment smouldered, though it was kept in suspense by the rebellion. But when that movement lost in importance and became clearly doomed, the King felt more free to display his feelings. Foreign policy, with which we are not here concerned, was part of his grievance; but the main cause of irritation was the threatened intrusion of Pitt on his councils. And yet this was obviously impending and even inevitable. Pitt, at first so patient, had begun to show his teeth in public, and probably in private as well. The crisis could not be any longer avoided.
In the preceding autumn there had been conferences between the Pelhams on the one side and Pitt and Cobham on the other. On November 20, 1745, Newcastle records a meeting at which Pitt put forward his demands, and 'apprehended great difficulties in bringing about what we so much desired,' his accession to office. His conditions were finally melted down to an extension of the Place Bill so as to exclude from Parliament all officers in the Army under the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and in the Navy below the rank of captain; the removal of all the remaining adherents of Carteret, notably the two Finches, from Court; and a 'total alteration of the foreign system, by feeding only the war on the Continent, acting there as auxiliaries, and particularly by confining all the assistance we should give to the Dutch to the bare contingent of 10,000 men; but to increase our navy, and to act as principals at sea in the war against France and Spain. For a peace with France, at present, was not to be thought of.'
The first condition presented no complications. The second seemed inexpedient on grounds of prudence and decency. The third presented more difficulty. Newcastle had two long conferences upon it, first with Pitt and then with Cobham. Finally a meeting was held between the Chancellor, Hardwicke, Harrington, Pelham, and Newcastle on one side, and Gower, Bedford, Cobham, and Pitt on the other.[170]
The situation of affairs at this moment was this: Charles Edward was marching from Holyrood towards London. The French had won Fontenoy and were overrunning the Austrian Netherlands, without difficulty and almost without resistance. Maria Theresa was about to conclude peace at Dresden (December 25, 1745) by a renewed cession of Silesia. This was the juncture at which the Pelhams resolved to force on a Cabinet crisis in order to obtain the services of Pitt. The fact at least displays the value and importance of the personage who was the subject of contest.