Later again, in his opulent seclusion, Fox was fired with a new ambition to become an earl.[204] He feared no extremity, no humiliation, to obtain his cherished object. But he failed. He was no longer worth buying; he could not, indeed, be employed. So in bitterness of spirit he passed away, cheered only by his delightful devotion to his wife and children, and by the goodwill of a few staunch friends.
There is something profoundly melancholy in Fox's degeneracy. Its commencement is clearly marked. In 1756 he was an easy companion, a good friend, kindly and beloved; he was honoured and admired; he was the second man in the House of Commons, willing and able to dare all. But when he was discarded, and had subsided into the Paymastership, he seems to have suffered a gradual deterioration. His objects became sordid; he lost the finer elements of his character; his ambition sank into something composed of vindictiveness and greed; his generous wine became corked and bitter. But at the time we are writing of, he was still amiable, still courageous, still warm with some instinct of honour, patriotism, and high emulation, still an able and masculine figure. It is perhaps unfair to anticipate a decline which is outside our limits. But the change is so remarkable, throwing, as it were, a back light on some of the puzzling aspects of Fox's earlier career, that it cannot well be unnoticed.
More ominous of Pitt's attitude to the Ministry than any small incidents of debate was Pitt's silence. For three successive sessions of Parliament, in 1752, 1753, and in that which closed in April 1754, he practically held his peace. Nothing could be more sinister, nothing could mark more emphatically his discontent. Sickness, it appears, accounted in part for this abstinence from the arena. 'After a year of sullen illness,' as Horace Walpole describes it, he intervened in 1753; and this was followed by another twelve months of silence and of illness not less sullen. The intervention of 1753 was not very happy. By an Act passed in June 1753, foreign Jews had been rendered capable of naturalisation. The Bill had passed into law without serious opposition, but soon aroused great popular clamour. Grub Street, as usual, was called into requisition.
'But Lord! how surprised when they heard of the news
That we were to be servants to circumcised Jews,
To be negroes and slaves instead of True Blues,
Which nobody can deny.'
Newcastle was charged with having been bribed.
'That money you know is a principal thing,
It will pay a Duke's mortgage or interest bring.'[205]
On the meeting of Parliament in November of the same year Newcastle at once moved to repeal it. It had only been, he said in his silly jargon, a 'point of political policy,' and as it had aroused agitation in the public it had better be repealed. Foote recalled this slipshod phrase in his comical portrait of the Duke. 'The honour,' says Matthew Mug, 'I this day solicit will be to me the most honourable honour that can be conferred.' Pitt supported the repeal in a speech on which his admirersNov. 27, 1753. would not desire to dwell. He was still in favour of the Act, but should vote for its repeal, because the people wished it, having been misled by the 'old High Church persecuting spirit' into believing that religion was concerned in the matter, which was not the fact, therefore an explanatory preamble was necessary. 'In the present case we ought to treat the people as a prudent father would treat his child; if a peevish, perverse boy should insist on something that was not quite right but of such a nature as, when granted, could not be attended with any very bad consequence, an indulgent father would comply with the humour of his child, but at the same time he would let him know that he did so merely out of complaisance, and not because he approved of what the child insisted on.'[206] Whether this would or would not be the wisest course of parental discipline it is not necessary to discuss, but it was in the spirit of the practice that prevailed in the Fox family rather than in that of the Pitts. The repeal was passed with the preamble of admonition.
This reluctant, ironical support was all that Pitt gave his colleagues. It cannot indeed be doubted that throughout these three lean years of silence he was hostile to the Ministry. Promises had probably been made on his first accession to office which he thought had been ill-kept. He had been told, no doubt, that every effort would be made to make him more acceptable to the King, and he might well doubt if there had been much strenuous effort in that direction. And indeed a topic so sure to excite the royal spleen was not likely to be raised except under the pressure of absolute necessity. At any rate there had been no result. 'The Pitts and Lytteltons are grown very mutinous on the Newcastle's not choosing Pitt for his colleague,' writes Horace Walpole six weeks after the Prince's death. For Bedford was known to be doomed by Newcastle, and his Secretaryship of State would soon be vacant. There were many aspirants for the succession, but no whisper of Pitt. Cobham, who had been his main supporter, was dead;[207] no one could speak with so much authority on his behalf; and even had Cobham survived he would probably have been silent.
Soon after the letter from Walpole which we have quoted (June 1751) Bedford had resigned. He had been succeeded by Holdernesse. At the same time Granville, the object of Pitt's inveterate philippics, was admitted to the Cabinet as President of the Council. These events may well have inflamed Pitt's resentment, which had, we cannot doubt, been long smouldering. The great obstacle to his advancement was the King, who, as he knew, had always detested him. It was with the greatest difficulty that the Pelhams could persuade the Sovereign not altogether to ignore him at the Levees. Could he indeed trust the brothers? He appreciated no doubt Pelham's qualities at the Treasury, in council, and in the House of Commons. It seems impossible to believe that Pitt ever can have trusted Newcastle; though he addresses the Duke in his letters with an affected flummery of devotion. Almon, who is not a trustworthy authority, but who is supported in this instance by a probability which we may well deem irresistible, says that in at least one interview in the year 1752 he treated Newcastle with such scorn that Newcastle had he dared would have dismissed him from office.[208] Pitt had openly scoffed at the King of the Romans policy, Newcastle's cherished plan, and told the Duke that he was engaging in subsidies without knowing the amount, and in alliances without knowing the terms. Why, indeed, should Pitt trust Newcastle, whom no one had ever trusted, and whom Pitt must have measured and known to the very marrow of his bones?
We may take it as certain then that Pitt viewed the Duke with contemptuous penetration, and tolerated his grimaces and professions only till such time as he could put them to the test. Meanwhile there was a free trade in blandishments between them. Newcastle would send venison from Holland, and carp and fruit, and Pitt would abound in gratitude.[209] He still thought well to profess friendship, but, we may be sure, a wary friendship, for the veteran in the florid and artificial style of the day; on the very day of Pelham's death he wrote from Bath to assure him of 'unalterable attachment;'[210] and he condescended to solicit a parliamentary seat from him.