He adds another postscript of caution: 'Be so good as not to leave my letters in your pockets, but lock them up or burn them, and caution Sir George to do the same.'[241] Secrecy was of the essence of his scheme. Should Newcastle or the Chancellor understand the part that he designed to play, they would have an advantage in the game.
On April 2 Pitt writes to jog Newcastle's memory in a note about the Aldborough election: 'I had expected to hear from you, but I know the multiplicity of your business.'[242] He need not have feared that his letter had been overlooked. So little was this the case that, no doubt after anxious and protracted conferences, Newcastle and Hardwicke were both writing to him on this very day long and elaborate apologies. Hardwicke's is a document, as might be expected, of great but inadequate skill.[243] It gives him much concern to find that Pitt is 'under apprehensions of some neglect on this decisive occasion.' He is not altogether surprised. Could Pitt only have heard how warmly Hardwicke pressed his claims! But there are certain things which ministers cannot do directly. These must be left to 'time and incidents and perhaps ill-judging opponents.' Fox's pressing for larger powers than the King would give had no doubt helped the cause of Pitt, and Newcastle's being at the head of the Government whose devotion to Pitt was so notorious would further it still more. He concludes by hoping with sincerity that Pitt would take an active part, though no doubt had he seen the direction in which his wish was fulfilled, he would have withdrawn it with greater emphasis. This stripped of verbiage seems the bone of this long letter.
Behind Hardwicke shuffles Newcastle. 'Feel for me,' he plaintively exclaims, 'for my melancholy and distressed situation: compelled to leave the department of which I was a master to one with which I was entirely ignorant, exposed to envy and reproach, and sure of nothing but the comfort of an honest heart.' It had first been suggested that Fox should be Secretary of State to make Newcastle's elevation more palatable to his opponents. But 'that for certain reasons did not take place; upon which the King himself, of his own motion declared Sir Thomas Robinson Secretary of State.' And this Pitt's friends thought the best practicable arrangement. For though an excellent man for the office, Robinson had not Parliamentary talents which could excite jealousy, and as, from circumstances deeply lamented by Newcastle, 'it was impossible to put one into that office who had all the necessary qualifications both within and out of the House,' there seemed nothing better to do than to appoint the inoffensive Sir Thomas. All interspersed with copious assurances of love and affection. 'I honour, esteem, and ... most sincerely love you.'[244]
Pitt replies to Newcastle in a letter which it is necessary to print in full from the original in the Newcastle Papers, for this is very different from the draft printed in the Chatham Correspondence.
Pitt to Newcastle.
Bath, 4 Apr. 1754.
My Lord Duke,—I was honour'd with your Grace's letter of ye 2nd inst. yesterday evening. How shall I find words to express my sense of the great condescension and kindness of expression with which it is writ? It would be making but an ill return to so much goodness, were I to go back far into the disagreeable subject that has occasion'd your Grace so much trouble, and wou'd be tearing and wounding your good nature to little purpose. Whatever my sensations are, it is sufficient that I have once freely laid them before you, and that your Grace has had the indulgence to pardon that freedom, which I thought I used both to your Grace and myself. As for the rest, my attachment shall be ever found as unalterable to Government as my inability to be of any material use to it is become manifest to all the world. I will enter again, but for a word or two, into a subject your Grace shall be troubled no more with. It is most obliging to suggest as consolations to me that I might have been much more mortify'd under another management than under the present: but I will freely own I shou'd have felt myself far less personally humiliated, had Mr. Fox been placed by the King's favour at the head of the House of Commons, than I am at present: in that case the necessity wou'd have been apparent: the ability of the subject wou'd in some degree have warranted the thing. I shou'd indeed have been much mortify'd for your Grace and for my Lord Chancellor: very little for my own particular. Cou'd Mr. Murray's situation have allow'd him to be placed at the head of the House of Commons, I shou'd have served under him with the greatest pleasure: I acknowledge as much as the rest of the world do his superiority in every respect. My mortification arises not from silly pride, but from being evidently excluded by a negative personal to me (now and for ever) flowing from a displeasure utterly irremovable. As to the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer, I hope your Grace cannot think me fill'd with so impertinent a vanity as to imagine it a disparagement to me to serve under the Duke of Newcastle at the head of the Treasury: but, my Lord, had I been proposed for that honour and the King been once reconciled to the thought of me, my honour wou'd have been saved and I shou'd with pleasure have declin'd the charge in favour of Mr. Legge from a just regard to his Majesty's service. I know my health, at best, is too precarious a thing to expose his Majesty's affairs in Parliament to suffer delay, perhaps in the middle of a session by being in such improper hands. As to the other great office, many circumstances of it render an uninterrupted health not so absolutely necessary to the discharge of it. Were I to fail in it from want of health, or, what is still more likely, from want of ability and a sufficient knowledge of foreign affairs, a fitter person might at any time be substituted without material inconvenience to publick business. To conclude, my Lord, and to release your Grace from a troublesome correspondent, give me leave to recur to your Grace's equity and candour: when the suffrage of the party in one instance, and a higher nomination, the Royal designation in another, operate to the eternal precluding of a man's name being so much as brought in question, what reasonable wish can remain for a man so circumstanced (under a first resolution, on no account to disturb Government) but that of a decent retreat, a retreat of respect, not resentment: of despair of being ever accepted to equal terms with others, be his poor endeavours ever so zealous. Very few have been the advantages and honours of my life: but among the first of them I shall ever esteem the honour of your Grace's good opinion: to that good opinion and protection I recommend myself: and hope from it that some retreat, neither disagreeable nor dishonourable, may (when practicable) be open'd to me. I see with great joy Sr George Lyttelton and Mr. Grenville in this arrangement, where they ought to be. I am persuaded they will be of the greatest advantage to your Grace's system. They are both connected in friendship with Mr. Legge and with Mr. Murray, who in effect is the greatest strength of it in parliament. May every kind of satisfaction and honour attend your Grace's labours for his Majesty's service. I have the honour, etc. etc.
W. Pitt.
I wrote your Grace by the Post ye 2nd inst. which I hope came to your hands.'[245]
Two days afterwards he answered Hardwicke. In this letter the notable passage is that in which he points to retreat, having in his mind, it would seem, some specific office:—'The weight of irremovable royal displeasure is a load too great to move under; it must crush any man; it has sunk and broken me. I succumb, and wish for nothing but a decent and innocent retreat.... To speak without a figure I will presume ... to tell my utmost wish; it is that a retreat, not void of advantage or derogatory to the rank of the office I hold, might, as soon as practicable, be opened to me.... Out of his Grace's (Newcastle's) immediate province accommodations of this kind arise.'[246]
By the same messenger Pitt wrote to Lyttelton one of the terse notes which throw a hundredfold more light on his real temper than his more pompous lucubrations, and which are infinitely more readable than the long rigmaroles which he wrote to official persons. He professes in this to be more than satisfied with Newcastle's answer, and also with the Chancellor's.
... The Duke of Newcastle's letter to me is not only in a temper very different from what you saw his Grace in, but is writ with a condescension, and in terms so flattering, that it pains me. I am almost tempted to think there is kindness at the bottom of it, which, if left to itself, would before now have shewed itself in effects. If I have not the fruit, I have the leaves of it in abundance; a beautiful foliage of fine words.... The Chancellor's letter is the most condescending, friendly, obliging thing that can be imagined. I have the deepest sense of his goodness for me; but I am really compelled, by every reason fit for a man to listen to, to resist (as to the point of activity in Parliament) farther than I like to do. I have intimated retreat and pointed out such a one in general as I shall really like. Resolved not to disturb Government; I desire to be released from the oar of Parliamentary drudgery. I am (un)willing[247] to sit there and be ready to be called out into action when the Duke of Newcastle's personal interests might require, or Government should deign to employ me as an instrument. I am not fond of making speeches (though some may think I am). I never cultivated the talent, but as an instrument of action in a country like ours....[248]
The places were now all filled: the Government was made up: Pitt was excluded and proscribed. Fox or Murray, he admitted, might reasonably be put over his head. But the promotion of Robinson was a personal outrage. So he would no longer sit in Parliament as a subordinate and almost a creature of Newcastle's, member for one of his boroughs, Paymaster in his administration. Pitt was now determined to be free. He would remain out of London, and they might see how they got on without him. When he did return to London they should realise what they had lost. Meanwhile he would occupy himself with a little architecture and a little gardening; all that he was fit for, as he would assure inquirers with obsequious sarcasm.