Lord Chatham, His Early Life and Connections

by Earl of Archibald Philip Primrose Rosebery

CHAPTER XVI.

In the meantime all had been settled by hasty arrangements in London. Owing to Newcastle's overwhelming 'affliction,' Hardwicke tells us that he himself was compelled to step forward as a 'kind of minister ab aratro,' and make the necessary arrangements. A faint offer of the Treasury was made to the Duke of Devonshire, which he wisely declined, and, six days after the death of Pelham, Newcastle, in spite of his overwhelming affliction, was proclaimed his successor. We do not doubt Newcastle's sorrow, for in his own way he loved his brother and had divided his patrimony with him; but it is even more certain that the Chancellor acted as his watch-dog in front of the Treasury. For the Duke, though his timidity was a standing jest, could not bear that any one else should obtain the rich prize which he coveted and dreaded. And, in truth, if that was his view, no one could controvert it, for his power in the House of Commons was obvious and undeniable. The King seems to have made no trouble. He said that he had an open mind, and would be guided by the opinion of the Cabinet as to the nomination of their new chief. The suggestion shocked Hardwicke. 'To poll in a Cabinet Council for his first minister, which should only be settled in his closet, I could by no means digest.' So Hardwicke, with remarkable expedition, took care that the Closet, which was the term used to denote the King's personal apartment and so his personal authority, should pronounce in favour of Newcastle. But the Closet was guided by the Cabinet in spite of Hardwicke's scruples; and the Cabinet, a facile caucus, inspired by Hardwicke himself, represented to the King as its unanimous opinion that Newcastle should be their chief. Horace Walpole tells us that it was 'to the astonishment of all men.' To us it seems the only natural solution. Hardwicke had declared that a peer must be placed at the head of the Treasury. 'That peer must be somebody of great figure and credit in the nation, in whom the Whigs will have great confidence.' He was no doubt painting the figure to represent Newcastle. But who else could it be? Newcastle was the head of the Whigs, the master of Parliament, Secretary of State for a generation, and the brother of the late First Minister. The House of Commons, moreover, consisted mainly of his creatures. His nomination to the premiership was easy and simple enough. But a formidable difficulty at once presented itself. Who should lead the House of Commons? It was not that there was a dearth of capable men; on the contrary, there was a terrible embarrassment of riches; for there were Fox, Pitt, and Murray, all men of the first eminence in their lines. Murray at once let it be known that his views lay in another direction; in any case, he was a Scotsman, which was little recommendation, and suspected of being a Jacobite, which was less. But Fox was on the spot, and, though distracted with anxiety for his child Charles, who lay dangerously ill,[249] prompt, vigilant, and eager. Within a few hours of Pelham's death he had sent three humble messages of apology to Hardwicke, with whom he was on terms of bitter enmity, made energetic advances to Newcastle, and had called at Pitt's London house. Soon afterwards he was closeted with Lord Hartington. It was obvious that no considerations of delicacy would stand in his way. But there were strong prejudices against him. Hardwicke feared his success, for they had quarrelled mortally. He belonged, said the Chancellor, 'to a very narrow clique, many of them of the worst sort.' His claims rested on his abilities, but even more on the friendship of the Duke of Cumberland; perhaps, too, on a presumed pliability.

Pitt was absent, and had the proverbial fate of the absent; he was not merely distant, but could not be moved. He had been nearly a year secluded in the country out of the atmosphere of London and politics. Horace Walpole describes him epigrammatically in a letter written on the stirring day after Pelham's death: 'Pitt has no health, no party, and has what in this case is allowed to operate, the King's negative.' On the other hand, the King had a prepossession for Fox; and the Cabinet, we are told, when it recommended Newcastle, unanimously named Fox as the proper person to be Secretary of State and manager of the House of Commons. What wonder then that Newcastle's choice fell on Fox, who at any rate could not be fobbed off by stories of the King's insurmountable repugnance and who was the favourite of the King's favourite son? The Chancellor sent his son-in-law, Lord Anson, to Fox with an olive-branch. Lady Yarmouth acted as a friendly means of communication between Fox and the King. Lord Hartington acted as the honest broker. Fox was given the management of the House of Commons, with the Secretaryship of State vacant by Newcastle's elevation. He was at once led by Hartington, like a votive lamb, to the Chancellor, with whom a reconciliation was concluded. Thence he was conducted to Newcastle, who received him, we need not doubt, with his customary effusion, probably with a kiss. All went well till the Secret Service money was mentioned. This Newcastle said he should distribute as his brother had done, without telling anybody anything. Then came the question of patronage. That also was to be reserved to Newcastle alone. Lastly, there was the list of nominees for ministerial boroughs at the approaching General Election. This Newcastle also declined to divulge. In the evening Newcastle sent for Hartington. He did not deny that he had broken his engagements, but simply declared that he would not stand by them. He 'confirmed not his promise but his breach of promise in these words: "Who desires Mr. Fox to be answerable for anybody but himself in the House of Commons?" I then,' continues Fox, 'was to take this great office on the footing of being quite a cypher, and being known to have been told so.'[250]

Newcastle had always intended this and nothing else. As Hardwicke judiciously wrote, two days before Newcastle saw Fox: 'If the power of the Treasury, the Secret Service and the House of Commons is once well settled in safe hands, the office of Secretary of State of the Southern province will carry very little efficient power along with it.' Fox was to be Secretary for the Southern province. But the Duke's plan of campaign had the radical defect of making the post of manager impossible. For the difference between the modern term of 'leadership' and the denomination of 'management' was no mere verbal distinction. The House of Commons had to be managed by acts of a kind more material than the eloquence of a chief, or the seductive hints of whips. The leader, in fact, combined the leadership with the office of Patronage Secretary. 'The House of Commons must have,' as Fox explained on a subsequent occasion, 'at least one man in it who shall be the organ of His Majesty's parliamentary wishes, and known to be able to help or hurt people with His Majesty.'[251] The leader would not know how to talk to his followers, when some might be hirelings and some free, without his knowing which were which. He would not be able to promise a borough or a place. He would be a mere speaking automaton with a wary old chief in concealment working the machine. Fox saw that he was cheated. He himself seems to have clung for a moment even to the shadow of office which Newcastle had proffered. But his friends insisted on his refusal. So on the next day or the next day but one, he wrote a curt letter, stating that the assurances conveyed to him through Lord Hartington had been entirely contradicted by Newcastle at their interview, and that he preferred to remain Secretary at War. 'I remain therefore,' he wrote to Marlborough, 'a little little man, which I think is better than a little great man.'[252] But he soon repented, or his friends did for him.[253]

Newcastle cared little for the charge of breach of faith. He had kept his patronage, and, as he thought, silenced Fox, who remained Secretary at War. In a hysterical condition he hurried to kiss hands for his new office. He flung himself at the King's feet, sobbing out 'God bless your Majesty! God preserve your Majesty!' embracing the royal knees with such howls of adoration that the lord-in-waiting had to beg the other courtiers to retire and not watch 'a great man in distress;' then, in the zeal of discretion, attempting to shut the door on the tittering crowd, he jammed the new Minister's foot till genuine roars of physical pain drowned the more artificial clamour.[254] Having recovered himself after this characteristic performance, Newcastle betook himself without delay to the choice of his heart, the man whom he had always longed for as a colleague, even at the time when he had been seeking a successor to Bedford, an obscure diplomatist, Sir Thomas Robinson. 'Had I,' he had written in September 1750, 'to chuse for the King, the public, and myself, I would prefer Sir Thomas Robinson to any man living. I know he knows more and would be more useful to the country and me than any other can be.' This opinion seems to have been confined to the Duke himself. Horace Walpole writing at the moment says:—'The German Sir Thomas Robinson was thought on for the Secretary's seals; but has just sense enough to be unwilling to accept them under so ridiculous an administration. This is the first act of the comedy.' But in the second act Sir Thomas's good sense was unequal even to this strain, and he accepted the post. Under what hallucination he laboured, or whether he was merely beguiled by the fawning caresses of Newcastle, it is difficult to say. The fact remains that he undertook to lead the House of Commons, seated between Pitt and Fox, whom he knew to be malcontents, and capable of anything. His own parliamentary powers were in the egg (for he had never spoken), and were never destined to be hatched. At the time of his appointment as Secretary of State he was Master of the Great Wardrobe, a congenial post which he was destined during the next year to resume. For in his new capacity he justified the anticipations of his enemies, and disturbed the equanimity of his friends. Newcastle himself had recommended the appointment to Pitt's benevolent consideration on the very ground that he could not excite the rivalry of existing orators. He 'had not those parliamentary talents which could give jealousy or in that light set him above the rest of the King's servants.' But the reality was far below these modest anticipations. Sir Thomas was not merely ineffectual and feeble, but would attempt on occasion agonising flights of eloquence. Posterity is spared the perusal of these, for Parliamentary history records no word of this unhappy leader. 'Sir Thomas,' says Lord Waldegrave, 'though a good Secretary of State, as far as the business of his office and that which related to foreign affairs, was ignorant even of the language of an House of Commons controversy; and when he played the orator, which he too frequently attempted, it was so exceedingly ridiculous that those who loved and esteemed him could not always preserve a friendly composure of countenance.' This partly arose from his appearance. He was a large unwieldy man, and would in debate put his arms straight out, which made George Selwyn compare him to a signpost.[255]

Such was Sir Thomas; who was to allay the warring elements, to appease the Titans and the Giants, to hold the scales between Fox and Pitt. Let us, while contemplating this grievous and pathetic spectacle, at least take comfort that we have arrived at the priceless narrative of Lord Waldegrave, a man not brilliant, but shrewd and honest, who guides us past the waspish partiality of Horace Walpole, the bitterness of Glover, and the corrupt cynicism of Dodington with a light which we feel to be the lamp of truth. Newcastle, delighted with the consent of Sir Thomas, and with the apparent acquiescence of Fox, hastened to complete his arrangements with the squalid instinct of a jobber. Fox was, he thought, muzzled; the formidable task remained of silencing Pitt. He could not satisfy Pitt directly, for that would imply overwhelming difficulties with the King, and perhaps with Fox; but he might give indirect satisfaction, and detach some of Pitt's little section. In this last attempt he succeeded. Pitt's friend Legge was made Chancellor of the Exchequer, the King only making the same condition that he had with regard to Pitt himself, that he was never to receive the new minister. It is said, indeed, by Horace Walpole that his mean appearance and uncouth dialect made him unsuitable for such audiences, and that he would have preferred to remain Treasurer of the Navy, the lucrative post which had so great a fascination for Bubb. George Grenville, one of the Cobham Cousinhood, succeeded Legge in this attractive office; George Lyttelton, another, became Cofferer, with his brother as Sub-Cofferer; 'it is a good £2200 per annum, all taxes deducted,'[256] writes George of his new post in the fulness of his heart; and, according to Horace Walpole, in the exuberance of his satisfaction with that office, he vouched for Pitt's acquiescence in the new arrangements. Newcastle himself presented these appointments to Pitt with a satisfaction not unalloyed with melancholy presentiments. 'The appointment of Mr. Legge was made,' he writes, 'with a view to please all our friends. We knew he was well with the old corps, we knew he was happy in your friendship, and in your good opinion and in that of your connection; and you must allow me to say, that I never could have thought one moment of removing you, in the high light which you so justly stand, from the office you now possess to be Chancellor of the Exchequer with another person at the head of the Treasury.'[257]

It is perhaps scarcely necessary to explain that the italics are not the Duke's, but it seemed necessary to give emphasis to so daring a flight.

'These dispositions being thus made,' he continues, 'it was my first view to show you that regard in the person of your friends, which it was impossible to do in your own, to the degree which you might reasonably expect. The two first vacant offices, that of Treasurer of the Navy and Cofferer, were by my recommendation given to your two first friends, Mr. Grenville and Sir George Lyttelton,' etc. etc. 'Legge at the Exchequer, unsuitable for you, two of your friends as Cofferer and Treasurer'; these were the sedatives timidly launched to Pitt, gnashing his teeth at Bath over his own impotence and the desertion of his friends. So may a despairing traveller have attempted to assuage with a few casual comfits the hunger of a Bengal tiger crouching for a spring.