CHAPTER XIX.
This blank though important space in the life of Pitt himself seems favourable for picking up a few threads which had to be dropped in the narrative of his negotiations with Newcastle.
After the baiting to which Robinson had been subjected in the first days of the session he disappeared from debate; and Fox, then in close negotiation for a seat in the Cabinet, represented the Government in the Commons, and turned a deaf ear to the proposal that he should join Pitt in a combined attack on Newcastle. Fox's game, it will be seen, was not calculated to win the confidence of Pitt, to whom, however, during the session, he showed marked courtesy on the one hand, while negotiating with the Duke on the other.
Feb. 26, 1755.
The Lord Advocate had introduced a Bill continuing for a further period the provisions passed after the rising of 1745 which had temporarily placed the tenure of sheriff-deputyships at the King's pleasure instead of for life as before. This seems to have raised an animated debate, memorable to us as having produced two fine speeches from Pitt, which Horace Walpole alone mentions, and of which he gives a spirited sketch. It is only possible to give Walpole's record in his own words, as there is no other. Pitt spoke in answer to Murray (who, by-the-by, speaking in defence of the Bill, had said that there was not a single Jacobite left in Scotland) 'with great fire, in one of his best worded and most spirited declarations for liberty, but which, like others of his fine orations, cannot be delivered adequately without his own language; nor will they appear so cold to the reader, as they even do to myself, when I attempt to sketch them, and cannot forget with what soul and grace they were uttered. He did not directly oppose, but wished rather to send the Bill to the Committee, to see how it could be amended. He was glad that Murray would defend the King, only with a salve to the rights of the Revolution; he commended his abilities, but tortured him on his distinctions and refinements. He himself had more scruples; it might be a Whig delicacy—but even that is a solid principle. He had more dread of arbitrary power dressing itself in the long robe, than even of military power. When master principles are concerned, he dreaded accuracy of distinction: he feared that sort of reasoning: if you class everything, you will soon reduce everything into a particular; you will then lose great general maxims. Gentlemen may analyse a question till it is lost. If I can show him, says Murray, that it is not my Lord Judge, but Mr. Judge, I have got him into a class. For his part, could he be drawn to violate liberty, it should be regnandi causâ, for this King's reigning. He would not recur for precedents to the diabolic divans of the second Charles and James; he did not date his principles of the liberty of this country from the Revolution; they are eternal rights; and when God said, "let justice be justice," He made it independent. The Act of Parliament that you are going to repeal is a proof of the importance of the Sheriffs-depute: formerly they were instruments of tyranny. Why is this attempted? is it to make Mr. Pelham more regretted? He would have been tender of cramming down the throats of the people what they are averse to swallow. Whig and Minister were conjuncts he always wished to see. He deprecated (sic) those, who had more weight than himself in the Administration, to drop this; or besought that they would take it for any term that may comprehend the King's life; for seven years, for fourteen, though he was not disposed to weigh things in such golden scales.' The reader must make of this what he will.
Fox said 'that he was undetermined, and would reserve himself for the Committee; that he only spoke now, to show it was not crammed down his throat; which was in no man's power to do. That in the Committee he would be free, which he feared Pitt had not left it in his own power to be, so well he had spoken on one side. That he reverenced liberty and Pitt, because nobody could speak so well on its behalf.'[292]
The Bill came up again a few days afterwards, and we find Pitt again attacking it, and Fox apparently evading a contest with him. We are once more thrown back on Walpole's account. 'Pitt talked on the harmony of the day, and wished that Fox had omitted anything that looked like levity on this great principle. That the Ministry giving up the durante benè placito was an instance of moderation. That two points of the Debate had affected him with sensible pleasure—the admission that judicature ought to be free, and the universal zeal to strengthen the King's hands. That liberty was the best loyalty; that giving extraordinary powers to the Crown was so many repeals of the Act of Settlement. Fox said shortly, that if he had honoured the fire of liberty, he now honoured the smoke.'[293]
These arguments are not easy to follow, so the only faithful course seems to be to give the actual record.