Fox, whose accession to the leadership was said to have inspired Murray with courage, must have watched with gloomy forebodings the figure set up in the Exchequer to face the lightnings of Pitt. The most that he could hope was that it would act as an efficient conductor. Yet Fox needed all the strength that he could muster. For no one despised his chief more than he, or had a greater respect for the powers of his rival.
It should further be noted that this ministry had a luckless connection which made it known as 'the Duke's ministry'; for it had been formed under the auspices and at the recommendation of the disastrous Cumberland. 'Never,' says Almon, 'was an administration more unpopular and odious.'
War had now been declared between the Government and Pitt, who now certainly had the latent countenance of the Heir Apparent, or of the clique who represented the Heir Apparent; and there was no delay in coming to blows. The very day after Pitt's dismissal, Welbore Ellis, a Lord of the Admiralty, who was destined to live on as a Nestor inNov. 21, 1755. politics and be made a peer by Pitt's son, moved for 50,000 seamen, mentioning that the peace establishment was 40,000. It was a formal motion, and members were leaving the House, when they were recalled by the awful tones of Pitt, declaring that he shuddered at hearing that our naval resources were so narrowed. He recalled his former protest in 1751 against reduction. He would hunt down the authors of these disastrous measures which made the King's crown totter on his head. This noble country of ours was being ruined by the silly pride of one man and the subservience of his colleagues, and some day we should have to answer for it; unless already overwhelmed by some catastrophe brought about by France, our hereditary enemy. All this trouble arose from the petty struggle for power. What power was it that was sought, what kind of power, was it only that of doing good? On an English question like this he would not impede unanimity but implore it; he would ask favours in such a cause of any minister, would have gone that morning to Fox's first levee to ask him to accept 50,000 men besides marines. (The vote asked for was for 50,000 men, including 9113 marines.) If that could be obtained it would be the first thing done for this country since the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. He obscurely intimated charges of treachery and collusion. And now, he added, shame and danger had come together. He himself had been alarmed by intelligence on the highest authority. These terrors had been communicated to the House, which was willing to grant the King any assistance for any English object. But there was an essential difference between the ministry and that House. The ministry thought of everything but the public interest; the House was ready to afford everything for it. The House, he added mysteriously, was a fluctuating body, but he hoped would be eternal; and he concluded with a prayer for the King, with his royal posterity, and for this 'poor, forlorn, distressed country.'
It is not always easy to trace the sequence of Pitt's speeches in Walpole's notes, nor is it possible to tell whether the confusion is due to the oration or the notes. The notes were probably made during the debate with the intention of filling in the outlines while recollection was still fresh; an intention which, as is usual with such intentions, was, it may be safely surmised, never carried out. But we are inclined to attribute obscurity in the main to the abrupt rhapsodical transitions of Pitt's speeches. They require, as reported by Walpole, almost as much interpretation as Cromwell's. In this one we discern great court paid to the House of Commons, so hostile to himself; unrelenting scorn of the Government; and bitter emphasis on British as opposed to Hanoverian interests. The peroration as barely reported seems below the level of a debating society. But, then, we must remember that no fervent and exalted apostrophe, prolonged as this probably was, can be adequately transmitted in a naked sentence, or perhaps in any conceivable report.
Fox replied with admirable temper, a self-control all the more laudable and noted because of his usual impetuousness. He took up Pitt's sneer at petty struggles for power. What the motives of these struggles for power had been let those tell who had struggled most and longest for power. They had been told that nobody round the King had sense or virtue, that sense and virtue resided somewhere else. How was the King to know where they are to be found? for he feared that this House of Commons would not point in the required direction. He ended by asking why Pitt had not asked sooner for his augmentation of force.
This called up Pitt again, who denied that he had ever asserted that there were no sense and virtue near the Throne. No man had ever suffered so much as himself from those stilettoes of a Court which assassinate the fair repute of a man with his Sovereign. The insinuation of his having struggled for power had been received by the House with so much approval, that he must take notice of the charge. Had he yielded to the poor and sordid measures which are ruining the country he might, no doubt, have been admitted to the confidence of the Closet. Then, carried by anger beyond the facts, he went further, and said that as he was not prepared then to enter into the details of the private transactions of a whole summer, he would only say that he might have had what Fox had accepted. Unfortunately for himself, however, the measures contemplated were so disastrous that his conscience and his honour had forbidden him to support them; though he would have strained conscience a little, perhaps, to be admitted to the confidence of the King. No, it was not failure in the struggle for power that was the cause of his exclusion from office. Was it not that he would not approve of the Russian and Hessian treaties? He challenged a denial.
Fox rose in reply, and said that he was ready to forget what Pitt had said about the lack of sense and virtue near the Throne.
Pitt, evidently beside himself with wrath, interrupted him, and said he rose to order, and, on that long-suffering plea, delivered another long speech. The phrase about sense and virtue, he declared on his honour, was none of his. What he said was that France would found her hopes on the want of sense, understanding, and virtue in those that govern here. Fox's modesty appeared to have taken these words to himself; but he had not put him right sooner, as the statement of the plain truth would sooner or later be sufficient. He would remind that gentleman of certain efforts which had been made (alluding to their brief coalition against Newcastle) to limit the power at which he had hinted. As to invective, he was not fond of employing it, but no man feared it less than himself. He was, however, complimentary to Fox; would, though no betting man, back his sense and spirit; believed that we should get some information from abroad now that he was in power; but could not treat him as the minister, for that he was not yet.
'But[307] he asks why I did not call out sooner. My calling out was more likely to defeat than promote. When I remonstrated for more seamen, I was called an enemy to Government: now I am told that I want to strew the King's pillow with thorns: am traduced, aspersed, calumniated from morning to night. I would have warned the King: did he? If he with his sense and spirit had represented to the King the necessity of augmentation, it would have been made—but what! if there is any man so wicked—don't let it be reported that I say there is—as to procrastinate the importing troops from Ireland, in order to make subsidiary forces necessary.[308] This whole summer I have been looking for Government. I saw none. Thank God, His Majesty was not here. The trade of France has been spared sillily, there has been dead stagnation. Orders contradicting one another were the only symptoms of spirit. When His Majesty returned, his kingdom was delivered back to him more like a wreck than as a vessel able to stem the storm. Perhaps a little sustentation of life to the country will be obtained by a wretched peace. These are my sentiments, and when a man has truth on his side, he is not to be overborne by quick interrogatories. It may be presumed, and indeed confidently hoped, that this was not Pitt's actual speech, though Walpole gives it as the very words. They are probably only heads. He continued with softening expressions to Fox. Want of virtue was the characteristic not merely of the Government but of the age. He himself was glad to show a zeal not inferior to that of ministers; let them show him how to serve the King, and then let them, if they could, tax him with strewing the royal pillow with thorns. But what were their own services? Murray indeed had boasted that 140,000 of the best troops in Europe were provided for the defence of—what? of Hanover. But what of England? What of the Colonies? Compare the countries, compare the forces destined for the defence of each! Two miserable battalions of Irish, who scarcely ever saw one another, had been sent to America as to the shambles. If his comparison of forces for Hanover and for the Empire was exaggerated, he would be glad to be told his error.
Fox kept his temper, and remained on the defensive. He not unnaturally commented on the disorderliness of Pitt's speech to order. He did not 'on his honour' know what was the offer which Pitt had rejected. He himself had waited till everybody had refused, passing the summer at Holland House, as happy as any man in Parliament. He was in favour of the subsidies, and when that was known he was told 'Then support them'; and so he did. When his opinion changed he should leave office. He wished all evil might befall him if he had injured Pitt with the King, for he thought nothing so dishonourable as to accuse a man where he could not defend himself.