William Pitt and national revival

by J. Holland Rose

My dear Lord,

I have not half time [sic] to thank you sufficiently for your very kind and affectionate letter, and for the communication thro’ Grenville. You will learn from him that our last accounts begin to wear rather a more favourable aspect, tho’ there is not yet ground for very confident hope. There is certainly now no danger to his life, but the other alternative, which there was some danger to apprehend, was, if possible, more distressing. It seems now possible that a total recovery may take place, but even on the best supposition there must still be a considerable interval of anxiety....

Grenville, a man of singularly calm and equable temperament (which procured for him the Speakership of the House of Commons on the decease of Cornwall early in the next year) waxed indignant as he described to his brother the tactics of the Opposition. On 20th November he declared: “The Opposition have been taking inconceivable pains to spread the idea that his [the King’s] disorder is incurable. Nothing can exceed Warren’s indiscretion on this subject.”[648] The conviction gained ground that the Royal physicians were in league with the Prince; and so high did feeling run that shouts were flung at them—“So much the worse for you if he does not recover.” This exasperation of spirit waxed apace as the jubilation of the Prince’s friends became insolently patent. Indeed more terrible than the lunacy itself was the spectacle of the intrigues to which it gave rise.

As the reports privately sent to Pitt by the physicians were far from hopeless, he determined to await developments as long as possible before taking any decided step. On 12th November he proposed to the Prince of Wales that Parliament, instead of meeting in the following week, should be adjourned for a fortnight, to which there came a ready assent.[649] On the 17th he asked leave to inform the Prince of what he proposed to do on the meeting of Parliament, but an interview was not accorded. Eight days later the Prince inquired whether he had any proposal to make, but was answered by a polite negative. The uneasy truce between them evidently neared its end.

In his resolve to sift to the bottom the nature of the disease and the probability of a cure, Pitt advised the calling in of his father’s doctor, Addington, and he carried his point. On the 28th and 29th the Prime Minister himself saw the Monarch, who was pleased to see him, referred to questions discussed at their last interview, and showed incoherence chiefly in wandering incessantly from one topic to another,[650] a characteristic of the converse of polite Society, which, if judged severely, would warrant the consignment to Bedlam of half of its most cherished talkers.

All observers are agreed that the King conversed quite rationally at times, as was also the case in the attack of 1804.[651] Pitt therefore resolved to do nothing which would distress the King in the event of his recovery. This it was which led him to decline all idea of a coalition with the Whigs, and to insist on restricting the authority of the Regent in regard to personal matters on which the King laid stress. The removal of the monarch to Kew House seems to have been the wish of the Prince as well as of the Cabinet; and it took place without mishap on 29th November.

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Six days later Parliament re-assembled, and rarely has it had to face problems so novel and delicate. In contrast with other nations, England had been singularly free from the perplexities attendant on a Regency; but now she had to face them in an acute form. The monarch was not unpopular, and his heir was distrusted. Yet it was indisputable that, as Regent, he could choose his own Ministers; and his hatred of Pitt implied the dismissal of that Minister and the triumph of Sheridan, Fox, and the roystering set at Brooks’s. Pitt felt little doubt on this point and calmly prepared to resume his practice at the Bar. The sequel must have been a sharp conflict between the Prince’s friends and the nation; so that the fateful year 1789 would have seen the growth of a political crisis, less complex than that of France, it is true, but fully as serious as that from which the nation was saved by his timely decease in the summer of the year 1830. All this was at stake, and much more. For who shall measure the worth to the nation of the frugal and virtuous life of George III, and who can count up the moral losses inflicted on the national life by his son in his brief ascendancy?

The King’s physicians having been examined by the Privy Council on 3rd December, their evidence was laid before Parliament on the following day. While differing at many points, they agreed that recovery was possible or even probable, but they could not assign a limit of time. Adopting a suggestion of Fox, Pitt moved for the appointment of a Committee of the House for the examination of the physicians. It comprised twenty-one members selected from two lists suggested by the Ministry and the Opposition. The reading out of the final list led to a singular scene. Not much comment was made on the twenty names, but before reading out the last name, Pitt paused for a moment. At once the Opposition raised cries of “Burke.” Still Pitt remained silent. The cries were renewed more loudly. He then very quietly proposed Lord Gower. Burke threw himself back in his seat, crossed his arms violently, and kicked his heels with evident discomposure.[652] The annoyance of the great Irishman was natural, as Pitt had evidently prepared to inflict the slight. The Upper House appointed a similar committee.

The report based on this inquiry was presented by Pitt to the House of Commons on the 10th. It comprised the evidence, not only of the royal physicians, but also of an outsider, the Rev. Dr. Francis Willis who, during twenty-eight years had supervised some 900 cases of lunacy at his residence near Boston. Everyone admitted his success in this trying work, which may be ascribed to the influence of a commanding personality, and the firm and judicious treatment which he substituted for the frequently violent methods then in vogue. He at once pronounced the case far from hopeless; and, if we may trust the stories told of the King and his new physician, there was even at the outset very much of method in the madness. Thus, on being informed that Willis was a clergyman, the patient remarked that he could not approve of his taking to the practice of medicine. This drew from Willis the remark that Christ went about healing the sick, whereupon the retort at once followed—“Yes; but I never heard that he had £700 a year for doing so.” The acuteness of the King’s faculties also appears in his remark that a letter which he had written to the Queen would not reach her, as his recent missive to the Duke of York had not been answered. Thereupon Willis offered to take it himself, and caused great joy to the sufferer by bringing back an affectionate letter in reply.