William Pitt and national revival

by J. Holland Rose

The figure of Edmund Burke belongs rather to the sphere of literature and political philosophy than to that of political action. Great in thought and great in his powers of oratory, he yet failed to impress the House of Commons, or the public at large; his speeches were too ornate, too overburdened with learning and reasoning, to please an audience that is plain, practical, and apt to be impressed more by the speaker himself than by the fullness of his arguments or the beauty of his style. In a word, Burke lacked the indefinable gift which Chatham, Fox, and Mirabeau so abundantly possessed—that of personality. His figure had not the forceful massiveness of that of Fox, and it wanted the dignity of the younger Pitt. Moreover his voice was harsh, and his action clumsy. His philosophic love of wedding facts to principles often led him to soar to heights where the question at issue appeared like a speck and votes a vulgar impertinence. Worst fault of all, his speeches were far too long. The fullness and richness which delights us to-day then had the effect of emptying the House. The result of it all was the decline of his influence and the increase of his irritability, Celtic vivacity leading him more than once shrilly to chide friends who sought to pull him back to his seat. These failings, together with the number of his impecunious relatives, probably explain why he never attained to Cabinet rank. In a subordinate office in the year 1783 he showed signal want of tact and discernment. Thus, in contrasting the effect produced by the perusal of his great orations with that which gained him the nickname of the dinner-bell of the House, one is reminded of the truth of the bitter line levelled at him by Goldsmith:

And to party gave up what was meant for mankind.

The other group, which rivalled the official Whigs in the zeal of its opposition to Lord North, was that of the former followers of Chatham. They had neither organization nor a programme; but in general they inherited the imperial sentiments and non-partisan traditions of that great leader. They were less eager than the Rockingham group for parliamentary reform and the limiting of the royal prerogative; but, like the Girondins of the French Revolution, the indefiniteness of their aims left much liberty of action to their following; and Pitt, who naturally attached himself to this group, rivalled Fox in his zeal for Reform, both economic and parliamentary.

The leader of the Chathamites was the Earl of Shelburne, who had been driven into opposition by the arbitrary conduct of the King at the time of the Wilkes affair. The estimates of his character are very diverse. Burke wrote of him privately in 1783 as “this wicked man, and no less weak and stupid than false and hypocritical,” his chief crime being that of breaking in pieces the Whig party. Few persons would have gone so far as the vehement Irishman, who, on these lower levels, allowed party passion to dull his eagle glance. Shelburne was one of the grands seigneurs and political thinkers of the time. Polite and courtly, he dazzled men by the splendour of his hospitality. In his library he shone as a scholar and philosopher, and his conversation was the index of his keen and supple intellect. In public life he showed that he never lacked courage. Yet there was always something wanting about Shelburne. His speech and manner passed so quickly and easily from the affable to the severe as to beget feelings of distrust. His enemies accused him of duplicity and dubbed him Malagrida, a well-known Portuguese Jesuit.[95]

We may note here that Pitt either shared or deferred to the general feeling about Shelburne when he omitted him from his Cabinet in December 1783.

Some of the specific charges against Shelburne (and most of them are vague) have vanished now that the mists of passion, amidst which he ever moved, have cleared away.[96] It is the lot of some men to arouse undeserved dislike or distrust, owing to unfortunate mannerisms. Yet it is certain that England owes much to the earl. He was one of the first to espouse the Free Trade principles of Adam Smith; he was chiefly responsible for the terms of peace of 1782–3; and the admiration of Benjamin Franklin for him largely conduced to the signature of the preliminaries with the United States. Posterity has therefore accorded to him a far higher place than was allowed by the jealousy or pettiness of his contemporaries. Such was the leader to whom Pitt attached himself.

On 25th January 1781 Shelburne protested manfully against the overbearing conduct of our Government in ordering the capture of Dutch merchantmen before the outbreak of war, and inveighed against the policy of the Ministry as fatal to liberty and to the welfare of the Empire. Finally he declared that the tactics of Government had proved that the conquest of the American colonies, if it could be accomplished, would entail fatal results at home; that he would be better pleased to see his country free, though curtailed in power and wealth, than acquiring greatness, if greatness were to be purchased at the expense of her constitution and liberty. The speech rang true to the traditions of Chatham; and it awoke responsive echoes in the breast of his son.[97]

Within the space of five weeks Pitt proved that his support was of the highest value. In a maiden speech, which perhaps bears away the palm from the first efforts of the greatest orators of all time, he gave proof of those astonishing powers which nature seemed to have implanted in a state of maturity. Practice and experience were to perfect them; but they then left on all his hearers an impression of wonder as at something almost supernatural in a youth of twenty-one years. This feeling was all the more natural as the speech dealt with economic subjects, which Wilberforce regarded as “of a low and vulgarizing quality.”[98]

We must pause here to notice that the topic of economy was at that time of burning interest. On the whole it excited more general attention than the subject of parliamentary reform. In fact the latter was insisted on by practical men mainly with the view of stopping the frightful waste that resulted from sinecures, jobs, and other forms of corruption in the public service. Rigid doctrinaires like Major Cartwright might dilate on the heaven-born right of every man to have a vote, or depict the beauty of an electoral system which enlisted the virtuous energies of every citizen and called on him to renew Parliament every year, that being the natural time of renewal of all things.[99] A still stiffer theorist, Jebb, might go further and insist on the election of a new Parliament for each session. Together they might call for the ballot, equal electoral areas, and payment of members. Yet their arguments would have fallen on deaf ears but for the strain of war taxes, the dullness of trade, and the blunderings of placemen high in office. When London, Bristol, and Yorkshire felt the pinch of hard times, national expenditure became a matter of the most urgent concern.

It was in support of Burke’s proposals for the better regulation of the King’s Civil List and for abolishing several sinecures that Pitt made his maiden speech in the House (26th February 1781). At once he lifted the subject to a high level. The measure, he said, would have come with more grace, and with more benefit to the public service, had it sprung from the royal breast. Ministers ought themselves to have proposed it, thereby showing that His Majesty desired to participate in the suffering of the Empire.