William Pitt and national revival

by J. Holland Rose

The gauntlet thus defiantly flung down was taken up with spirit by Fox and Burke, who even ventured to threaten with impeachment the Secretary for the Colonies, Germain, and the First Lord of the Admiralty, the Earl of Sandwich. This was unfair. They were little more than puppets moved by the King; and he was responsible ultimately for the bad condition of the army and navy, and was sole cause for the continuance of the war. No one imagined (so Romilly wrote on 4th December 1781) that the war would go on after the disaster at Yorktown.[117]

In the ensuing debates on the King’s speech, Pitt made an effective attack on Ministers, upbraiding them with the inconsistency of their statements and the obscurity in which they shrouded their plans. For himself, with his profound conviction as to the need of promptly terminating the war, he adjured them to state clearly what line of conduct they meant to pursue. This last challenge went home because the language of Ministers was openly inconsistent, that of the Lord Advocate, Dundas, being hardly different from the views held by the Opposition. In fact it was now said that there were three parties on the Government benches—the King’s, Lord North’s, and that of Dundas, shading off from war à outrance to something like conciliation with America.

Nevertheless, the House (as Fox wrote in his Journal) was “tenacious of places and pensions,” and at first supported the Government by substantial majorities; but a typical placeman like Selwyn wrote early in December that if the measures and conduct of the Ministry were not changed, they were completely undone. Nervousness about his sinecure made the wit a true prophet. Not only was the majority breaking into groups, but the Opposition was acting well together. This again was a result of the Yorktown disaster. Only a few days previously, Shelburne, the leader of the Chathamites, had in vain proposed to the official chief of the Whigs, Rockingham, that they should unite their followers, so that there should be but two parties, “that of the Crown and that of the people.”

Now, however, as victory came in sight, the Opposition closed its ranks, while the once serried phalanx of placemen opposite began to split up from sheer panic. During this interesting time Pitt made another speech, which won high encomiums from Horace Walpole for its “amazing logical abilities.” Equally notable was the alertness which fastened on a slight incident. In the midst of his tirade against the inconsistencies of Ministers, North and Germain began to whisper together, while that wary little placeman, Welbore Ellis, who was between them, bent down his head to listen. At once Pitt exclaimed: “I will wait until the unanimity is a little better restored. I will wait until the Nestor of the Treasury has reconciled the difference between the Agamemnon and the Achilles of the American War.”[118]

Little by little Lord North’s majority dwindled away. It sank to a single vote on 22nd February 1782, when General Conway brought forward a motion for the termination of the war. On the renewal of the motion five days later, the House, amidst a scene of great excitement, declared against North by 234 votes to 215. The Ministry, under pressure from the King, held on for a few days, and, on 8th March, even defeated a vote of censure by a majority of ten.

Pitt, who was one of the tellers for the minority, had startled the House, in the course of a fighting speech, by the following notable words: “For myself, I could not expect to form part of a new administration; but, were my doing so more within my reach, I would never accept a subordinate situation.” On the authority of Admiral Keppel, his neighbour in the House, he is said to have repented immediately of this declaration, and to have wished to rise and explain or mitigate it. If so, the feeling must surely have been only momentary. Pitt, as we have seen, was essentially methodical. His feelings, his words, even his lightest jests, were always completely under control. It is therefore impossible to regard so important a statement as due to the whim of the moment, or to the exaggeration of which a nervous or unskilful speaker is often guilty. Still less can we believe that he seriously intended to explain away his words. So weak an action would have been wholly repugnant to another of his characteristics—pride. The declaration was probably the outcome of his unwavering self-confidence and of a belief that any Ministry which could be formed must be short lived.

If so, his conduct was well suited to bring him to the front at a time more opportune than the present. It was inconceivable that a monarch so masterful and skilled in intrigue as George III should long submit to be controlled by the now victorious Whig families, whose overthrow had been his chief aim. To foment the schisms in their ranks, and shelve them at the first possible time was an alternative far preferable to that of retiring to Hanover—a suggestion which he once more threw out to Lord North. When the struggle between Crown and Commons had come to its second phase, it would be time for a young member to take a leading place.

A crisis became imminent forthwith, on the House passing a declaration that it would “consider as enemies to His Majesty and to this country all who should advise or by any means attempt the further prosecution of offensive war on the continent of America.” By this Act the Commons reasserted their undoubted right of controlling the prerogative of the Crown even in the question of peace or war.[119] The declaration was a preliminary to impeachment of Ministers in case they still persisted in defying the House.

It also led the King, on 11th March, to send his champion, the Chancellor, Lord Thurlow, to consult with Lord Rockingham. The leader of the official Whigs knew that he had the game in his hands, and sought to dictate the conditions on which alone he would form an administration. They were as follows: “American Independence; no Veto; Establishment Bill; great parts of Contractors Bill; Custom House and Excise, etc., Bill; Peace in general, if possible; Economy in every branch.”[120] The King demurred to these terms, and after eight days the overture lapsed. Meanwhile Lord North’s position in the House was becoming intolerable, and on 20th March he announced the resignation of his Ministry. On going to take leave of the King, he was greeted by the following characteristic words: “Remember, my Lord, that it is you who desert me, not I you.”

Most sovereigns would now have accepted defeat. But George III was no less dogged of will than ingenious in finding a way of escape. He had one chance left. Beside the official Whig families, headed by Rockingham, there were the Chathamites, led by Shelburne, who occupied an intermediate position not easy to define. Like most political groups which profess to be above party, they had succeeded in forming another party. They differed from the Whigs in not desiring to see the royal prerogative shorn of power, as it had been under the first two Georges to the advantage of the old governing families. In foreign and colonial affairs they aimed at the triumph of a truly national policy, which, while furthering the cause of freedom, also made for the greatness of the Empire. Even amidst his protests against the continuance of the war, Shelburne raised his voice, as Chatham had done, against a complete severance of the tie uniting the colonies to the motherland.[121] These opinions seem to us now unpractical in view of the existing state of things. Certainly, if we may judge by the speeches of William Pitt, he had overshot the limits of the Chathamite traditions which his chief still observed.