William Pitt and national revival

by J. Holland Rose

Pitt then warned the Commons that the forces of corruption might soon be found to be as strong as ever. Though they had grown with our growth, they had not decayed with our decay. For years they had maintained in power a Ministry which had worked ruin to the Empire. Finally, he referred to the opinion of his father on this great subject and besought members to satisfy the longings now widely expressed throughout the kingdom, which must carry the matter to a triumphant issue. His speech was loudly cheered. The able orations of Fox and Sheridan also seemed to carry the House with them; but, as in former cases, the undercurrent of self-interest worked potently against Reform, and ensured the rejection of Pitt’s proposal by 161 votes to 141. The country gentlemen were alarmed at his motion, the opposition of Pitt’s relative, Thomas Pitt, being especially strong.

Probably it was a tactical mistake for Pitt, a private member, to bring forward such a motion. If he had waited until the Ministry had so far prevailed over its external difficulties and internal dissensions as to be able to take up the question, his support might have ensured the triumph of the Government proposals. As it was, the misgivings of the cautious, the vested interests of nominee members, the embarrassments of the Ministry, and the opposition of the old Whig families, doomed to failure his second effort in this direction. Not for the space of forty-eight years was so favourable an opportunity to recur; and then it was a new Industrial England which burst through the trammels of an old-world representation.

Undaunted by this rebuff, he spoke on 17th May in favour of the motion of a veteran reformer, Alderman Sawbridge, for shortening the duration of Parliaments. Only one of his arguments has come down to us, namely his contention that the Septennial Act placed undue influence in the hands of Ministers, as appeared from the strenuous opposition which the enemies of political purity had always offered to the repeal of that measure. Fox spoke for the motion; but Burke, who had been persuaded to absent himself from the earlier debate, now let loose the vials of his wrath against a Reform of Parliament in whatever shape it came. Sheridan describes him as attacking Pitt “in a scream of passion,” with the assertion that Parliament was just what it ought to be, and that all change would be fatal to the welfare of the nation.

Burke’s diatribe prepares us for the part which he played during the French Revolution. The man who discerned perfection in a Parliamentary system, in which Scotland had only 4,000 voters and 45 members, while 19 Cornish villages returned 38 members; in which the Duke of Norfolk could put in 11 members, and the Nabob of Arcot 7 or 8, while Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, and Birmingham remained politically dumb—such a man might well regard the French revolutionists as “the ablest architects of ruin” that the world had ever seen. His tirade against short Parliaments carried the House with him, the motion being rejected by a majority of 88.

It is interesting to find Pitt taking part at a meeting of friends of Reform at the Thatched House Tavern (18th May 1782), which seems to have been held under the auspices of Major Cartwright’s “Society for Promoting Constitutional Information.” The Duke of Richmond, Lord Mahon, Sir Cecil Wray, and the Lord Mayor were present. A motion was passed urging the need of petitioning Parliament for “a substantial reformation of the Commons House of Parliament”; and the minutes of the meeting were in Pitt’s handwriting. He was then in correspondence with John Frost, an attorney of Percy Street, who was secretary for the Middlesex Reform Committee; and in the second letter the young statesman refers to some honour which that committee proposed to confer on him for his efforts on their behalf. These facts and Pitt’s letters to Frost were produced by Erskine during his defence of Frost against a charge of sedition early in the Hilary Term 1793.[127] The episode was highly effective and probably ensured the mitigation of Frost’s sentence. The whole incident is noteworthy, as it points the contrast between the earlier and later phases of Pitt’s career which was to be produced by the French Revolution.

Pitt did not speak during the debates on two other measures which alone of all the reformers’ programme passed through Parliament in 1782. They were the Contractors Bill, which, by excluding all contractors from Parliament and disfranchising all revenue officers, dealt a blow at some forms of political corruption.[128] By the other Act several sinecures, with salaries of about £70,000 a year, were swept away. The King exerted his influence against both measures, his man, Lord Thurlow, striving by every means to defeat the former of them in the Lords; while the Economy Bill was shorn of some of its more drastic clauses by the action of Shelburne and Thurlow in Cabinet Councils.

The difficulty of common action was seen during the discussion of a Bill for the repression of bribery at elections (19th June). Pitt spoke in favour of the motion, but, strange to say, Fox opposed it. This was the first occasion on which they voted in opposite lobbies, though there had been no friendship or close intercourse between them. The motion was of course lost.

* * * * *

Their relations were destined quickly to alter, owing to an event which opened another phase of the long struggle between the King and the hostile Whig “phalanx.” On 1st July 1782 the Marquis of Rockingham died. Of small ability, he yet held a conspicuous place in the affairs of State, owing to his vast landed estates, the strength of his political and family connections, and to his high character. At once the King and the “phalanx” girded themselves for the conflict. On the very next day George III offered the Premiership to the Earl of Shelburne, now more than ever inclining to the King’s side. With an openness which did not always characterize him, that Minister at once referred the proposal to his colleagues, only to have it rejected by the official Whigs. Four of Rockingham’s most decided friends in the Cabinet—Fox, the Duke of Richmond, Lord John Cavendish, and Admiral Keppel—demanded that the Duke of Portland should be Prime Minister.[129] Such a proposal was doubly objectionable; first, because the Duke, as then appeared from his conduct at Dublin Castle, had little insight and no strength of character; secondly, because the proposal itself was scarcely constitutional; for the King had, as he still has, the right to select his Prime Minister. Nevertheless, Shelburne consented to refer the proposal to George III, who emphatically rejected it. Thereupon Fox and Lord John Cavendish resigned; Shelburne undertook to form an Administration and offered the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, vacated by Lord John Cavendish, to William Pitt. He at once accepted it.

The other chief changes were that Thomas Townshend (soon to become Lord Sydney) took the Secretaryship of State held by Shelburne, while Fox was succeeded as Secretary for Foreign Affairs by Lord Grantham, and the Duke of Portland, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, by Earl Temple. Burke and Sheridan marked their attachment to the Whigs by resigning their subordinate offices. It was in face of able, eloquent, and exasperated men like these that Pitt took up the burden of office, along with the virtual leadership of the House of Commons, at the age of twenty-three.