Of all the public characters of this devoted country (Mr. Pitt alone excepted) there is not a man who has, or who deserves, the nation’s confidence.—Romilly 21st March 1783.
In politics, as in war, victories sometimes prove to be more disastrous than defeats. When triumph lures a leader on into ever increasing difficulties, he may well rue his seeming good fortune; while, on the other hand, the retreat of his opponents may lessen their responsibilities, and, by enabling them to concentrate, double the strength of their next blow.
Such was the case with Fox and Pitt. Fox’s triumph over the former was seen by discerning friends to be of the Pyrrhic kind. He owed it to an unprincipled alliance, and for it he threw away the support of public opinion. Pitt, on the other hand, fell gloriously, fighting strenuously for terms of peace which, in the nature of things, his successors could not sensibly ameliorate. Accordingly, events worked for him and against the victors. Only a well organized party can resist the wear and tear of parliamentary strife; and it lay in the nature of things that greed of place and pension—to say nothing of political differences—should sunder these hungry and unprincipled groups.
But while the voice of prudence counselled delay, missives from Windsor urgently requested Pitt to assume the supreme command of the beaten host. Well might the King be insistent. In the young statesman, and in him alone, could he discern a possible saviour from the two-headed monster of the Coalition. As usual, he viewed the crisis from a purely personal point of view. In a characteristic letter to Shelburne he said nothing on the wider issues that were at stake, still less did he vouchsafe a word of thanks for his valuable services; but he deplored his own lot in having to reign in a most profligate age, and declared once more that he would never submit to the Coalition.
It seems probable that the credit of advising the choice of Pitt as the new Prime Minister rests with Shelburne. Certainly the idea did not originate with Henry Dundas, as he afterwards claimed; for on Monday morning, 24th February 1783, Dundas wrote to Shelburne as follows:
My Dear Lord,
I cannot refrain from troubling your Lordship with a few lines upon a subject of the most serious importance; and the particular ground of my addressing you arises from the words which dropped from you yesterday morning relative to Mr. Pitt. I did not pay much attention to them when you uttered them, but I have revolved them seriously and candidly in the course of the day yesterday, and I completely satisfied my own mind that, young as he is, the appointment of him to the Government of the country is the only step that can be taken in the present moment attended with the most distant chance of rearing up the Government of this country.... He is perfectly new ground, against whom no opposition can arise except what may be expected from the desperation of that lately allied faction, which I am satisfied will likewise gradually decline till at last it will consist only of that insolent aristocratical band who assume to themselves the prerogative of appointing the rulers of the kingdom. I repeat it again that I am certain the experiment will succeed if His Majesty will try it.[148]
Henry Dundas.
The King warmly welcomed Shelburne’s suggestion, sent for Pitt, and urged him to form a Ministry on his own terms. The young statesman, far from succumbing to the glamour of the moment, at once foresaw the difficulties of the proposal, and requested time for reflection. Dundas sat up with him through that night, going through the names of members of the House, and calculating the chances of adequate support. In a letter which Pitt wrote to his mother on the 25th, he speaks of the question as turning on that of numbers in the House. On the next day and the morning of the 27th he seemed ready to accept the King’s offer, on the strength of an assurance given by Dundas that Lord North would not actively oppose him. But on the afternoon of that day he laid before the King his reasons for declining the proposal.
The interview was long and earnest. It marked the beginning of that contest of wills which only ceased with life itself. The King strove hard to gain for his service the only man of note who stood between him and the new Coalition. He plied the young Minister with every possible argument.