Pitt's resignation of office sorely tried his friends; for, without informing them of the inmost reasons that prompted that step, he pressed them to remain in office under his successor, Addington. As we have seen, some of them refused. Of those not holding Cabinet appointments, Rose and Long, joint Secretaries of the Treasury, Lord Granville Leveson-Gower, a Lord of the Treasury, and Canning, joint Paymaster of the Forces, decided to resign. Pitt's silence and his urgent requests to his friends to remain in office were of course open to misconstruction; and several of his supporters echoed the malicious assertion of Frere, that his aim was for Addington to take office as a locum tenens, and sign a discreditable peace, whereupon he (Pitt) would come back to power and find his former supporters in their old places. Malmesbury gave colour to the story by stating that Addington described himself as locum tenens, a remark utterly inconsistent with all that is known of his complacent pride. Nevertheless the slander gained general currency, and, even now, despite convincing refutation, dies hard. That Canning and others resented Pitt's silence and his pressure to remain in office is undeniable; but, while saying nothing as to the cause of his own conduct, he explained clearly to Canning that, as a friend, he was gratified by his conduct in resigning, however much he deplored his action on public grounds. Of course the tu quoque retort was inevitable; but Canning's curiosity was not gratified.[623]
For a time he talked of breaking with Pitt, and sent him a copy of a letter to Frere couched in those terms. Pitt replied calmly on 26th April 1801 that on reviewing his conduct he found it neither unkind nor unfair. While lamenting that Canning should thus have misunderstood his conduct, he expressed a resolve to forget the incident and a hope that their friendship might endure. Serenity such as this is the best cure to Celtic susceptibility. But other grievances were discovered, and on 12th July Canning dashed off to Frere a furious missive full of dashes and underlinings, charging Pitt with showing to him "confidence just enough to mislead and not enough to guide"; on which promising theme he fired off clause upon clause of an incoherent sentence which fills thirty-five lines of print and then expires in a dash. What it was all about is far from clear, except that Canning believed Pitt to have done "scrupulously and magnanimously right by everybody but me."[624] Before long the sensitive youth was moving heaven and earth to bring back Pitt to power. But, even in December 1803, when his whole soul was bound up in him, he reproached him with lover-like vehemence for having inspired a derogatory article in the "Accurate Observer." Apparently the wounded friend had no proof whatever that Pitt had sped or barbed the shaft.
Among those who won Pitt's confidence in his closing years was Spencer Perceval, an able young barrister, who entered Parliament in 1796 as member for Northampton, and showed considerable skill in finance and debating powers of no mean order. "He spoke (says Sinclair) without the disagreeable cant of the Bar, was never tedious, was peculiarly distinct in matters of business, and explained his financial measures with clearness and ability. His style was singularly acute, bold, sarcastic, and personal." The same authority avers that Pitt, on being asked—"If we lose you, where could we find a successor?"—answered at once, "Perceval." The reply is remarkable; for Perceval, besides opposing Catholic Emancipation, displayed little tact in dealing with men and a strangely narrow outlook. Probably it was his power of hard work, his grasp of finance, and his resolute disposition which led Pitt to prefer him to Canning, who in other respects was far better qualified to act as leader.
I must here notice charges which have been brought against Pitt, that his creations of peers, or promotions in the peerage, which by the year 1801 exceeded 140, were fraught with evil to the Upper House, lowering the intellectual level of its debates, and impairing the balance of parties, with results damaging to the constitution.[625] It has even been suggested that the friction between the two Houses in the years 1830–1911 resulted in no small degree from the reckless conduct of Pitt in this respect. Vague and sweeping assertions like these can neither be substantiated nor refuted. But the only definite part of them, namely, that Pitt's creations degraded the House of Lords, is obviously overstrained. At no period was the tone of its debates higher than in that of Pitt's supremacy, witness those on Warren Hastings, the disputes with Spain and Russia, and the Great War. They have not the brilliance of those of the Commons in the days of Burke, Fox, Pitt and Sheridan; but they often excel them in statesmanlike qualities; and a perusal of them reveals the fact that the ablest of the Lords were, not those of the old governing families, which at that period showed signs of decadence, but those for whose creation Pitt was mainly responsible. Malmesbury, Buckingham, Grenville, Auckland, Carrington, Minto, and at a later period, Sidmouth and Castlereagh, excelled in ability and weight the representatives of the older nobility. Far from degrading and weakening the peerage, Pitt strengthened it by an infusion of new blood which was sorely needed at that time of strain and stress. Further, it must be remembered that Burke's Economy Bill had abolished many of the sinecures which were considered due for steady support in Parliament; and, while at Bath in the year 1797, he admitted that his reform was accountable for the large increase of peerages, thenceforth the chief hope of the faithful.[626] Pitt's correspondence also shows that he frequently repulsed the insistent claims of his supporters for titles, a theme on which piquant letters might be adduced.
Surely, too, it is unjust to say that Pitt entirely altered the political complexion of the Upper House. During the greater part of his career the so-called political differences were based mainly on personal considerations; and throughout the struggle against France, Whigs and Tories, with the exception of a small coterie, were merged in the national party which recognized in Pitt the saviour of British institutions. The charge that he was largely responsible for the friction between the two Houses after 1830 needs little notice; for that friction was clearly due to the progress of democratic principles and the growth of an enormous industrial community in these islands. Both of those developments told strongly against the parity of political influence of the two Houses of Parliament. Amidst the torpor of the previous age the prerogatives of the Peers had gone unchallenged. After the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution a challenge was certain to come; and in this, as in many other respects, the conduct of Pitt was such as to strengthen our institutions. By adding to the House of Lords a considerable number of commoners he enabled it to withstand the storms of the Revolutionary age and the inevitable conflicts of the future.
To revert to the year 1801, there occurred early in the autumn an event of high import. The struggle of eight years between Great Britain and France ended in stalemate. The collapse of the Armed Neutrality League together with the capture of Malta and the surrender of the French garrisons in Egypt left the Union Jack triumphant at sea and the tricolour on the Continent. Each State had need of rest to restore its finances and consolidate its conquests. Therefore, though Bonaparte had at the end of March 1801 sharply repelled the pacific overtures of the Addington Cabinet, yet negotiations were resumed at the close of summer, a fact which proves that the First Consul was influenced, not by spite to Pitt and goodwill to his successor, but by the constricting grip of the Sea Power. Hawkesbury, Grenville's successor at the Foreign Office, asserted that shortly before the end of the negotiation Pitt sat up with him through part of a night discussing finance, and finally advising the cessation of hostilities.
Not that Pitt directed the negotiations; for both Addington and Hawkesbury were proud and sensitive men, and Pitt at some points criticized the conditions of the Preliminaries of London (1st October 1801). They were as follows: Great Britain agreed to restore to France, Spain, and the Batavian, or Dutch, Republic all their possessions recently conquered by her, with the exception of Trinidad and Ceylon, ceded to her by Spain and the Dutch respectively. She also retired from Elba and restored Malta to the Knights of St. John, under conditions to be further specified. The French restored Egypt to the Sultan, and evacuated Naples and the Papal States. Portugal was also saved from danger of partition. Nothing was said respecting the resumption of trade between England and France; and no assurance was forthcoming as to the independence of the Republics bordering on France. By his recent compact with Austria the First Consul agreed to respect their independence; but England had no definite ground for complaint if it were violated.
While the London rabble shouted itself hoarse with joy at the advent of peace, Grenville, Windham, and Canning saw disgrace and disaster ahead. Pitt thought otherwise. At the small house in Park Place which he had leased for his visits to London, he wrote to Long on 1st October, describing the terms as not all that could be wished but "highly creditable, and on the whole very advantageous." Finding that Grenville considered them disastrous, he on the 5th expressed concern at their disagreement. Though regretting the surrender of the Cape, and the uncertainty of the fate of Malta, he considered the acquisition of Ceylon and Trinidad most beneficial; and he hailed with satisfaction a peace which saved Turkey and Portugal from spoliation. He therefore suggested an interview for the sake of reconciling their differences. To this Grenville somewhat coolly assented, remarking that the differences were fundamental and could not be concealed, and that his confidence in the Addington Cabinet was irretrievably destroyed by a treaty which ceded to France Martinique, Malta, Minorca, the Cape, Cochin China, and all the Dutch settlements. Clearly, then, Grenville looked on the Dutch Republic and Spain as dominated by Bonaparte, who would seize Minorca, Malta, and the Cape whenever it suited him. He also wrote to the King expressing regret that he could no longer support Addington, whose conduct towards France and Russia was "marked throughout by a tone of unnecessary and degrading concession."[627]