Converse of three hours ensued between them alone. Addington demurred to Pitt's request that he should retire to the Upper House. Finally, however, he agreed to do so, accepting the title of Viscount Sidmouth, taking also the Presidency of the Council, which the Duke of Portland, for reasons of health, wished to relinquish, though he finally agreed to remain in the Cabinet without office. Lord Hobart, now Earl of Buckinghamshire, also entered the Cabinet as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in place of Lord Mulgrave, who now succeeded Lord Harrowby at the Foreign Office. Pitt further promised to promote some of Addington's supporters, including his brother-in-law, Bragge Bathurst.
These changes were resented by several of Pitt's supporters, especially by Rose. We have already noticed his contempt for Addington's financial shifts; and he now, on 8th January 1805, wrote to Bishop Tomline deploring Pitt's junction with "a man whose imbecility and falsehood, under Mr. Pitt's own sanction," had weakened the country. Pitt would now gain a few votes, no additional talents, and an increase of rancour in the Opposition. "We shall," adds Rose, "drag on a wretched existence and expire not creditably. What next will happen God only knows."[702] Canning was equally annoyed at the new Coalition.[703] His sharp tongue and still sharper pen had deeply annoyed Addington. Who, indeed, would not have resented this reference in the "Apothecary's Hall (First of April)":
When his speeches hobble vilely
How "Hear him" bursts from brother Hiley!
When his faltering periods lag
Hark to the cheers of brother Bragge!
Sarcasms on Hawkesbury had also annoyed that susceptible Minister; so that in June 1804 Canning offered to resign his Treasurership of the Navy. The matter was patched up, only to be opened once more in the winter. Pitt sought to mediate between the bard and his victim, but failed to elicit from Canning an apology as complete as Hawkesbury demanded. Finally, on 18th January, Canning informed Pitt that, as Hawkesbury had left his letter unanswered for three days, he declined to take the further steps which Pitt recommended.[704] Is it surprising that the health of the Prime Minister began to suffer? Friends noted with concern his thinness and a hacking cough. Nevertheless, he rode out successfully the squalls of the session of 1805, beating off the onset of Sheridan against his Defence Bill, and defeating an inopportune motion of Fox for Catholic Emancipation.
On this subject Pitt secretly sympathized with Fox, but his hands were tied both by his promise of March 1801 to the King not to bring up the subject during his reign, and recently by his union with Addington. The Irish Catholics knew of these difficulties; and at meetings held by their leading men at the house of James Ryan, a wealthy Dublin merchant, in the autumn of 1804, both Lord Fingall and Counsellor Scully deprecated a petition to Parliament as alike useless and embarrassing. Scully urged that they must conciliate one whose "opinions had literally proved of great weight in the Catholic cause.... The Catholics owe him [Pitt] respect for his enlarged and manly conceptions of the necessity of relieving them, and the dignified energy with which he publicly expressed those conceptions." A Committee was chosen to consider the matter and communicate with Pitt. It included Fingall, Sir Thomas French, Scully, and others. At the third meeting at Ryan's house, on 17th November, Keogh sharply blamed Fingall for opposing the petition, and commented adversely on the silence of Pitt. Scully inferred from it "that he is favourably disposed, but in some way, to them unknown, not in a situation in which he can freely act," or even explain his reticence; but no Catholic wished to embarrass him.[705] Nevertheless, the petition was resolved on; and it is clear that Fox encouraged the petitioners rather from the hope of embarrassing Pitt than of carrying Catholic Emancipation.[706]
In March 1805 Scully came to London, and saw Fox, Nepean, and Grey. Pitt received him and others of the Irish deputation at Downing Street on the 12th. Scully noted in his diary: "He [Pitt] wore dirty boots and odd-fashioned, lank leather breeches, but otherwise well dressed and cleanly, his hair powdered, etc. He was very courteous and cordial in words and looks, but his carriage was stiff and strait, perhaps naturally so. His face cold and harsh, rather selfish, but acute and sensible. We took our seats after much reciprocal ceremony." Pitt declined Fingall's request that he should present the Catholic petition, though he admitted that the measure would be most salutary whenever the proper time would arrive; but he added with a smile that he could not tell when that would be. The deputation failed to move him from this position, and thereafter committed its cause to the Opposition.[707] Despite excellent speeches by Fox and Grey, and by Grenville and Holland in the Lords, the motions for Catholic Emancipation were rejected by large majorities. The speech of Pitt on 14th May, to which reference has already been made, naturally lacked energy and fire; he opposed Fox's motion solely on the ground of present expediency.[708]
The worst trial of the session was the impeachment of his old friend, Lord Melville. As Treasurer of the Navy in Pitt's former Administration, he had been guilty of a serious irregularity in not preventing Deputy Treasurer Trotter from using the sum of £10,000 for private speculation. Suspicions having been aroused on this and other grounds, a Commission was appointed to sift the matter to the bottom. The tenth Report dealing with these charges came out on 17th or 18th March; and Wilberforce, who then chanced to be with Pitt, noted how eagerly, without waiting to cut open the pages, he sought to tear out the secret. It proved to be highly unfavourable to Melville. In vain did Wilberforce and Bankes seek to persuade Pitt to adopt a judicial attitude on this question. Though his friendship with Melville had cooled, yet it was still strong, and he finally agreed with Lord Sidmouth to press for a committee of inquiry. Only so could he count on the support of the Addingtonians. On 8th April, then, he resolutely defended Melville against the aspersions of Whitbread, maintaining that the evidence before the Commission was far from conclusive, and moving that a select Committee of the House should make further investigations.
The debate was long and stormy. Petty, Tierney, George Ponsonby, and Fox censured Melville severely. Canning with his wonted brilliance, Castlereagh with the usual laboured infelicity, sought to strengthen the defence; but it had almost collapsed when, about 4 a.m. of 9th April, Wilberforce arose. At once Pitt bent forward and sent an eager glance down the Treasury bench at his old friend; for the verdict of a conscientious and independent member at such a time is decisive. Speaking with the calm of deep conviction, the member for Yorkshire declared against Melville, whereupon Pitt sank back with signs of deep pain. The division showed 216 for and 216 against the motion of censure. The Speaker, Abbott, turned deathly white, and after a long and trying pause gave the casting vote against the Government. Then the pent up feelings burst forth. The groups of the Opposition united in yells of triumph; one member gave the "view holloa," and others shouted to Pitt to resign. He meanwhile pressed forward his hat to hide the tears which stole down his cheeks. Fitzharris, son of Lord Malmesbury, and a few devoted friends formed a phalanx to screen him from the insolent stare of Colonel Wardle and others who were crowding round the exit to see "how Billy Pitt looked after it"; and he was helped out of the House in a half unconscious state. The blow told severely on a frame already enfeebled by overwork and worry.[709]
Whitbread's further motion for impeachment was rejected (11th June), but a similar motion succeeded a fortnight later. Public opinion, however, soon began to veer round and pronounce the conduct of the Opposition rancorous. Melville's relative, Sir Charles Middleton, in a letter to Wilberforce, denounced it as sheer persecution, seeing that the nation had suffered no loss, and Melville had served it many years with indefatigable zeal. As for Melville, he retired to his Highland seat, "Dunira," and in the last letter which he wrote to Pitt, dated 11th November 1805, expressed gratitude for Pitt's recent message that his energy at the Admiralty had largely contributed to the triumph at Trafalgar. Melville's feelings further appeared in the postscript, that Nelson's death was "enviable beyond expression," as placing "his fair fame beyond the reach of caprice, envy, or malevolence."[710] Pitt did not live on to see the vindication of his old friend. On 12th June 1806, after a trial of twelve days in Westminster Hall, the Peers acquitted Melville on all the ten counts, the prosecution failing to prove that he had benefited by Trotter's irregular use of the sum of £10,000. It is worth noting that Whitbread in his final attack declared his belief that Pitt in similar circumstances would have died rather than connive at such an irregularity.[711] This statement may be set against the Bacchic outburst of Creevey, after the hostile vote in Parliament, that Pitt had betrayed Melville in order to save himself from ruin.[712]
Pitt, seconded in this by Grenville, urged the appointment of Middleton, whose sagacity and long experience at the Admiralty had of late furnished the First Lord with invaluable counsel. True, he was eighty years of age, but neither had his frame lost vigour nor his mind alertness. Seeing that his reputation as a naval expert was unequalled, Pitt little expected to encounter the stiff opposition of Lords Sidmouth and Buckinghamshire to the appointment, which they designed for Buckinghamshire, Hawkesbury, or Charles Yorke. The King, too, probably influenced by Sidmouth, expressed his disapproval of Middleton, preferring those just named, or Castlereagh, or even Chatham. In a matter which concerned the safety of the nation Pitt was inexorable, facing for several days the threats of resignation of his two colleagues and the disapproval of the King. Finally he carried his point, the two lords being pacified by the assurance that Middleton's appointment would be temporary. The King also consented to raise him to the peerage as Lord Barham, adding, however, the proviso that he should attend the Cabinet only during the discussion of naval affairs. In this grudging way did the Monarch and Sidmouth permit Middleton to reap the reward of life-long service and the nation to benefit by his unique experience. Only of late has the work done by Barham during the Trafalgar campaign been duly set forth; and it is therefore possible now to estimate the service rendered by Pitt in insisting on his appointment even at the risk of the secession of the Addingtonian group.[713]