A History of the Four Georges, Volume II

by Justin McCarthy

On April 29, 1736, an event of importance took place in the House of Commons; the event was a maiden speech, the speech was the opening of a great career. The orator was a young man, only in his twenty-eighth year, who had just been elected for the borough of Old Sarum. The new member was a young officer of {53} dragoons, and his name was William Pitt. Pitt attached himself at once to the fortunes of the Patriot, or country, party, and was very soon regarded as the most promising of Pulteney's young recruits. His maiden speech was spoken of and written of by his friends as a splendid success, as worthy of the greatest orator of any age. Probably the stately presence, the magnificent voice, and the superb declamation of the young orator may account for much of the effect which his first effort created, for in the report of the speech, such as it has come down to us, there is little to justify so much enthusiasm; but that the maiden speech was a signal success is beyond all doubt. A study of the history of the House of Commons will, however, make it clear, that there is little guarantee, little omen even, for the future success of a speaker in the welcome given to his maiden speech. Over and over again has some new member delighted and thrilled the House of Commons by his maiden speech, and never delighted it or thrilled it any more. Over and over again has a new member failed in his maiden speech, failed utterly and ludicrously, and turned out afterwards to be one of the greatest debaters in Parliament. Over and over again has a man delivered his maiden speech without creating the slightest impression of any kind, good or bad, so that when he sits down it is, as Mr. Disraeli put it, hardly certain whether he has lost his Parliamentary virginity or not; and a little later on the same man has the whole House trembling with anxiety and expectation when he rises to take part in a great debate. On the whole, it is probable that the chances of the future are rather in favor of the man who fails in his maiden speech. At all events, there is as little reason to assume that a man is about to be a success in the House of Commons because he has made a successful maiden speech as there would be to assume that a man is to be a great poet because he has written a college prize poem. The friends of young William Pitt, however, were well justified in their expectations; and the magic of {54} presence, voice, and action, which led to an exaggerated estimate of the merits of the speech, threw the same charm over the whole of Pitt's great career as an orator in the House of Commons.

[Sidenote: 1736—Pitt—Pulteney]

Pitt came of a good family. His grandfather was the Governor of Madras to whom Mary Wortley Montagu more than once alludes: the "Governor Pitt" who was more famous in his diamonds than in himself, and whose most famous brilliant, the Pitt diamond, was bought by the Regent Duke of Orleans to adorn the crown of France. William Pitt was a younger son, and was but poorly provided for. A cornet's commission was obtained for him. The family had the ownership of some parliamentary boroughs, according to the fashion of those days and of days much later still. At the general election of 1734 William Pitt's elder brother Thomas was elected for two constituencies, Okehampton and Old Sarum. When Parliament met, and the double return was made known to it, Thomas Pitt decided on taking his seat for Okehampton, and William Pitt was elected to serve in Parliament for Old Sarum. He soon began to be conspicuous among the young men—the "boy brigade," who cheered and supported Pulteney. William Pitt was from almost his childhood tortured with hereditary gout, but he had fine animal spirits for all that, and he appears to have felt from the first a genuine delight in the vivid struggles of the House of Commons. He began to outdo Pulteney in the vehemence and extravagance of his attacks on the policy and the personal character of the ministers. His principle apparently was that whatever Walpole did must ipso facto be wrong, and not merely wrong, but even base and criminal. Walpole was never very scrupulous about inflicting an injury on an enemy, especially if the enemy was likely to be formidable. He deprived William Pitt of his commission in the army. Thereupon Pitt was made Groom of the Bedchamber to the Prince of Wales. When the address was presented to the King on the occasion of the prince's marriage with the Princess of {55} Saxe-Gotha, it was Pulteney, leader of the Opposition, and not Walpole, the head of the Government, who moved its adoption. It was in this debate that William Pitt delivered that maiden speech from which so much was expected, and which was followed by so many great orations and such a commanding career. As yet, however, William Pitt is only the enthusiastic young follower of Pulteney, whom men compare with, or prefer to, other enthusiastic young followers of Pulteney. Even those who most loudly cried up his maiden speech could have had little expectation of what the maturity of that career was to bring.

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CHAPTER XXIV.

THE PORTEOUS RIOTS.

[Sidenote: 1736—The gin riots]

A good deal of disturbance and tumult was going on in various parts of the provinces. Some of our readers have probably not forgotten the riots which took place in the early part of the present reign, in consequence of the objection to the turnpike gate system, and in which the rioters took the name of "Rebecca and her daughters." Riots almost precisely similar in origin and character, but much more extensive and serious, were going on in the western counties during the earlier years of George the Second's reign. The rioting began as early as 1730, and kept breaking out here and there for some years. The rioters assembled in various places in gangs of about a hundred. Like "Rebecca and her daughters," they were usually dressed in women's clothes; they had their faces blackened; they were armed with guns and swords, and carried axes, with which to hew down the obnoxious turnpike gates. The county magistrates, with the force at their disposal, were unable at one time to make any head against the rioters. The turnpike gates were undoubtedly a serious grievance, and at that time there was hardly any idea of dealing with a grievance but by the simple process of imprisoning, suppressing, or punishing those who protested too loudly against it.

The Gin riots were another serious disturbance to social order. Gin-drinking had grown to such a height among the middle classes in cities that reformers of all kinds took alarm at it. A Bill was brought into Parliament by Sir Joseph Jekyll, the Master of the Rolls, in 1736, for the purpose of prohibiting the sale of gin, or at least laying so heavy a duty on it as to put it altogether out of {57} the reach of the poor, and absolutely prohibiting its sale in small quantities. The Bill was not a ministerial measure, and indeed Walpole seems to have given it but a cool and half-hearted approval, and the Patriots vehemently opposed it as an unconstitutional interference with individual habits and individual rights. The Bill, however, passed through Parliament and was to come into operation on the 29th of the following September. At first it appears to have created but little popular excitement; but as the time drew near when the Act was to come into operation, and the poorer classes saw themselves face to face with the hour that was to cut them off from their favorite drink, a sudden discontent flashed out in the form of wide-spread riot. Only the most energetic action on the part of the authorities prevented the discontent from breaking into wholesale disturbance.

It does not seem as if the Gin Act did much for the cause of sobriety. Public opinion among the populace was too decidedly against it to allow of its being made a reality. Gin was every day sold under various names, and, indeed, it was publicly sold in many shops under its own name. The Gin Act called into existence an odious crew of common informers who used to entrap people into the selling and drinking of gin in order to obtain their share of the penalty, or, perhaps, in some cases to satisfy a personal spleen. The mob hated the common informers as bitterly as a well-dressed crowd at a race-course in our own time hates a "welsher." When the informer was got hold of by his enemies he was usually treated very much after the fashion in which the welsher is handled to-day.