Fox was rewarded for his opposition to the popular demagogue with a Lordship of the Admiralty in February, 1770, under Lord North, but, as it has already been stated, he resigned in order to be free to oppose the Royal Marriage Act. He began to be recognised as a power in the House, and Lord North soon made overtures to his erstwhile colleague to rejoin the ministry as a Lord of the Treasury. This Fox did within a year of his resignation, but his independence soon brought about another rupture: and when, on a question of procedure, he caused the defeat of the ministry by pressing an amendment to a division, the King wrote to Lord North: "Indeed, that young man has so thoroughly cast off every principle of common honour and honesty that he must become as contemptible as he is odious; and I hope you will let him know you are not insensible of his conduct towards you."[205] The Prime Minister took the hint, and dismissed Fox in a delightfully laconic note. "Sir, His Majesty has thought proper to order a new Commission of the Treasury in which I do not see your name."[206] This was thought to be a good thing for Fox; and Horace Walpole wrote on February 24, 1774: "The famous Charles Fox was this morning turned out of his place of Lord of the Treasury for great flippancies in the House towards North. His parts will now have a full opportunity of showing whether they can balance his character, or whether patriotism can whitewash it."
In opposition Fox proved himself a doughty opponent of his late leader's American policy, and his vigorous speeches on the subject earned him the undying enmity of the King. "The war of the Americans is a war of passion," he declared on November 26, 1778, in an endeavour to force the ministry into a pacific path; "it is of such a nature as to be supported by the most powerful virtues, love of liberty and of country, and at the same time by those passions in the human heart which give courage, strength, and perseverance to man; the spirit of revenge for the injury you have done them, of retaliation for the hardships inflicted on them, and of opposition to the august powers you would have exercised over them; everything combines to animate them to this war, and such a war is without end; for whatever obstinacy enthusiasm ever inspired man with, you will now have to contend with in America, no matter what gives birth to that enthusiasm, whether the name of religion or of liberty, the effects are the same; it inspires a spirit that is unconquerable and solicits us to undergo difficulties and dangers; and as long as there is a man in America, so long will you have him against you in the field." And in the following year he compared George III with Henry VI. "Both owed the crown to revolutions, both were pious princes, and both lost the acquisitions of their predecessors." George III could not differentiate between doctrine and action, and, because Fox supported the rights of the Americans, looked upon him henceforth as a rebel. Later, when of all the colonies only Boston remained in the hands of the English, and Wedderburn with foolhardy audacity ventured in the House of Commons to compare North as a war minister with Chatham, Fox created a sensation by declaring that "not Lord Chatham, nor Alexander the Great, nor Cæsar ever conquered so much territory in the course of all their wars, as Lord North had lost in one campaign!"
FoxThe King
From a caricature published March 11th, 1784
THE UNFORTUNATE ASS
Fox's most grievous exhibition in the eyes of the sovereign was, however, his speech on the first day of the autumn session of 1781 in the debate on the Address to the Crown. "Those who are ignorant of the character of the Prince whose Speech we have just heard might be induced to consider him as an unfeeling despot, exulting in the horrid sacrifice of the liberty and lives of his people," he said.[207] The Speech itself, divested of the disguise of royal forms, can only mean, "Our losses in America have been most calamitous. The blood of my subjects has flowed in copious streams, throughout every part of that continent. The treasures of Great Britain have been wantonly lavished; while the load of taxes imposed on an overburdened country is becoming intolerable. Yet I will continue to tax you to the last shilling. When, by Lord Cornwallis's surrender they are for ever extinct, and a further continuance of hostilities can only accelerate the ruin of the British Empire, I prohibit you from thinking of peace. My rage for conquest is unquenched and my revenge unsated: nor can anything except the total subjugation of my revolted American subjects, allay my animosity."
This speech, which George III regarded as an open declaration of war against himself, earned golden opinions for the orator. "This session was the glorious campaign of Charles Fox," says Nicholls[208]; and Walpole at this time wrote to Sir Horace Mann, "Mr. Fox is the first figure in all the places I have mentioned, the hero in Parliament, at the gaming table, at Newmarket." The King, however, very clearly showed his opinion of Fox, when at a levée early in March, 1782, the latter presented an Address from Westminster. "The King took it out of his hand without deigning to give him a look even, or a word; he took it as you would take your pocket-handkerchief from your valet-de-chambre without any mark of displeasure or attention, or expression of countenance whatever, and passed it to his lord-in-waiting, who was the Duke of Queensberry."[209]
Indeed, George III had made up his mind that under no circumstances should this particular member of the Opposition hold office. "I was assured last night," George Selwyn wrote to Lord Carlisle on March 13, 1782, "that the King is so determined as to Charles, that he will not hear his name mentioned in any overtures for a negotiation, and declares that the proposal for introducing him into his councils is totally inadmissible.[209] I should not be surprised if this was true in its fullest extent!"[210]