On the renewal of the war, his Parliamentary attendances became more frequent. He gathered round him a gradually increasing body of devoted personal adherents, drawn largely from the new generation. In his vigorous denunciation of the manner in which the war was conducted, he frequently found himself supported by the most extreme members of the war party. Many of these, like Windham, had originally been Whigs, and the remembrance of old friendship assisted in cementing the new alliance. There seems also to have been at this time a growing feeling that one who divided with Pitt, and with Pitt alone, the reputation of being the ablest and most illustrious statesman of the day, should no longer be excluded from the service of the State. On the death, therefore, of his great rival, in 1806, when Lord Grenville became Prime Minister, Fox was at once, and with general applause, made Secretary for Foreign Affairs.
His efforts were immediately directed towards carrying out what had long been his wish,—the making of an honourable peace. But he found that this was no easy matter. It had suited the purpose of his political opponents to represent him as being deficient in patriotism, and this charge has been since repeated. There is nothing in his public speeches to justify this odious accusation, and those passages in his private letters which seem to lend some colour to it exult, it is quite true, in the victories of the French arms, but only over the Austrians and the Prussians. He writes with all the feelings of an Englishman at the news of the battle of Trafalgar, though he cannot help lamenting that one of the effects of that brilliant victory will be to confirm the Government in what he considers a mistaken policy. But the chief answer to the charge which I have mentioned may be found in his conduct, now that for the first time he was installed in a responsible position. Notwithstanding his ardent and avowed desire for peace, the French soon discovered that they had to deal with a man who could be as tenacious as Pitt himself, when the real interests and the honour of his country were concerned. Negotiations were protracted, and he was not destined to effect his object.
But we are within sight of the end. Fox was still in what we should now call middle age. He had long renounced the vices and excesses of his youth. The factiousness and the ambition of later years were also extinct. His intellect, without losing the smallest portion of its power, had acquired a calm serenity. Never did he stand higher with the public, and never was a statesman surrounded by a more faithful and admiring band of supporters. It seemed as if at last his mighty talents were to have free scope, and that his renown as an orator was to be equalled by his success as a ruler of men. But it was not to be. Nature cannot be overstrained with impunity, and he had tried his constitution very severely in his earlier days. He was in bad health when he took office, he was soon found to be suffering from dropsy, and he sank rapidly. He died in September 1806, attended by his wife, his nephew, and his niece, with all the affection due to such a man.
His vigorous mind was still unclouded, and he retained his high courage and his sweet temper to the last.
C.
No. 3.
CARDINAL DE RETZ.
Cardinal’s robes. Red skull-cap.
BORN 1614, DIED 1679.