Representative British Orations Volume 2 (of 4) / With Introductions and Explanatory Notes

by Unknown

It would be incorrect to leave the impression that these severe courses of study were not intermingled with studies in English literature, rhetoric, and history. We are told that “he had the finest passages of Shakespeare by heart,” that “he read the best historians with care,” that “his favorite models of prose style were Middleton’s Life of Cicero, and the historical writings of Bolingbroke,” and that “on the advice of his father, for the sake of a copious diction, he made a careful study of the sermons of Dr. Barrow.” Making all due allowance for the exaggerative enthusiasm of biographers, we are still forced to the belief that no other person ever entered Parliament with acquirements and qualifications for a great career equal on the whole to those of the younger Pitt.

The expectations formed of him were not disappointed. It has frequently happened that members of Parliament have attained to great and influential careers after the most signal failures as speakers in their early efforts. But no such failure awaited Pitt. He entered the House of Commons in 1781, at the age of twenty-two, and became a member of the opposition to Lord North, under the leadership of Burke and Fox. His first speech was in reply to Lord Nugent on the subject of economic reform, a matter that had been brought forward by Burke. Pitt had been asked to speak on the question; but, although he had hesitated in giving his answer, he had determined not to participate in the debate. His answer, however, was misunderstood, and therefore at the close of a speech by Lord Nugent, he was vociferously called upon by the Whig members of the House. Though taken by surprise, he finally yielded and with perfect self-possession began what was probably the most successful first speech ever given in the House of Commons. Unfortunately it was not reported and has not been preserved. But contemporaneous accounts of the impression it made are abundant. Not only was it received with enthusiastic applause from every part of the House; but Burke greeted him with the declaration that he was “not merely a chip of the old block, but the old block itself.” When some one remarked that Pitt promised to be one of the first speakers ever heard in Parliament, Fox replied, “He is so already.” This was at the proudest era of British eloquence, and when Pitt was but twenty-two.

During the session of 1781–82 the powers of Burke, Fox, and Pitt were united in a strenuous opposition to the administration of Lord North. After staggering under their blows for some weeks, the ministry fell, and Lord North was succeeded by Rockingham in February of 1782. Rockingham’s ministry, however, was terminated by the death of its chief after a short period of only thirteen weeks. Lord Shelburne was appointed his successor, and he chose Pitt as the Chancellor of the Exchequer and leader of the House of Commons. Thus Burke and Fox were passed by, and not only the responsible leadership of the Commons, but also the finances of the empire, were entrusted to a youth of twenty-three. The reason of this preference certainly was not an acknowledged pre-eminence of Pitt; but rather in the attitude he had assumed in the course of his attacks on the administration of North. He had not inveighed against the king, but had attached all the responsibility of mismanagement to the ministry, where the Constitution itself places it. Fox, on the other hand, had allowed himself to be carried forward by the impetuosity of his nature, and had placed the responsibility where we now know it belonged—upon George III. The consequence had been that the enraged king would not listen to the promotion of Fox, though by constitutional usage he was clearly entitled to recognition. That Fox was offended was not singular, but it is impossible even for his most ardent admirers to justify the course he now determined to take. He had been the most bitter opponent of Lord North. He had denounced him as “the most infamous of mankind,” and as “the greatest criminal of the state.” He had declared of his ministry: “From the moment I should make any terms with one of them, I should rest satisfied to be called the most infamous of mankind.” He had said only eleven months before: “I could not for a moment think of a coalition with men who, in every public and private transaction as ministers, have shown themselves void of every principle of honor and honesty.”[A] And yet, notwithstanding these philippics, which almost seem to have been delivered as if to make a coalition impossible, Fox now deserted his old political companions, and joined hands with the very object of his fiercest denunciation. The Coalition thus formed voted down the Shelburne ministry in February, 1783.

[A] Fox’s Speeches, II., 39.

The debate which preceded the final vote was one of the most remarkable in English history. The subject immediately at issue was a vote of censure of Shelburne’s government for the terms of the treaty closing the American war. North assailed the treaty, as bringing disgrace upon the country by the concessions it had made. Fox spoke in the same strain, having reserved himself till the latter part of the night, with the evident purpose of overwhelming the young leader of the House by the force and severity of his presentation. But the moment he sat down, Pitt arose and grappled with the argument of his opponent in a speech that has seldom been surpassed in the history of parliamentary debate. Lord North spoke of its eloquence as “amazing,” and, although the Coalition was too strong to be broken, it made such an impression that there could no longer be any doubt that Pitt was now the foremost man of his party.

In the course of the speech Pitt intimated that even if the vote of censure came to pass, the king might not feel called upon to accept the decision. He declared it an unnatural Coalition, which had simply raised a storm of faction, and which had no other object than the infliction of a wound on Lord Shelburne. Then in one of his impassioned strains he exclaimed: “If, however, the baneful alliance is not already formed,—if this ill-omened marriage is not already solemnized, I know a just and lawful impediment,—and in the name of the public safety, I here forbid the banns.”

But all availed nothing. The vote of censure was passed, and Shelburne’s ministry tendered their resignation. The king hesitated. He was unwilling to bring the Coalition into power, because he had an insurmountable repugnance to Fox. He sent for Pitt, and urged him in the most pressing terms to accept the position of Prime-Minister. But Pitt, with that steadfast judgment which never deserted him, firmly rejected the flattering offer. The most he would consent to do was to remain in the office he then held till the succession could be fixed upon. The king was almost in despair; and thought seriously of retiring to Hanover. It was Thurlow that dissuaded him from taking so dangerous a step. “Nothing is easier than for your Majesty to go to his Electoral dominions;” said the old Chancellor, “but you may not find it so easy to return when you grow tired of staying there. James II. did the same; your Majesty must not follow his example.” He then assured the king that the Coalition was an unnatural one, and could not long remain in power without committing some fatal blunder. After six weeks the king reluctantly submitted, and appointed the Duke of Portland as the Prime-Minister, and North and Fox as the Chief Secretaries of State.

The end came sooner than Thurlow had dared to anticipate. The Coalition ministry was formed on the second day of April, 1783. During the first week of the following session Fox brought forward his East India bill, which had for its object the entire remodelling of the government of the English domains in the East. The measure was in direct defiance of the wishes of the king. In view of the circumstances of Fox’s coalition with the Tories, it is not singular that many thought the scheme a desperate measure to intrench the Coalition so firmly in power that the king could not remove them. Pitt opposed the measure with great energy, and with so much skill that it soon became evident that he spoke the sentiments of the thinking men of the nation. The debate on the question lasted twelve days, and was closed by a masterly review of the question by Fox. The Coalition was so strong in the lower House that the final vote was 217 to 103 in favor of the measure.

But in the House of Lords its fortune was different. At an interview with Lord Temple, a kinsman of Pitt’s, the king commissioned him to say to the members of the House “that whoever voted for the India bill were not only not his friends, but that he should consider them his enemies.” This message was widely but secretly circulated among the Lords. Thurlow denounced the bill in unqualified terms. Though the ministry fought for the measure as best they could, when the question came to a final issue, it was rejected by a vote of ninety-five to seventy-six. At twelve o’clock on the following night a messenger conveyed the orders of the king to the chief ministers to deliver up the seals of their offices, and to send them by the under secretaries, “as a personal interview on the occasion would be disagreeable to him.” The following day the other ministers were dismissed with like evidences of disfavor.

Pitt now, on the 22d of December, 1783, became Prime-Minister at the age of twenty-four. The situation was one that put all his powers to the severest test. In the last decisive vote in the House of Commons the majority against him had been more than two to one. Fox was inflamed with all the indignation of which his good-nature was capable. He declared on the floor of the House that “to talk of the permanency of such an administration would be only laughing at and insulting them”; and he alluded to “the youth of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the weakness incident to his early period of life as the only possible excuse for his temerity.” And yet with such consummate tact did Pitt ward off the blows, and with such skill and power did he in turn advance to the assault, that the majority against him at once began to show signs of weakening. Fox threatened to cut off the supplies; whereupon Pitt met him with an unwavering defiance. Rapidly the majority went down till, on a test vote on the 8th of March, the opposition had only one majority. Pitt immediately decided to dissolve Parliament and appeal to the people. The result more than justified his determination. The question everywhere was “Fox or Pitt?” The cry “for Pitt and the King” carried the day by an overwhelming majority, and a complete revolution in the House of Commons was the result. More than a hundred and sixty of “Fox’s martyrs” lost their seats. The triumph was the most complete that any English minister ever obtained. It not only placed Pitt in power, but it gave him a predominance in authority that was only once interrupted in the course of more than twenty years.