From this period the Whig party diminished day by day. They were chiefly the great landholders of the kingdom, and they saw in this atrocious act a declaration against all property; but they had also the higher motive of its being a declaration against all government. The chief persons of the Opposition at once crossed the house; but as Horne Tooke, in his apt and short style, described the party on his trial, "We all," said he, "entered the revolutionary coach at Reading; but one got out at Maidenhead, another at Slough, a third at Hounslow, and a fourth at Brentford. It was my misfortune, my lord, as it was also Mr Fox's, to go on to London."
The French now threw off all political form, and all diplomatic decorum, and exhibited the whole savagism of republicanism. On the motion of a ruffian of the name of Garnier, the Convention publicly resolved that "Pitt was an enemy to the human race." The same ruffian then proceeded to move, "that every body had a right to assassinate him." This, however, was not carried; but an order was sent, on the proposal of Robespierre, to the armies, that "no quarter should be given to the English troops;" an order which was not repealed until his death by the guillotine.
Those were stirring times, and in every instance of success in the campaign, Pitt sent an immediate courier to Addington when out of town, of which the Speaker gave the signal to the surrounding country by lighting up his house. On one occasion of this kind, a friend of his, travelling on the coach from Bath, heard the coachman say, "I'm sure there's good news come, for there's the Speaker's house all in a blaze."
In this year Addington was offered the high promotion of Secretary of State, in the room of Dundas. He consulted Huntingford, who strongly advised him against giving up his pleasant, safe, and lucrative office, for the toilsome, hazardous, and unpopular office of the secretary. A letter from the Solicitor-general Mitford, (afterwards Lord Redesdale,) confirmed the opinion. It is justly observed by the biographer, that Mitford, who could be so wise for his friend, was not equally so for himself; for, after having obtained the speakership in his own person, he gave it up to assume the office of Irish Chancellor, a situation of great responsibility, and great labour, in which he was assailed on all sides, and from which, on the first change of the cabinet, he was insultingly recalled.
The war had now become almost wholly naval, and it was a war of successive triumphs. The dominion of Europe seemed about to be divided between England and France: England mistress of the sea—France sweeping every thing before her on the land. The famous battle of the 1st of June extinguished the first revolutionary fleet, seven sail of the line being captured, and the remainder of the fleet escaping with difficulty into the French ports.
The minister was also triumphant at home, and the chief persons of the Whig party were gazetted as taking office under his administration. Earl Fitzwilliam as President of the Council, the Duke of Portland as Secretary of State, Earl Spencer, Privy Seal, the Duke of Gordon, Privy Seal of Scotland, and Windham, Secretary at War.
It had been frequently remarked, that Pitt never sought for coadjutors of any remarkable ability, from confidence in his own extraordinary attainments. As Fox candidly and bitterly concluded one of his speeches in Parliament, saying, "There is one point, and only one on which I entirely agree with the right honourable gentleman, and that is, in the high opinion he entertains of his own talents."
It is certain that those accessions to his cabinet were not likely to excite any jealousy on his part, yet there was one whose absence from the cabinet may have been justly regretted as detracting at once from the strength of the administration, and the glory of the minister. The name of Burke was not found there, though no man had operated so powerfully in producing the change; no man had so amply deserved the distinction; and no man would have thrown so permanent a lustre round the councils in which he shared. There can be no doubt that Burke felt this neglect, and that he was justified in feeling himself defrauded of an honour conferred before his face on men who were not fit to be named in the same breath.
But he has had his noble revenge. Posterity, of all tribunals the most formidable, yet the most faithful, has done him Justice. While the favourites of fortune have passed away into the forgetfulness for which they were made, his services assume a higher rank in the records of national preservation, and his genius continually fills a prouder place among the intellectual triumphs of mankind.
In 1794 Burke closed his parliamentary career, by retiring from the borough of Malton, for which his son became member. In this year, also, closed the memorable trial of Warren Hastings, which had extended over ten sessions of parliament, (from February 1788 to 5th April 1795)—the actual trial lasting for seven years, two months, and ten days. The legal expenses of the defence amounted to seventy-one thousand and eighty pounds, which the proprietors of East India stock, by a majority of three hundred, on a ballot, paid. What the expenses of the prosecution were, is not told; probably twice the sum.