Energetic as the opposition was in attack, it was not united in policy. Chatham, zealous for England's imperial position, declared that he would never consent to American independence. There was yet time to make peace with the people of our own blood and so be ready to meet our foreign foes. He proposed a cessation of hostilities and an immediate offer of terms. All that the Americans could demand as subjects should be granted, and overtures made to them on the basis of political dependence and the navigation act; that is, their trade should still be regulated by duties. They would, he was sure, accept these terms. If not, they must be compelled to obedience. The Americans would certainly not have treated on his basis. Chatham had repeatedly declared that it was impossible for us to conquer them; yet he proposed that if his basis were rejected we should use coercion after putting ourselves at a disadvantage by withdrawing our army. Still, as there were many Americans besides the loyalists who would have welcomed conciliation, and as the proposed French alliance was unpopular, it is just possible that had Chatham himself been prime minister some way might have been found which, while securing to America virtual independence such as England's self-governing colonies now enjoy, might have prevented the severance of the bond. On the other hand, the Rockingham party held that we should prevent the alliance between France and America by acknowledging American independence. This division between the two sections of the opposition set them in hostile camps.
When people were convinced that the alliance was certain the nation became uneasy, and a strong feeling prevailed, which was shared by some of Chatham's opponents, that at such a crisis England needed him at the head of affairs. In February, 1778, it was believed that he and Bute were engaged on some scheme of coalition which might again put him in power. The report was merely the outcome of the officious meddling of his physician, Addington, and one of Bute's friends.[136] No one was more anxious than North for a change of ministry. He begged the king in vain to accept his resignation. On the 17th he brought in two bills for a scheme of conciliation to which George had at last given his sanction. He proposed an express repeal of the tea duty, the surrender of all taxation except for the regulation of trade, and the appointment of commissioners to be sent to America with full powers to put an end to hostilities, grant pardons, and treat with congress on any terms short of independence. His proposals did not materially differ from those made by Burke three years before. He declared that he was not responsible for American taxation, that it was the work of his predecessors, and that he had always desired conciliation. He was heard with general consternation: his own party felt that he was turning his back on the policy which they had supported under his leadership; the opposition, that he was, as it were, stealing their thunder. The bills were carried and the king appointed the commissioners. They arrived in America in June. Congress refused to listen to any offers short of independence; the commissioners appealed to the American people, and their manifesto was treated with contempt.
THE KING'S CONDUCT EXAMINED.
When the Franco-American alliance was announced, North was urging the king to invite Chatham to take office and to allow him to retire, and Shelburne was sounded as to the terms on which Chatham would come in. He replied that he would insist on "an entire new cabinet". George, who had unwillingly agreed to this negotiation, was prepared to accept any men of talent with a view of strengthening the existing ministry, but not of forming another in its place, or of changing its measures. He would not commission Chatham or any opposition leader to form a new ministry: "no advantage to this country nor personal danger to himself" would, he wrote to North, induce him to do so; he would rather "lose his crown". "No consideration in life," he wrote again, "shall make me stoop to the opposition;" he would not give himself up "to bondage". His determination has been pronounced equally criminal with the acts which brought Charles I. to the scaffold.[137] According to our present ideas he should certainly have been guided by the assurance of his first minister that the government was unequal to the situation, have accepted his resignation, and allowed his new ministers to act as they thought best. These duties, however, were not, as we have seen, so clearly settled in those days. The prime minister of our time was not then fully invented, and George's plan of personal government through ministers was not yet rejected by the country. He could still rely on the support of parliament. A proposal to request the king to dismiss his ministers was defeated at that very time by 263 to 113 in the commons and by 100 to 36 in the lords. Chatham's return to office would doubtless have been hailed with satisfaction by the nation. Yet, though a change in public sentiment with regard to the American war was beginning, and was soon to spread rapidly, the king's policy was still popular with the larger part of his subjects.[138] When therefore his conduct in March, 1778, is compared with that of Charles I. it should be remembered that George had parliament and the mass of the nation at his back.
The personal light in which he regarded the question is inexcusable. He had been disappointed and deeply offended by Chatham's political conduct, and he had cause to fear that a whig government would rob him of the power which he loved. As a king he had no right to allow his private feelings to affect his public action. That he did so was the result partly of his system of personal rule, partly of serious defects in his character, his implacability of temper, and his habit of regarding all things as they affected himself. North struggled in vain against his determination, and gave way before it. It is a mistake, however, to regard the king as solely responsible for the continuance of the war. If he is to be blamed because, rather than submit to the loss of the colonies, which nearly all men believed would be the end of England's greatness and prosperity, he determined to carry on the struggle, the blame must be shared by others. Had North been true to his convictions George could not have formed another administration willing to act on the same system. Had the majority of the commons refused to support the king, the constitution afforded the means of over-ruling his will.[139]
Questions as to Chatham's return to power were soon to be brought to an end. On April 7 he appeared in the lords after a severe attack of illness, and, in faltering sentences, though with some remains of his peculiar fire, protested against the surrender of the sovereignty of America, "the dismemberment of this ancient and most glorious monarchy". He urged that England should refuse to bow before the house of Bourbon; "if we fall let us fall like men". Richmond answered him by dwelling on the expediency of acknowledging American independence; otherwise, said he, "instead of Great Britain and America against France and Spain, as in the last war, it will now be France, Spain, and America against Great Britain". Chatham rose to reply and fell back in a fit. He died on May 11. Parliament voted him a public funeral, the stately statue which stands in Westminster Abbey, £20,000 for the payment of his debts, and a perpetual pension of £4,000 a year annexed to the earldom of Chatham. Throughout his long career he was invariably courageous and self-reliant; his genius was bold, his conceptions magnificent, his political purity unsullied. His rhetoric was sublime. He did not excel in debate or in prepared speeches. His spirit burned like fire, and his speeches were the outpourings of his heart in words which, while they owed something to art, came spontaneously to his lips, and were not less lofty than his thoughts. As a statesman he had serious defects; he was haughty, vain, and overbearing, his opinions were unsettled, his far-reaching views often nebulous; his passion was stronger than his judgment, and he was immoderately given to bombast. In spite of his true greatness he lacked simplicity, and he imported the arts of a charlatan into political life. Yet Englishmen must ever reverence his memory, for he loved England with all the ardour of his soul, and, as Richmond said as he praised him to his face on the day that he was stricken for death, "he raised the glory of the nation to a higher pitch than had been known at any former period".
In 1778 the losses and expenses of the war and disappointment at its results began to work a change in the feeling of the country. In parliament tories sometimes voted with the opposition. North continued to strive in vain to be released from office. He made some overtures to the opposition. Fox, in spite of the violence of his attacks, was anxious for a coalition, which would have given him office, though he held first that Germain only, and in 1779 that North himself and Sandwich, must be excluded.[140] He was restrained by Rockingham, and North's efforts failed. The death of Chatham, though it united the opposition, on the whole strengthened the ministry, and in June, 1778, it gained in ability by the appointment of Thurlow as chancellor and Wedderburn as attorney-general. Burgoyne, who was unfairly treated by Germain, was defended by Fox, and on his return joined the opposition. The struggle in parliament had a constitutional importance not overlooked by either party. On the issue of the American war, "the king's war" as it was called, depended the question whether George would be able to establish his system of government by influence. The opposition reckoned on failure in America, and hoped that, by exposing the errors and corrupt practices of the government, they would so rouse public feeling that, when the war ended in national humiliation, the king would be forced to accept a minister imposed on him by his people. No party can reckon on national humiliation as a means of attaining its ends, however praiseworthy they may be, without serious consequences to its own character. When England was in extreme peril, the opposition, and Fox above all, magnified her losses, encouraged her enemies by exposing her weakness, and, not content with insisting on the maladministration of the government, cavilled at every measure proposed for the defence of her empire. Their conduct irritated their fellow-countrymen, for the spirit of the nation was roused by the intervention of France in the war with the colonies.
ADMIRALTY ABUSES.
Ample grounds existed for dissatisfaction with the government. Unfortunately, this was specially the case with respect to the navy. Its expenses had greatly increased. During the eight years of the late war, 1755 to 1762, the money spent upon it, exclusive of ordnance and votes for men, amounted to no more than £3,390,000; during eight years of Sandwich's administration, 1771 to 1778, it was stated in parliament to have been £6,472,000.[141] During the latter period there had been voted for repairing and building ships £2,900,000, and for extra stores for them £600,000, in all £3,500,000, enough, it was said, to build 100 men-of-war and as many frigates. Nothing is so destructive to efficiency as corruption. Under Sandwich abuses of all kinds flourished. Many existed before his time, and things grew worse under him. When in 1778 the naval estimates for the year were laid before the commons, it was stated that though £27,000 had been voted between 1771 and 1775 for the repair of the Dragon (74), and £10,273 for her stores, the ship was lying untouched and rotting at Portsmouth, and so in various degrees with other ships. In reply, Welbore Ellis, the treasurer of the navy, said that though estimates were the usual way of raising money, the money once raised was spent at the discretion of the admiralty. Indignant at this amazing statement, Burke flung the smart book of estimates at the treasury bench. Ships were built of foreign oak of an inferior kind and needed constant repair; contracts were jobbed; stores were wasted, stolen, and sold. The country paid for many more seamen than it got; for example, in September, 1777, the number returned as victualled was 51,715, though the seamen actually serving were only 47,407. Greenwich hospital, with a revenue of £70,000, was a hot-bed of abuses.
What was the result of this corrupt system? How did our navy stand in 1778 in comparison with the navies of France, then at war with us, and Spain, which was on the eve of joining against us? Choiseul's policy of naval reform was steadily pursued, and in 1778 France had eighty ships of the line in good order and 67,000 seamen. Spain followed the lead of France and, when she entered the war in 1779, had about sixty ships of the line. In 1778 we had 119 first, second, and third rates; of this number there were, on Sandwich's showing, in November, 1777, excluding ships on foreign service, only thirty-five manned and ready for sea, and seven which he said were nearly ready, but some of the thirty-five were short of their full complement of men, and there was a great scarcity of frigates. By July, 1778, the number ready was stated as forty-five. But when Keppel put to sea in June, it was with difficulty that twenty-one could be got ready to sail with him.[142]