THE SHELBURNE MINISTRY.
On July 1, the day after Fox declared his intention to resign, Rockingham died. His death delivered George from the domination of the whigs. He at once bade Shelburne propose a plan for a ministry. The Rockingham party in the cabinet objected, declaring that they had a right to advise the king as to his choice, and pressed him to send for Portland, whose position as a whig magnate constituted his chief claim to office. George refused to yield to their dictation. Fox would not serve with Shelburne and resigned the seals. He was followed by only one member of the cabinet, Lord John Cavendish, by Portland, Burke, Sheridan, and a few more. Richmond, Keppel, and the rest of the party remained in office. Shelburne took the treasury, Pitt became chancellor of the exchequer, and Thomas Townshend succeeded Shelburne, and Lord Grantham Fox, as secretaries of state. Barré was made paymaster of the forces, and Lord Temple, afterwards Marquis of Buckingham, the eldest son of George Grenville, lord-lieutenant of Ireland. Fox was disappointed to find that so few followed him. Distrusting Shelburne as he did, he could not do otherwise than resign rather than serve with him. As, however, the new ministry was a whig ministry, as Shelburne professed many of the Rockingham principles, and as Pitt, who virtually had the leadership of the lower house, was at that time a whig, he should have taken up a neutral position, supporting the government when he approved of its measures and opposing it when he disapproved of them. He took another course; at once went into opposition, declared the new ministers could not be bound either by promises or honour, and prophesied—after events make his words worth remembering—that they would soon "be joined by those men whom the house had precipitated from their seats".[171] Parliament was prorogued on July 11.
The chief business before the new ministry was to arrange terms of peace. England wished to free the Americans from French influence and to establish good relations with them by a separate negotiation. Vergennes hoped to delay the acknowledgment of independence until a general peace, intending that France should compensate Spain for her disappointment with respect to Gibraltar by securing for her the sole navigation of the Mississippi and that the United States should be enclosed by the Alleghanies. The American commissioners found that France regarded the success of the revolution, the result of her own work, with jealousy, and wished to shut them out from the Newfoundland fishery and from extension on the west and north. On the other hand, England acknowledged American independence on September 27, and showed herself inclined to meet their demands in a friendly spirit. Accordingly, without consulting the French ministers, they signed preliminaries of peace on November 30, the treaty to be concluded when terms were arranged between England and France. England acknowledged the sovereignty of the United States; the Mississippi was recognised as their boundary on the west, and on the north a line passing through the great lakes; and they secured a right to fish on the banks of Newfoundland and in the gulf of St. Lawrence. The American revolution was accomplished. Englishmen of all parties believed that the day of England's greatness was over. Yet the separation, bitter and humiliating as it was, taught her a lesson in colonial government which has rendered her empire strong as well as vast, while in place of discontented colonies with cramped energies, it laid the foundation of a mighty power bound to her by bonds which will grow in strength so long as the affairs of both Great Britain and the United States are wisely directed. It was a happy beginning of the relations between the two powers that it was through England, and not through their foreign allies, that the Americans obtained the gratification of their legitimate ambitions, and that from the peace with the United States England gained some advantage in treating with her continental foes.
The treaty did not protect the loyalists. Shelburne did his best for them, but Franklin was bitter against them, and his feelings were those of the victorious party generally. The American commissioners would only agree that there should be no further confiscations and prosecutions, and that congress should recommend the several states to revise their laws concerning them. These articles were nugatory. Nothing short of a renewal of the war could have induced the Americans to forego their revenge, and if the war had gone on longer, the loyalists' fate would have been no better. Everywhere, with the exception of South Carolina, they were treated with barbarity. Some 60,000 persons left the country before Carleton evacuated New York, taking refuge either in Great Britain or her colonies. At least 25,000 of both sexes settled in the British maritime provinces of North America, and helped to establish the province of New Brunswick which received representative institutions in 1784; 10,000 others, United Empire Loyalists as they were afterwards called, in the valley of the St. Lawrence. England did what she could for her unfortunate friends; liberal grants of land were made to them, some had half-pay as military officers, and between 1783 and 1790 £3,112,455 was distributed among them, besides £25,785 granted in pensions.[172] Relief, however, was slow in coming, and many, reduced from wealth to penury, died in the utmost distress.
THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES.
Preliminaries of peace with France and Spain were signed on January 20, 1783, and were followed by the definitive treaty of Versailles concluded on September 3. The war brought France into financial difficulties, and for that reason England, though forced to cede some of her conquests in the last war, obtained as good terms as she had a right to expect. In the West Indies she restored St. Lucia to France, ceded Tobago, and received back Dominica, Grenada, St. Vincent, St. Kitts, Nevis, and Montserrat. In Africa Senegal and Goree went to France, and Gambia and Fort St. James were guaranteed to England. France received back her commercial establishments in India; her right to participate in the Newfoundland fishery was clearly defined; England ceded to her the islands of Miquelon and St. Pierre in sovereignty, and the old stipulation for the demolition of the fortifications of Dunkirk was given up. France and Spain pressed the government to agree to some exchange for Gibraltar. The king, Shelburne, and the majority of the cabinet would have let it go if a sufficient compensation had been offered; Richmond and Keppel objected to its cession on any terms. The signature of the American preliminaries strengthened the position of Great Britain and the question was dropped.[173] Spain retained Minorca and West Florida, and England ceded East Florida to her. On the other hand, Spain restored by treaty Providence and the Bahama isles, which were surrendered without bloodshed in 1782, and had already been recovered not less easily by England; and she guaranteed the right of the English to cut logwood in the bay of Honduras. A truce with Holland led to a treaty providing for a mutual restoration of conquests, with the exception of Negapatam which was retained by England.
When parliament met on December 5, it was evident that the terms of peace would be sharply criticised by both the parties in opposition, the followers of North and of Fox. Shelburne was disliked and distrusted by his colleagues, who considered him secretive and inclined to act alone, and the government soon showed signs of dissolution. Richmond retired from the cabinet in January, 1783, though he kept his office; the next day Keppel resigned the admiralty because he was dissatisfied with the preliminaries, and Carlisle, the lord steward, also resigned for the same reason. Shelburne was prevented by his colleagues from making overtures to North, and Pitt, who stood by him, tried to persuade Fox to re-enter the ministry. Fox asked if Shelburne would remain, and Pitt having answered that he would, at once declined. On this Pitt closed the interview with, it is said, the words: "I did not come here to betray Lord Shelburne". From that time Pitt and Fox were political enemies. The Duke of Rutland having succeeded Carlisle as lord steward with a seat in the cabinet, Grafton declared that Shelburne had no right to make an addition to the cabinet without consulting its members, and that he was making himself a "prime minister," and he too resigned the privy seal. According to the whigs the cabinet was to dictate to the king whom he should direct to form a cabinet, and was then to control its own composition. Their constitutional ideas were warped by their desire to perpetuate their own power.
The government was not in a case to speak with its enemies in the gate. In the commons 140 members were known to be supporters of Shelburne, 120 were followers of North, and 90 of Fox; the intentions of the rest were unknown or uncertain. With this division of parties and with the government in a state of dissolution, Fox, if he had exercised a little patience, might soon have formed a strong and united whig party. He chose another course, and, on February 14, formed an alliance with North on the basis of "mutual good-will and confidence"; they agreed that enough had been done to reduce the influence of the crown, that though the king should be treated with respect, he should have only "the appearance of power," and that on the question of parliamentary reform each should act as he chose. This coalition decided the fate of the government. The preliminaries of peace were discussed in parliament on the 17th, and almost every article was adversely criticised. In the lords the government address was carried by 13; in the commons it was rejected by 224 to 208. Fox was reproached for his "unnatural junction" with North, and his answer showed that he was prepared to act with him further than in that night's debate. On the 21st a vote of censure on the terms of the peace was carried by 207 to 190. The coalition was avowed. Fox defended it with ability on the ground that the country needed a broad and stable administration, and declared himself a candidate for office in the future ministry. Pitt, in a speech of great dignity, taunted "the self-made minister," contended that the objections to the peace were simply an attack on Shelburne, and in a fine peroration spoke of himself as caring more for his own honour than for the emoluments of office. Shelburne resigned on the 24th.
THE COALITION MINISTRY.
The coalition was triumphant. It was condemned by the public, and the verdict has been endorsed by posterity. Though it is true that North carried on the war with America only to please the king, that was not then known, and his conduct in that, and almost every important matter, was utterly opposed to the principles which Fox professed. What ground was there for mutual confidence? For eight years Fox had reviled North with extraordinary bitterness. If his words were just he had no business to ally himself with him. "My friendships," he said, with a Latin quotation, "are perpetual, my enmities are not so," a good reason for reconciliation with a private enemy; but political quarrels should be founded on differences of principle. Fox's words illustrate his adherence to the whig notion that the politics of the nation might be treated by the members of a few great families as their personal concerns. Of the two, North was at first more blamed than Fox, for it seemed pusillanimous in him to forgive Fox's treatment, but neither escaped censure. The king was furious. He had no love for Shelburne, but he hated Fox, and determined if possible to avoid falling into the hands of the coalition. He offered the treasury to Pitt, who with admirable discernment saw that his time was not yet come, and refused it. He tried Gower; he tried to detach North from the coalition; he even offered terms to the coalition; then again he pressed Pitt to take the treasury, and failing in all these attempts, sought help from Chatham's nephew, Thomas Pitt, and failed to obtain it. From February 24 to April 2 the country was without an organised government. George was almost in despair, talked of retiring to Hanover, and spoke bitterly of the ingratitude of North, whose past subservience to him had been largely rewarded. At last he was forced to accept the coalition ministry, to give Portland the treasury, and to submit to the exclusion of Thurlow, who had been chancellor since 1778 in the ministries of North, Rockingham, and Shelburne.