RESTRICTIONS ON THE REGENT'S POWER.
The restrictions which the cabinet proposed to place on the power of the regent were laid before the prince. He was to be debarred from conferring peerages except on the king's issue of full age; from granting reversions or any office or pension except during pleasure, and from disposing of the king's property; and the charge of the king's person and the management of the household were to be in the queen's hands. These restrictions were based on the idea that the king would speedily recover; if his illness was prolonged they were to be open to revision by parliament. The prince promised to accept the regency, and stated his objections to the restrictions. The existence of the government seemed drawing to an end. Pitt was extremely popular, and the London merchants, expecting that he would soon be driven from office, offered him a gift of £100,000, which he declined to accept. Before he could bring the restrictions before the commons, the speaker, Cornwall, died, and on January 5, 1789, William Wyndham Grenville, joint-paymaster of the forces, was elected in his place. A fresh examination of the physicians was urged by the opposition. Willis told the committee that good progress was made; Dr. Warren's account was less favourable. Willis was represented by the prince's party as a charlatan, and Warren was pitted against him as the doctor of the opposition. After this delay Pitt laid the restrictions before the house as resolutions. They certainly impaired the power of the executive, and would have weakened any ministry appointed by the regent. No exact date was fixed for their duration, and it is conceivable that, after the regency had lasted for some years, the upper house would have refused to remove the restriction as to the creation of peers, and would, as in 1719, have attempted to limit their number by withholding from the regent a part of the royal prerogative. And as the management of the household would have placed a patronage of over £80,000 a year[218] at the disposal of the queen, who was hostile to Fox, a court influence might have been established in favour of Pitt and adverse to the new ministry. The queen was accused of intrigue and violently attacked by the opposition press. Fox urged his objections to the resolutions with much force, but they were adopted by both houses, and on the 31st the prince accepted the offer of the regency made by the lords and commons on those terms, on the understanding that the restrictions were temporary.
His party was in high glee; medals were struck to commemorate his regency, whig ladies wore regency caps and ribbons, and a list of new ministers was drawn up. The conduct of the prince and the Duke of York caused much scandal. Stories of the ill-treatment of the king while in the prince's charge may be dismissed as unfounded; it is alleged that the prince made sport of his father's ravings, it is certain that his associates did so, and that he and his brother behaved with brutal callousness and openly indulged in riotous merry-making during the king's illness.[219] Before the resolutions could be made law it was thought that a formal opening of parliament was necessary in order to invest it with legislative capacity, and this was effected on February 3 by a commission under the great seal. Pitt then brought in the regency bill, and while it was before the commons, agreed that all restriction should terminate in three years if the king remained ill so long. The bill passed the commons after warm debate, and had reached the committee stage in the lords when, on the 19th, the king was declared to be convalescent. His recovery progressed steadily, and on March 10 he announced to parliament, through commissioners, his complete restoration to health. Both on that night, and on April 23, when he returned thanks in St. Paul's, there were great rejoicings, for his illness enshrined him in the hearts of his people. The skill and temper which Pitt exhibited throughout the long crisis strengthened his position in parliament and his place in the esteem of the public, and from that time more cordial relations were established between him and the king, who warmly acknowledged his obligations to him. Though he was fortunate in the king's timely recovery, he owed much also to Fox's bad management. The hasty assertion of the prince's rights and the delays interposed in the proceedings in the commons put off the settlement of the regency until it was no longer needed, while the attack on the authority of parliament on behalf of the prince's prerogative and the reckless attempt of Fox and his party to displace a ministry which had the confidence of the nation, in order to obtain office for themselves, brought general censure upon them and added to Pitt's popularity.
In Ireland the parliament met in 1789 when the regency question was still before the English parliament. Buckingham, who as Earl Temple was lord-lieutenant in 1782-83, had succeeded Rutland in 1787. He hoped that the Irish would adopt the English plan. He was disappointed by their extreme jealousy of anything which might look like dependence. The functions of the viceroy rendered the question of restrictions of little importance, and, under the guidance of Grattan, an address was voted inviting the prince to assume the regency of the kingdom without limitations. Buckingham refused to forward it on the ground that it purported to invest the prince with a power not conferred on him by law; for the prince could not lawfully take any part of the royal authority without an act of parliament, and no Irish bill could be enacted without the royal assent under the great seal. The cabinet approved of his refusal. The parliament sent commissioners over with the address; but by the time that it was presented the king was virtually recovered, and the matter ended ineffectually. No serious consequences probably would in any case have arisen from the course adopted by the Irish parliament, but the difference between the two countries on so important a question enforced the need of a legislative union. Soon after the conclusion of this business Sydney resigned the home office. He differed from Pitt on the slave trade question, and Pitt was probably glad to get a colleague more thoroughly at one with him. He was succeeded by William Grenville on June 5, and Henry Addington was elected speaker in Grenville's place.
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION BEGINS.
In the summer news of a revolution arrived from Paris. The reforming movement, in which all European states had some share, was promoted in France by ideas of constitutional government borrowed from England, by the attacks of Voltaire on medievalism and religious authority, by the advance of science, by the teaching of the encyclopædists, by the exaltation of individual liberty by political economists, by Rousseau's romantic theories on the foundations of society, and by sympathy with the American revolution. It was supplied with practical aims by the misery of the poor, the injustice done to the lower classes, which alone paid the heaviest of the taxes, the privileges of the nobles and clergy, the harshness of the laws, and arbitrary methods of government. England, as we have seen, shared in the reforming movement. Here, however, it had no such violent results as in France. No sharp lines divided class from class; the laws were the same for all, there was no difference in taxation, and no privileged caste, for a peer's younger sons were commoners, as was his eldest son so long as his father lived. Parliamentary and other free institutions, imperfect as they were, secured the liberties of the people. The life of the agricultural poor though hard was not intolerable; landowners lived upon their estates and directed local affairs, and the poor were at least kept from starvation. France was almost bankrupt, ruined by the prodigality of her two last kings and their neglect of their duties to their people. Louis XVI. was forced to summon the states-general, which met at Versailles on May 4, 1789. Political discontent was rife and was rendered dangerous by the distress of the poor; the winter had been hard, prices were rising, and Paris was full of destitute persons, of labourers out of work, and along with them a large number of criminals and ruffians.
The deputies of the "third estate," who were about equal in number to those of the two privileged orders and were supported by a few nobles and a large minority of the clergy, demanded that the three estates should form a single chamber. The king upheld the privileged orders in their refusal. The third estate voted itself a "national assembly," and, after a struggle of six weeks, gained its point, and the estates were constituted as a single assembly. Paris was in a ferment of excitement. The king dismissed Necker, the minister of finance, who was trusted by the popular party, and refused to withdraw his troops from the city. A riot broke out, and on July 14 the Bastille, an ancient fortress and prison, then little used, which was guarded by a few Swiss and some old soldiers or invalides, was taken by the mob, and the governor and some others were murdered. The king's brother, the Count of Artois, the Prince of Condé, and several unpopular nobles fled from France. A new municipality was established and Lafayette was chosen to command a new civic militia or national guard. Disorder and rioting prevailed in the provinces, country-houses were burnt and pillaged, and many murders were committed. Louis was forced to assent to all the demands of the people; he recalled Necker, and showed himself at the Hôtel de Ville wearing the national cockade or tricolour. The assembly voted decrees sweeping away the feudal system, abolishing the privileges of classes and corporations, and ecclesiastical tithes, and promulgated a flatulent declaration of the rights of man. Bread-riots broke out in Paris on October 5; a mob marched on Versailles and invaded the palace, and on the 6th the national guard brought the king and queen to Paris, where they remained in virtual captivity.
ENGLISH OPINIONS ON EVENTS IN FRANCE.
The first tidings of the movement were received in England with satisfaction. It was generally believed that the insurrection would shortly end in the establishment of constitutional government, that while the troubles lasted France would cease to be formidable, and that consequently a continuance of peace and relief from taxation might be expected. Before long, however, the acts of violence and the spoliation effected by the decrees of the assembly roused widespread disgust. As late as February, 1790, Pitt, while stigmatising the liberty proclaimed in France as "absolute slavery," believed that the commotions would end in order and true liberty. Burke from the first held that the outburst of "Parisian ferocity" proved that it was doubtful whether the French were fit for liberty; he maintained that, though the power of France might cease to be formidable, its example was to be dreaded, and expressed his abhorrence of the destruction of the institutions of the kingdom. Fox, on the other hand, as he had delighted in the American revolution, delighted in the revolution in France. Of the fall of the Bastille, which had made hardly any impression on French public opinion, he wrote: "How much the greatest event it is that has happened in the world; and how much the best!" While he regretted the bloodshed which accompanied the revolution, he constantly declared his exultation in its successes. A comparatively small party of democrats, supported by the political dissenters under the leadership of the Unitarian ministers Price and Priestley, noisily expressed their sympathy with the French democrats; and some men of high position, such as Lords Stanhope and Lansdowne, professed more or less republican principles. The revolution society under the presidency of Stanhope sent an address to the French assembly, and clubs were formed in many large towns "avowedly affiliated to the democratic clubs in France".[220]
The difference between Burke and Fox on this matter was openly declared in the debate on the army estimates in February, 1790. Fox in a mischievous speech referred to the part taken by the French army in forwarding the revolution, and said that it was a time when he should be least jealous of an increase in the army, since the example of France had shown that "a man by becoming a soldier did not cease to be a citizen". Burke declared that France was setting an example of anarchy, fraud, violence, and atheism, and that the worst part of its example was the interference in civil affairs of "base hireling mutineers" who deserted their officers "to join a furious licentious populace". He protested against a comparison between the revolution in France and the revolution of 1688, between the conduct of the soldiery on that occasion and the behaviour of some of the French troops. His speech, which was received with general applause, had a strong effect on opinion, and Pitt and others expressed their agreement with it. Fox answered him in a conciliatory tone. Sheridan fanned the flame; he taunted Burke with inconsistency, and pronounced a panegyric on the revolutionary leaders. Burke replied that thenceforth he and Sheridan were separated in politics. A rift in the opposition was started, and an attempt to close it by a conference two days later was ineffectual. The opinion of parliament on two other questions during the session was, seemingly, influenced by events in France. Fox renewed the attack on the test acts. He was opposed by Pitt; and Burke, whose speech, Fox said, filled him "with grief and shame," animadverted on the overthrow of the Church in France, and maintained that Price, Priestley, and other dissenters hoped to overthrow the Church of England. Fox's motion was defeated by 294 to 105. A motion for parliamentary reform by Flood, who then represented an English constituency, was opposed by Pitt, Windham, and Burke, and was rejected without a division. The session ended on June 10, and parliament was dissolved.