propositions which the enemies of the fallen minister could invent. He urged the House of Commons to appoint a secret tribunal for the purpose of investigating the conduct of the late First Lord of the Treasury. This was done. The great majority of the inquisitors were notoriously hostile to the accused statesman. Yet they were compelled to own that they could find no fault in him. They therefore called for new powers, for a bill of indemnity to witnesses; or, in plain words, for a bill to reward all who might give evidence, true or false, against the Earl of Orford. This bill Pitt supported-Pitt, who had offered to be a screen between Lord Orford and public justice! These are melancholy facts. Mr. Thackeray omits them, or hurries over them as fast as he can; and, as eulogy is his business, he is in the right to do so. But, though there are many parts in the life of Pitt which it is more agreeable to contemplate, we know none more instructive. What must have been the general state of political morality, when a young man, considered, and justly considered, as the most public-spirited and spotless statesmen of his time, could attempt to force his way into office by means so disgraceful? in consideration of "the noble defence he had made for the support of the laws of England, and to prevent the ruin of his country." The will was made in August. The Duchess died in October. In November Pitt had become a courtier. The Pelhams had forced the king, much against his will, to part with Lord Carteret, now Earl Granville. They proceeded, after this victory, to form the government on that basis, called by the cant name of the "broad bottom." Lyttleton had a seat at the treasury, and several other friends of Pitt were provided for. But Pitt himself was, for the present, forced to be content with promises. The king resented most highly some expres sions which the ardent orator had used in the debate on the Hanoverian troops. But Newcastle and Pelham expressed the strongest confidence that time, and their exertions, would soften the royal displeasure. Pitt, on his part, omitted nothing that might facilitate his admission to office. He resigned his place in the household of Prince Frederic, and, when Parliament met, exerted his eloquence in support of the government. The Pelhams were really sincere in their endeavours to remove the strong prejudices that had The bill of indemnity was rejected by the taken root in the king's mind. They knew Lords. Walpole withdrew himself quietly that Pitt was not a man to be deceived with from the public eye; and the ample space ease, or offended with impunity. They were which he had left vacant was soon occupied afraid that they should not be long able to put by Carteret. Against Carteret Pitt began to him off with promises. Nor was it their intethunder with as much zeal as he had ever rest so to put him off. There was a strong tie manifested against Sir Robert. To Carteret between him and them. He was the enemy of he transferred most of the hard names which their enemy. The brothers hated and dreaded were familiar to his eloquence-sole minister, the eloquent, aspiring, and imperious Granville. wicked minister, odious minister, execrable They had traced his intrigues in many quarters. minister. The great topic of his invective was They knew his influence over the royal mind. the favour shown to the German dominions of They knew that, as soon as a favourable opporKing George. He attacked with great vio-tunity might arrive, he would be recalled to the lence, and with an ability which raised him to head of affairs. They resolved to bring things the very first rank among the parliamentary to a crisis; and the question on which they took speakers, the practice of paying the Hanove-issue with their master was, whether Pitt should rian troops with English money. The House or should not be admitted to office? They of Commons had lately lost some of its most chose their time with more skill than generosidistinguished ornaments. Walpole and Pul- ty. It was when rebellion was actually raging teney had accepted peerages; Sir William Wyndham was dead; and among the rising men none could be considered as, on the whole, a match for Pitt. During the recess of 1744, the old Duchess of Marlborough died. She carried to her grave the reputation of being decidedly the best hater of her time. Yet her love had been infinitely more destructive than her hatred. In the time of Anne, her temper had ruined the party to which she belonged, and the husband whom she adored. Time had made her neither wiser nor kinder. Whoever was at any moment great and prosperous, was the object of her fiercest detestation. She had hated Walpole -she now hated Carteret. Pope, long before her death, predicted the fate of her vast property : "To heirs unknown descends the unguarded store, Or wanders, Heaven-directed, to the poor." Pitt was poor enough; and to him Heaven directed a portion of the wealth of the haughty dowager. She left him a legacy of £10,000, VOL. II.-30 in Britain, when the Pretender was master of the northern extremity of the island, that they tendered their resignations. The king found himself deserted, in one day, by the whole strength of that party which had placed his family on the throne. Lord Granville tried to form a government; but it soon appeared that the parliamentary interest of the Pelhams was irresistible; and that the king's favourite statesman could count only on about thirty Lords, and eighty members of the House of Commons. The scheme was given up. Granville went away laughing. The ministers came back stronger than ever, and the king was now no longer able to refuse any thing that they might be pleased to demand. All that he could do, was to mutter that it was very hard that Newcastle, who was not fit to be chamberlain to the most insignificant prince in Germany should dictate to the King of England. One concession the ministers graciousiy made. They agreed that Pitt should not be placed in a situation in which it would he ne cessary for him to have frequent interviews U 2 with the king. Instead, therefore, of making their new ally Secretary of War, as they had intended, they appointed him Vice-Treasurer of Ireland, and in a few months promoted him to the office of Paymaster of the Forces. This was, at that time, one of the most luerative offices in the government. The salary was but a small part of the emolument which the Paymaster derived from his place. He was allowed to keep a large sum-seldom less than £100,000-constantly in his hands; and the interest on this sum, probably about £4,000 a year, he might appropriate to his own use. This practice was not secret, nor was it considered as disreputable. It was the practice of men of undoubted honour, both before and after the time of Pitt. He, however, refused to accept one farthing beyond the salary which the law had annexed to his office. It had been usual for foreign princes, who received the pay of England, to give to the Paymaster of the Forces a small per centage on the subsidies. These ignominious vails Pitt resolutely declined. offices in the government. One of these, Murray, was successively Solicitor-general and Attorney-general. This distinguished person far surpassed Pitt in correctness of taste, in power of reasoning, in depth and variety of know ledge. His parliamentary eloquence never blazed into sudden flashes of dazzling brilliancy; but its clear, placid, and mellow splendour was never for an instant overclouded. Intellectually he was, we believe, fully equal to Pitt; but he was deficient in the moral qualities to which Pitt owed most of his success. Murray wanted the energy, the courage, the all-grasping and all-risking ambition which make men great in stirring times. His heart was a little cold; his temper cautious even to timidity; his manners decorous even to formality. He never exposed his fortunes or his fame to any risk which he could avoid. At one time he might in all probability have been Prime Minister. But the object of all his wishes was the judicial bench. The situation of Chief Justice might not be so splendid as that of First Lord of the Treasury; but it was dignified; it was quiet; it was secure; and therefore it was the favourite situation of Murray. Fox, the father of that great man whose mighty efforts in the cause of peace, of truth, and of liberty have made that name immortal, was secretary at war. He was a favourite with the king, with the Duke of Cumberland, and with some of the most powerful individuals of the great Whig connection. His parliamentary talents were of the highest order. As a speaker he was in almost all respects the very opposite of Pitt. His figure was ungraceful; his face, as Reynolds and Roubiliac have preserved it to us, indicated a strong understand Disinterestedness of this kind was, in his days, very rare. His conduct surprised and amused politicians. It excited the warmest admiration throughout the body of the people. In spite of the inconsistencies of which Pitt had been guilty, in spite of the strange contrast between his violence in Opposition and his tameness in office, he still possessed a large share of the public confidence. The motives which may lead a politician to change his connections, or his general line of conduct, are often obscure; but disinterestedness in money matters everybody can understand. Pitt was thenceforth considered as a man who was proof to all sordid temptations. If he acted ill, it might being; but the features were coarse, and the gefrom an error in judgment; it might be from resentment; it might be from ambition. But, poor as he was, he had vindicated himself from all suspicion of covetousness. Eight quiet years followed-eight years during which the minority, feeble from the time of Lord Granville's defeat, continued to dwindle till it became almost invisible. Peace was made with France and Spain in 1748. Prince Frederick died in 1751, and with him died the very semblance of opposition. All the most distinguished survivors of the party which had supported Walpole and of the party which had opposed him were united under his successor. The fiery and vehement spirit of Pitt had for a time been laid to rest. He silently acquiesced in that very system of Continental measures which he had lately condemned. He ceased to talk disrespectfully about Hanover. He did not object to the treaty with Spain, though that treaty left us exactly where we had been when he uttered his spirit-stirring harangues against the pacific policy of Walpole. Now and then glimpses of his former self appeared, but they were few and transient. Pelham knew with whom he had to deal, and felt that an ally so little used to control and so capable of inflicting injury might well be indulged in an occasional fit of waywardness. Two men, little, if at all, inferior to Pitt in rowers of mind, held, like him, subordinate neral aspect dark and lowering. His manner was awkward; his delivery was hesitating; he was often at a stand for want of a word; but as a debater as a master of that keen, weighty, manly logic which is suited to the discussion of political questions-he has perhaps never been surpassed except by his son. In reply he was as decidedly superior to Pitt as in de clamation he was inferior. Intellectually, the balance was nearly equal between the rivals. But here, again, the moral qualities of Pitt turned the scale. Fox had undoubtedly many virtues. In natural disposition as well as in talents he bore a great resemblance to his more celebrated son. He had the same sweetness of temper, the same strong passions, the same openness, boldness, and impetuosity, the same cordiality towards friends, the same pla cability towards enemies. No man was more warmly or justly beloved by his family or by his associates. But unhappily he had been trained in a bad political school-in a school the doctrines of which were, that political virtue is the mere coquetry of political prostitution; that every patriot has his price; that government can be carried on only by means of corruption; and that the state is given as a prey to statesmen. These maxims were too much in vogue throughout the lower ranks of Walpole's party, and were too much encou raged by Walpole himself, who, from contempt of what is in our day called humbug, often ran | higher secrets of state, but obeyed implicitly extravagantly and offensively into the opposite the directions of his superior, and was, to use extreme. The loose political morality of Fox Doddington's expression, merely Lord Sunderpresented a remarkable contrast to the osten- land's man. But times were changed. Since tatious purity of Pitt. The nation distrusted the days of Sunderland the importance of the the former, and placed implicit confidence in House of Commons had been constantly on the latter. But almost all the statesmen of the the increase. During many years the person age had still to learn that the confidence of the who conducted the business of the government nation was worth having. While things went in that house had almost always been Prime on quietly, while there was no opposition, while Minister. Under these circumstance it was every thing was given by the favour of a small ruling junto, Fox had a decided advantage over Pitt; but when dangerous times came, when Europe was convulsed with war, when Parliament was broken up into factions, when the public mind was violently excited, the favourite of the people rose to supreme power, while his rival sank into insignificance. Early in the year 1754, Henry Pelham died unexpectedly. "Now I shall have no more peace," exclaimed the old king when he heard the news. He was in the right. Pelham had succeeded in bringing together and keeping together all the talents of the kingdom. By his death the highest post to which an English subject can aspire was left vacant, and at the same moment the influence which had yoked together and reined in so many turbulent and ambitious spirits was withdrawn. Within a week after Pelham's death it was determined that the Duke of Newcastle should be placed at the head of the treasury; but the arrangement was still far from complete. Who was to be the leading minister of the crown in the House of Commons? Was the office to be intrusted to a man of eminent talents? And would not such a man in such a place demand and obtain a larger share of power and patronage than Newcastle would be disposed to concede? Was a mere drudge to be employed? And what probability was there that a mere drudge would be able to manage a large and stormy assembly abounding with able and experienced men? Pope has said of that wretched miser, Sir John Cutler "Cutler saw tenants break and houses fall For very want; he could not build a wall." Newcastle's love of power resembled Cutler's love of money. It was an avarice which thwarted itself-a penny-wise and pound-foolish cupidity. An immediate outlay was so painful to him, that he would not venture to make the most desirable improvement. If he could have found the heart to cede at once a portion of his authority, he might probably have insured the continuance of what remained; but he thought it better to construct a weak and rotten government, which tottered at the smallest breath and fell in the first storm, than to pay the necessary price for sound and durable materials. He wished to find some person who would be willing to accept the lead of the House of Commons on terms similar to those on which Secretary Craggs had acted under Sunderland five-andthirty years before. Craggs could hardly be called a minister. He was a mere agent for the minister. He was not trusted with the not to be supposed that any person who possessed the talents necessary to the situation would stoop to accept it on such terms as Newcastle was disposed to offer. Pitt was ill at Bath; and had he been well and in London, neither the king nor Newcastle would have been disposed to make any overtures to him. The cool and wary Murray had set his heart on professional objects. Negotiations were opened with Fox. Newcastle behaved like himself--that is to say, childishly and basely. The proposition which he made was, that Fox should be Secretary of State, with the lead of the House of Commons; that the disposal of the secret-service money, or in plain words, the business of buying members of Parliament, should be left to the First Lord of the Treasury, but that Fox should be exactly informed of the way in which this fund was employed. To these conditions Fox assented. But the next day every thing was confusion. Newcastle had changed his mind. The conversation which took place between Fox and the duke is one of the most curious in English history. "My brother," said Newcastle, "when he was at the treasury, never told anybody what he did with the secret-service money. No more will I." The answer was obvious. Pelham had been not only First Lord of the Treasury, but manager of the House of Commons, and it was therefore unnecessary for him to confide to any other person his dealings with the members of that house. "But how," said Fox, "can I lead in the Commons without information on this head? How can I talk to gentlemen when I do not know which of them have received gratifications and which have not? And who," he continued, "is to have the disposal of places?" "I myself," said the duke. "How then am I to manage the House of Commons ?" "Oh, let the members of the House of Commons come to me." Fox then mentioned the general election which was approaching, and asked how the ministerial burghs were to be filled up. "Do not trouble yourself," said Newcastle, "that is all settled." This was too much for human nature to bear. Fox refused to accept the secretaryship of state on such terms, and the duke confided the management of the House of Commons to a dull, harmless man, whose name is almost forgotten in our time-Sir Thomas Robinson. When Pitt returned from Bath, he affected great moderation, though his haughty soul was boiling with resentment. He did not complain of the manner in which he had been passed by; and said openly, that in his opinion, Fox was the fittest man to lead the House of Commons. The rivals were reconciled by their common interests and their common enmities, always considered as his tools. Legge, the and concerted a plan of operations for the next Chancellor of the Exchequer, refused to sign session. "Sir Thomas Robinson lead us!" the treasury warrants which were necessary said Pitt to Fox; "the duke might as well send his jack-boot to lead us." to give effect to the treaties. Those persons who were supposed to possess the confidence The elections of 1754 were favourable to of the young Prince of Wales and his mother, the administration. But the aspect of foreign held very menacing language. In this peraffairs was threatening. In India the English plexity Newcastle sent for Pitt, hugged him, and the French had been employed ever since patted him, smirked at him, wept over him, the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, in cutting each and lisped out the highest compliments and other's throats. They had lately taken to the the most splendid promises. The king, who same practice in America. It might have had hitherto been as sulky as possible, would been foreseen that stirring times were at hand be civil to him at the levee; he should be -times which would call for abilities very dif- brought into the cabinet; he should be conferent from those of Newcastle and Robinson. sulted about every thing; if he would only be In November, the Parliament met; and be- so good as to support the Hessian subsidy in fore the end of that month the new Secretary the House of Commons. Pitt coldly declined of State had been so unmercifully baited by the proffered seat in the cabinet, expressed the the Paymaster of the Forces, and the Secre- highest love and reverence for the king, and tary at War, that he was thoroughly sick of said that if his majesty felt a strong personal his situation. Fox attacked him with great interest in the Hessian treaty, he would so far force and acrimony. Pitt affected a kind of deviate from the line which he had traced out contemptuous tenderness for Sir Thomas, and for himself as to give that treaty his support. directed his attacks principally against New-"Well, and the Russian subsidy ?" said Newcastle. On one occasion, he asked in tones of thunder, whether Parliament sat only to register the edicts of one too-powerful subject? The duke was scared out of his wits. He was afraid to dismiss the mutineers; he was afraid to promote them; but it was absolutely necessary to do something. Fox, as the less proud and intractable of the refractory pair, was preferred. A seat in the cabinet was offered to him, on condition that he would give efficient support to the ministry in Parliament. In an evil hour for his fame and his fortunes, he accepted the offer, and abandoned his connection with Pitt, who never forgave this desertion. Sir Thomas, assisted by Fox, contrived to get through the business of the year without much trouble. Pitt was waiting his time. The negotiations pending between France and England took every day a more unfavourable aspect. Towards the close of the session the king sent a message to inform the House of Commons, that he had found it necessary to make preparations for war. The House returned an address of thanks, and passed a vote of credit. During the recess, the old animosity of both nations was inflamed by a series of disastrous events. An English force was cut off in America; and several French merchantmen were taken in the West Indian seas. It was plain that war was at hand. castle. "No," said Pitt, "not a system of subsidies." The duke summoned Lord Hardwicke to his aid; but Pitt was inflexible. Murray would do nothing, Robinson could do nothing. It was necessary to have recourse to Fox. He became Secretary of State, with the full authority of a leader in the House of Commons; and Sir Thomas was pensioned off on the Irish establishment. In November, 1755, the House met. Public expectation was wound up to the height. After ten quiet years there was to be an Opposi tion, countenanced by the heir-apparent of the throne, headed by the most brilliant orator of the age, and backed by a strong party throughout the country. The debate on the address was long remembered as one of the greatest parliamentary conflicts of that generation. It began at three in the afternoon, and lasted till five the next morning. It was on this night that Gerard Hamilton delivered that single speech from which his nickname was derived. His eloquence threw into the shade every orator except Pitt, who declaimed against the subsidies for an hr and a half with extraor dinary energy and cuect. Those powers which had formerly spread terror through the majori ties of Walpole and Carteret, were now displayed in their highest perfection before an audience long accustomed to such exhibitions. One fragment of this celebrated oration remains in a state of tolerable preservation. It is the comparison between the coalition of Fox and Newcastle, and the junction of the Rhone and the Saone. "At Lyons," he said, "I was taken to see the place where the two rivers meet-the one gentle, feeble, languid, and though languid, yet of no depth, the other a boisterous and impetuous torrent; but different as they are, they meet at last." The When the stipulations of these treaties were amendment moved by the Opposition was remade known, there arose throughout the king-jected by a great majority, and Pitt and Legge dom a murmur, from which a judicious observer might easily prognosticate the approach of a tempest. Newcastle encountered strong pposition, even from those whom he had The first object of the king was to secure Hanover; and Newcastle was disposed to gratify his master. Treaties were concluded, after the fashion of those times, with several petty German princes, who bound themselves to find soldiers if England would find money; and as it was suspected that Frederic the Second had set his heart on the eiectoral dominions of his uncle, Russia was hired to keep Prussia in awe. were immediately dismissed from their offices. Lyttleton, whose friendship for Pitt had, during some time, been cooling, succeeded Legge as Chancellor of the Exchequer. During several months the contest in the House of Commens was extremely sharp. Warm debates took place on the estimates, debates still warmer on the subsidiary treaties. The government succeeded in every division; but the fame of Pitt's eloquence, and the influence of his lofty and determined character, continued to increase through the session; and the events which followed the prorogation rendered it utterly impossible for any other person to manage the Parliament or the country. 239 ere there is a free the throne? What if a hosting constant awe At length, in October, the decisaracter, The war began in every part of the world with events disastrous to England, and even more shameful than disastrous. But the most humiliating of these events was the loss of Minorca. The Duke of Richelieu, an old fop, who had passed his life from sixteen to sixty in seducing women, for whom he cared not one straw, landed on that island, with a French army, and succeeded in reducing it. Admiral Byng was sent from Gibraltar to throw suc-day. Would he only make his appearance once cours into Port Mahon; but he did not think more in the House of Commons? Would he fit to engage the French squadron, and sailed only speak in favour of the address? He was back without having effected his purpose. inexorable; and peremptorily said, that they The people were inflamed to madness. A might give or withhold the chief-justiceship; storm broke forth, which appalled even those but that he would be attorney-general no longer. who remembered the days of "Excise" and Newcastle contrived to overcome the prejuof "South Sea." The shops were filled with dices of the king, and overtures were made to libels and caricatures. The walls were cover-Pitt, through Lord Hardwicke. Pitt knew his ed with placards. The city of London called for power, and showed that he knew it. He devengeance, and the cry was echoed from every manded as an indispensable condition, that corner of the kingdom. Dorsetshire, Hunting- Newcastle should be altogether excluded from donshire, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, So-the new arrangement. mersetshire, Lancashire, Suffolk, Shropshire, The duke was now in a state of ludicrous Surrey, sent up strong addresses to the throne; distress. He ran about chattering and crying, and instructed their representatives to vote for asking advice and listening to none. a strict inquiry into the causes of the late dis-mean time, the session drew near. The public asters. In the great towns the feeling was as excitement was unabated. Nobody could be strong as in the counties. In some of the in- found to face Pitt and Fox in the House of structions it was even recommended that the Commons. Newcastle's heart failed him, and supplies should be stopped. he tendered his resignation. In the The king sent for Fox, and directed him to form the plan of an administration in concert with Pitt. But Pitt had not forgotten old injuries, and positively refused to act with Fox. The king now applied to the Duke of Devonshire, and this mediator succeeded in making an arrangement. He consented to take the Treasury. Pitt became Secretary of State, with the lead of the House of Commons. The Great Seal was put into commission. Legge returned to the exchequer; and Lord Temple, whose sister Pitt had lately married, was placed at the head of the Admiralty. The nation was in a state of angry and sullen despondency, almost unparalleled in history. People have, in all ages, been in the habit of talking about the good old times of their ancestors, and the degeneracy of their contemporaries. This is in general merely a cant. But in 1756 it was something more. At this time appeared Brown's "Estimate"-a book now remembered only by the allusions in Cowper's "Table Talk," and Burke's "Letters on a Regicide Peace." It was universally read, admired, and believed. The author fully convinced his readers, that they were a race of cowards and scoundrels; that nothing could save them; that they were on the point of be-tration would last but a very short time. It ing enslaved by their enemies, and that they richly deserved their fate. Such were the speculations to which ready credence was given, at the outset of the most glorious war in which England had ever been engaged. It was clear from the first that this adminis lasted not quite five months; and during those five months, Pitt and Lord Temple were treated with rudeness by the king, and found but a feeble support in the House of Commons. It is a remarkable fact, that the Opposition preNewcastle now began to tremble for his vented the re-election of some of the new mi. place, and for the only thing which was dearer nisters. Pitt, who sat for one of the boroughs to him than his place-his neck. The people which were in the Pelham interest, found some were not in a mood to be tried with. Their difficulty in obtaining a seat after his acceptcry was for blood. For this once they might ance of the seals. So destitute was the new be contented with the sacrifice of Byng. But government of that sort of influence without what if fresh disasters should take place? which no government could then be durable. What if an unfriendly sovereign should ascend One of the arguments most frequently urged |