168

THE CATHOLIC QUESTION.

[BOOK I. appoint the people. As a beginning, Mr. Fox would disappoint The Catholic the Catholics. It was understood everywhere, and question. Mr. Fox made the avowal openly in conversation,1 that he did not intend to harass the King about the Catholic question at all. He knew that it would be useless; 2 and he advised the Catholic leaders to wait awhile not to petition again the Parliament which had just rejected their claims not to injure their cause by pushing it forward at a moment of grievous public alarm and perplexity. If, however, they differed from him about their course, and chose to renew their claim, he should be always found on their side, as hitherto, and say what he thought of the virtue of their cause. Many of the Catholic leaders acquiesced in this; but the enemies of Mr. Fox were right in concluding that many would not. To this day, his reputation is injured, in some quarters, by the imputation that he neglected the Catholic cause when power opened to him; while others think him fully justified in attempting the great object of peace with France-to say nothing of other aims though compelled to sever these aims from that of Catholic Emancipation. If, as such differences seem to show, it was a case of difficult decision, the successive Ministers who agreed to spare the King's feelings and the King's brain on this subject are entitled to a candid judgment; and most people, probably, now think that Mr. Fox, seeing that he could do the Catholics no good beyond the expression of his opinion, would have been wrong to decline, on their account, a possible opportunity of restoring peace with France, and promoting prosperity at home. Meantime, he was disappointing the Catholics, as he and his comrades were pretty sure to disappoint some other classes of expectants.

Lord Sid

The King's friends saw further consolation for him in the admission into the Cabinet of his favorite old minister, mouth. Lord Sidmouth. This was a consolation, however, which failed in practice. The King seems to have grown very tired of Lord Sidmouth, some time before this date. The obsequiousness and flattery, and pious sentiment, which had once so pleased the sovereign, could not always compensate for the complacent selfishness and garrulous vanity which made the weak man forget good manners, when his head was full of himself. In the preceding summer, when Lord Sidmouth resigned, he tried to return the key of the Council-box to the King, instead of to Lord Hawkesbury, because he and Lord Hawkesbury were not on speaking terms. When the King intimated that he had nothing to do with such quarrels, and would have ended the 1 Life of Lord Sidmouth, ii. p. 436. 2 Annual Register, 1806, p. 25. 8 Malmesbury Diaries, iv. p. 346.

CHAP. VIII.]

LORD SIDMOUTH.

169

audience, Lord Sidmouth detained him for an hour, compelling him to listen to his story, and so fatiguing him that the King told his family he had been plagued to death. Lord Sidmouth was not likely to regain his ground by becoming the colleague of Mr. Fox; and he had therefore no more such sentimental notes, and tender interviews, and royal presents, as had made him happy during his former term of office. Though called, as his biographer declares, "the King's friend" 1 in the Cabinet, not one letter passed, and very few interviews, during his whole term of office. Lord Grenville and the Whigs need not have feared to give their new colleague any place which might afford him access to the King's ear; for the royal ear was not favorably inclined. In August following, Lord Sidmouth himself wrote: "Previous to the Council, I had a long audience, the effect of which has been to relieve my own mind, and, I am willing to believe, that of the King. Misconceptions have been done away." Before this time, the King had grown into a great liking for Mr. Fox. He not only testified, on all occasions, to the good faith and good manners which he found in Mr. Fox, but fairly fell, like everybody else, under the influence of his extraordinary fascination. If this had but happened a few years sooner, what disaster and misery might have been spared!

2

It was necessary to have Lord Sidmouth in the Cabinet, though nobody particularly desired it. It was not on account of his personal qualities that he was sought; but on account of that "very numerous appearance of his friends," of which he wrote with complacency (though in a mistake) as the cause of the relinquishment of the Amendment. He commanded votes enough in Parliament to be able to turn the balance in a time of difficulty. Lord Grenville's government would unite the Old and New Opposition, as they were called: Mr. Fox being the head of the Old, which had opposed the war, and advocated broad popular liberties, and appealed to broad popular sympathies; and Lord Grenville being the leader of the New, which, though Whig in its principles, had supported the war as a painful necessity, and discountenanced any present extension of popular liberties. These two parties were secured; but they had together only about 150 votes in the Commons; and the new Administration must have more than this, considering the terms they were on with the Court. Some third party must be induced to join; and the choice was between Lord Sidmouth, with his compact body of adherents, and the scattered and perplexed Pittites. Lord Sidmouth had helped the exposure of Lord Melville; he was acceptable to the Prince, and, as was supposed, to the King also; he was not answerable for the recent continental alliance; he was 1 Life, ii. p. 433. 3 Ibid. p. 407.

? Ibid.

170

LORD ELLENBOROUGH.

[Book I not warlike or extravagant; his underlings were cleverer than those of the Pitt party. For these reasons and some others, Lord Sidmouth was considered the least undesirable of the leaders of whom one must be invited into the Coalition; and thus, though without talents, he became one of the Ministry of "All the Talents." The Prince sent Mr. Sheridan to him on the 23d of January; and, after some complacent discussions about his conscience and private feelings — such as he was forever making public he accepted office, as everybody knew throughout that he would. Though indispensable, his junction proved highly detrimental to the Grenville Administration. It was the occasion of a false step which proved most injurious to the new Cabinet. Lord Sidmouth, even if he had been, as he was supposed, "the King's friend," could not have sat alone in the Cabinet with ten men, of whom he had hitherto been the opponent. He endeavored, he was wont to say, to be as moderate as he could in his demands for his friends; but he must have one supporter in the Cabinet.1 He proposed Lord Buckinghamshire: but it was objected that some men of greater mark among the Whigs were to be left on one side; and he was invited to choose again. He Lord Ellen- named Lord Ellenborough, then Lord Chief Justice; borough. and unhappily the request was agreed to, and a high judical functionary was inducted into a political seat. The new ministers here afforded a grand theme to their opponents; and their opponents took care that they should never hear the last of it. Mr. Canning, then in his worst mood of vindictiveness, persecuted Mr. Fox, the whole session through, too much as he himself was, at a future day, to be persecuted, under circumstances mournfully similar. Few will now doubt that he had the right of the doctrine, and Mr. Fox the superiority of temper. It is admitted now that to keep separate the judicial and political functions is a primary principle of good government as it once was the most decisive feature of political progress; and Mr. Fox's argument,2 that a cabinet is not an institution, not an arrangement in any way known to the law, is not found to stand as a sufficient defence before the mischief and peril of impairing the judicial function; but every one's sympathies turn from the petulant young debater to the composed and benign Minister, when the charm of his temper appears amidst provocation. When Canning was ironically commenting on the title of “All the Talents," Mr. Fox repudiated the title, and observed that it was impossible that the Ministry could have arrogated it to themselves while they saw Canning himself on the other side of the House.

3

The two chiefs of the new Administration disappointed the ex1 Life, ii. p. 418. 2 Hansard, vi. p. 309. 3 Ibid. p. 466.

CHAP. VIII.]

LORD GRENVILLE.

171

pectations of their enemies by working well together. Mr. Fox had committed himself against the Wellesley policy in India, and had associated himself on that question with Lord Wellesley's enemies, Sir Philip Francis and Mr. Paull. Lord Grenville took the opposite view, and was a great champion of Lord Wellesley. This was not a difference which need prevent their acting together; and they settled it by agreeing that the accusation of Lord Wellesley was in no manner to be made a government question, while Mr. Fox reserved full liberty to speak and act as he should think proper, if the affair should be brought forward by others. When the people talked of the new Ministry, and the return of the Whigs to power, they were thinking of Mr. Fox. Perhaps he was, in all eyes, the true leader of the Cabinet. Yet Lord Grenville had qualities which perfectly Lord Grenfitted him for the post of leader. He had the knowl- ville. edge of affairs and the habits of business in which his coadjutors were deficient; for he had not, like them, been long in Opposition, and excluded from the sphere of political business. He was a kinsman and friend of Mr. Pitt, and had been his steady supporter till his return to power in 1804. We have seen something of Mr. Pitt's suffering under the retreat of "that proud man," as he called Lord Grenville, to a new position among the Whigs. The benefit to the Whigs of this accession was very great. Lord Grenville had that thorough respectability of life in which some of the Whig leaders were sadly deficient. He had an extent of knowledge which justified the extreme strength of his convictions; he had a power of will which, though amounting occasionally to obstinacy, was of eminent service in the position which he held in such times. His well-grounded self-confidence set free all his energies for action; and his industry was in proportion to his confidence. He was a wise friend of the Irish nation, and a really heroic advocate of the Catholic claims; for to his steadiness on this question he sacrificed power for many years of his life. He was, at the same time, so unquestionable a churchman, so opposed, as he proved when Chancellor of Oxford University, to all church reform, that the King's mind might be quite easy about the preservation of Protestantism while Lord Grenville was Minister. These were qualifications which fitted him for the post of leader; while his united honesty and prudence, his sense and learning, his experience and political philosophy, offered a broad basis of reliance for his colleagues and the country.

If such a man and minister as this was almost overlooked in

the presence of Fox, what must Fox have been? As Mr. Fox.

unlike Lord Grenville as one man could well be to

another. He had not the private respectability which is so dear

172

CHARACTER OF FOX.

[Book I. to the English people. Under unfavorable circumstances in early life, he became a gamester, and remained so for two thirds of his life. By a vigorous effort, he wrenched himself from the fascinations of play, when his friends arranged his affairs; but his vices could not but tell upon his intellect and his conscience, impairing the value of his life while shortening its duration. He had not Lord Grenville's immutable steadiness; nor his personal dignity; nor his vigilant prudence; nor his marvellous industry; nor his political and social science. While Lord Grenville was perhaps the most finished political economist of his time, Fox owned that he could not read Adam Smith, or fix his mind on speculations of that order. He had no conception, either, of the scope and importance of natural science, or of mental philosophy; and he could not, like Lord Grenville and most men of enlarged knowledge, respect the science and philosophy which he did not possess. These deficiencies led him into mischief, in public and in private caused him disgrace and misery in his personal position, and made him unsteady and disappointing on some important points when he was in possession of power. What was it, then, that made him tower above his party and his colleagues, so that all men's eyes were fixed on him, and hearts by thousands which forgot all about respectability and prudence and consistency? He had a heart; such a heart! And he had an imagination worthy to act with that heart; and a logical faculty such as is found only with the highest order of heart and imagination. Though he had not Lord Grenville's knowledge, it does not follow that he was ignorant. Though he could not attend to political economy, he was engrossed by history; so deeply interested in it, that he drew from it more philosophy than he was himself aware of. His classical accomplishments were of a high order, and to them he owed much of the beauty of his indescribable oratory. Of that oratory it is best to say nothing so impossible is it to convey any sense of its power. The best of the whole man was poured out into it his passionate love of liberty his hatred of tyrants his scorn of hypocrites his homage to rectitude his compassion to the suffering his recognitions of the past his intuition of the soul of the present - his prevision of the future · and all the nobleness, generosity, and sweetness of the noblest, most generous and sweetest temper that ever graced a lofty genius — all this, poured out in floods, now like sunlight, and now like volcanic fire, can hardly be conveyed to the imagination of the present generation, deeply as it moved the hearts of the last. He had powers which singularly compensated for his deficiencies. He could learn in a moment almost whatever he pleased; and when in the very depths of some unworthy passion, he could leap out of it upon higher and safer ground.