CHAP. VIII.] GROUNDS OF EXPECTATION. 173 As an instance of this kind of versatility he one night gamed so desperately at his club as to be plunged in despair at his losses. His face and manner so alarmed his friends, when he rushed from the house, that they apprehended suicide. They followed him closely, knocked at his door almost as soon as it had admitted him, and walked straight into the library. There they found him on his back on the hearth-rug, reading Herodotus, and to all appearance perfectly happy. As for his quickness in gaining knowledge, Dr. Abraham Rees, the Dissenting Minister, used to tell an anecdote which well exhibits it. Dr. Rees and a deputation went up to Mr. Fox, to engage his interest for the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts. Though stanch in the principles of religious liberty, he did not pretend to know anything of the points of this particular case. He looked his visitors "through and through" while they spoke, asked four or five admirable questions, and dismissed them, after a very short audience. As they went up St. James's Street, he passed them, booted for his ride; and he entered the House, riding-whip in hand, as soon as he returned. Dr. Rees and his friends were in the gallery; and to their great delight, they heard from Mr. Fox a speech on their question so masterly, so deep, comprehensive, and exact, that their cause could not have been in better hands. The grounds of the popular expectation from Mr. Fox now were his strenuous opposition to the American war, at the beginning of his career; his sympathy with the French Revolution, as long as it appeared to be the, protest of humanity against tyranny; his reprobation of the political persecutions which were the disgrace of Mr. Pitt's government; his steady advocacy of Peace with France, even after Lord Grenville and his friends had given up all idea of it; his advocacy of the Catholic claims, and of religious liberty everywhere; and his intrepidity and power as the leader of Opposition during many dark and stormy years. He had undergone a rupture in his friendship with his master and idol, Burke, rather than give up his hopes from the French Revolution; and he had, with his friends, seceded from the House on occasion of the passage of the Treason and Seditious Acts. He had forfeited the confidence of many by his way of coming into power, with Lord North, in 1770; but of late, from 1797 to 1802, he had retired from the political world where he thought he could do no good, and had proved himself happier in his country home, farming and gardening in the mornings, and reading Greek plays in the evenings, than he had ever been while great among the great men of the day. In 1802, he had been in Paris, and had conversed with Napoleon, and been the guest of Lafayette, and others who understood the politics of France; and this seemed to improve the chances of 174 FOX FOREIGN SECRETARY. [Book I. peace, if he were made Minister. It was to promote this object and another the abolition of the Slave-trade that Mr. Fox made the choice of office which surprised some of his friends. He chose to be Foreign Secretary. The state of opinion in France in regard to our leading statesmen seems to have been curious, in those days. The Opposition were despised by orderly Frenchmen, and Mr. Pitt revered as the upholder of Monarchy.1 No Frenchman could say that Mr. Pitt had managed the war very well; but they fancied he had saved his country from revolution. Yet they could not resist Mr. Fox's sympathy with them as a people, and his disposition to be on friendly terms with them, without reprobating their ideas or proceedings, or meddling with their forms of government. At the same time, we find Mr. Fox, at Paris, obliged to repel precisely, however indignantly, the charge brought against Mr. Windham, by Napoleon himself, of being concerned in the plot of the Infernal Machine. It was actually believed by intelligent Frenchmen that an English political leader could plot for the assassination of the ruler of France. It is interesting here to turn back to what Mr. Fox wrote, in a private letter,2 in 1778, about his political destinies. He was then thirty-one now fifty-seven. "People flatter me that I continue to gain rather than lose estimation as an orator; and I am so convinced this is all I shall ever gain (unless I choose to be one of the meanest of men) that I never think of any other object of ambition. I am certainly ambitious by nature; but I have, or think I have, totally subdued that passion. I have still as much vanity as ever, which is a happier passion by far, because great reputation, I think, I may acquire and keep: great situations I never can acquire, nor, if acquired, keep, without making sacrifices that I will never make." Everybody knew how simply and generously he had desired not to stand in the way, when Mr. Pitt had been making overtures to the Grenvilles; and now, at last, he was in a "great situation," such as he had thought he could never acquire; and vast and bright were the anticipations from such an event. His health, it is true, was not good; but the diligence with which he undertook and prosecuted the business of his office prevented the public from suspecting how bad it was. The difficulties of the new Administration were known to be great, from the relations of parties, the disfavor of the King, and the temper and quality of some of the new Ministers themselves; but we know from the upright and enlightened Horner what was anticipated by such men as himself, men gifted with everything but foresight as to the changes of mortality. " We have every reason to place our trust in the two leaders of this 1 Memoirs of Romilly, ii. p. 101. 8 Memoirs, i. p. 343. 2 To Mr. Fitz-Patrick. 8 CHAP. VIII.] OTHER MINISTERS. 175 Ministry, from their behavior to each other in this arrangement; whatever may have been the case with others, both Mr. Fox and Lord Grenville have shown great moderation, and a perfect confidence in each other. If they as perfectly understand each other, with regard to the direction of public measures in future, we shall have an administration of far greater efficiency and success than the appearances of our domestic parties, I must own, would at first lead us to expect.” Mr. Fox, as has been said, took the Foreign Office. Lord Spencer was Home, and Mr. Windham War Secre- Other mintary. The young Lord Henry Petty (still living as isters. Marquess of Lansdowne) was brought forward in the then most difficult office of Chancellor of the Exchequer. Lord Sidmouth was Lord Privy Seal, and Lord Fitzwilliam President of the Council. Lord Howick (afterwards the revered Earl Grey of our own time) took the Admiralty; and the Earl of Moira had the Ordnance. The difficulty was about the Chancellorship. It was offered to Lord Mansfield first, and then to Lord Ellenborough, who both declined it. It was then given to Erskine, who, though a great patriot, and the greatest of advocates, was not qualified for the woolsack. No one thought he was; and the discontent was great; and no one was more dissatisfied than himself. He went to Romilly, and implored guidance as to what he should read, and how he should prepare himself. “ You must make me a Chancellor now," he said,1" that I may afterwards make you one.” Romilly himself became Solicitor-General, and Pigott Attorney-General. A sweeping change was made in minor offices: such a change as had not been known for many a day; and this was no wonder, for there was to be a sweeping change of policy. One of the Prince's great friends, an able man who had done good service to good principles in his day, had by this time, it appears, incapacitated himself for receiving his due reward of honor and power. Sheridan's political services merited high office; but his personal habits excluded him from it. In his daily intoxication he was indiscreet; 2 and he could not be trusted in the Cabinet. This is supposed, without doubt, to be the reason why he was made only Treasurer of the Navy; and that, not without hesitation and reluctance. Sir Gilbert Elliot's appointment to the Board of Control was not understood or approved; and, as has been said, the admission of Chief Justice Ellenborough to a seat in the Cabinet damaged the Administration with both friends and foes. Such was the Ministry which was now to encounter unfavorable construction from the King and Duke of York, Opposition vexatious difficulties from the vulgarity of the Prince rancor. of Wales, and a virulent persecution from the Opposition led by 1 Memoirs of Romilly, ii. p. 129. 2 Memoirs of Horner, i. p. 332. 176 FIRST DIFFICULTIES. [BOOK I. Canning, then as petulant, provoking, and troublesome, as any spoiled child ever was, and the more imposing in his petulance from his idolatrous regrets for his departed chief. Some of Mr. Pitt's friends conceived, like Canning, that duty to him required of them opposition to his successors of a most rancorous kind. Others, like Lord Carrington,1 when conversing with Lord Malmesbury, held that time and fate had now dissolved all bonds of allegiance and of party, and that every man should act as seemed to him best for the public welfare; and others, as Lord Malmesbury himself, wondered that there could be a doubt as to what every true Pittite ought to do, that is, to hold to all other Pittites, and keep aloof from political men while the Whigs were in power just as if Pitt were still alive. None of these could fail to be obstructive to the new men; and their power of destruction seems to have been in proportion to the royal countenance of it. The terrors of the rank Tories of the day below the power of appreciating Pitt told for something on weak heads, in palaces and out of parliament. Dean Milner is found writing to Wilberforce 2 that Fox and Petty were incapable of steady enmity to the Slave-trade; that they could not do anything from principle; that there would be presently a filling of the Church with Socinians, if not Deists; and that the State would be inundated with infidelity and low profligate morals. That, under the administration of the virtuous man and strict churchman, Lord Grenville, such anticipations should have been made by the Dean of Carlisle, shows what must have been the rancor of the time. First diffi culties. men On the very approach of "all the talents" to the King, a difficulty arose. When, on the 1st of February, Lord Grenville read a paper, containing an account of proposed arrangements, the King was alarmed at the mention of changes in the army; and yet more, when it appeared that the changes were thought to be needed in that part of the military system which was under the charge of the Duke of York. He protested that this was an affair of the Crown alone; and that he should be surrendering his prerogative, if he allowed his ministers to meddle with the management of the army, further than the mere levying, clothing, and paying the troops. Since the time of the first Duke of Cumberland, the sovereign had wholly controlled the army, through the Commander-in-Chief. Lord Grenville considered this unconstitutional doctrine; and everybody understood that he was dismissed. But the King sent for him two days afterwards, and read a paper which declared his acquiescence in Lord Grenville's claim, provided only no changes in the management of the army were made without his knowl1 Diaries, iv. p. 358. 2 Wilberforce Correspondence, ii. p. 69. 8 Annual Register, 1806, p. 26. CHAP. VIII.] MILITARY ADMINISTRATION. 177 edge and consent. This being readily agreed to, as never having been questioned, everything was considered settled, so that the ministers might proceed to business. on this occasion as ever. The most pressing affair was the military administration, in which the accomplished, gallant, paradoxical Wind- Military ham was the responsible man. He was as perverse administration. He had been the advocate of Mr. Pitt's military system, and of his principle that the soldier must be severed from the rest of society set apart for his peculiar business trained, rewarded, and punished under a wholly peculiar régime. Mr. Pitt's notion of an efficient soldiery was, that it should be a perfectly organized machine of offence, each individual being as inorganic as man can be made. Mr. Pitt's great supporter in this view 2 now brought forward a plan of military defence, the chief object of which was to improve the condition and character of the soldier by enlisting him for seven years, with an addition of three, in case of actual war, instead of for life. At the same time, he would not hear of any mitigation of the barbarous punishments to which soldiers were then subject; for he insisted on severity of discipline as emphatically as in Mr. Pitt's time. The singular spectacle was thus witnessed of Mr. Windham sitting to hear his plan praised by successive speakers on opposite grounds. One showed how much more formidable the soldier would be to the enemy by retaining his citizen character and interests, expecting to reënter society as a civilian after a definite term; while another expressed agreement with Mr. Windham in his belief, that unless a system of exclusive treatment and singular discipline was preserved, there would be no resource but the conscription for reinforcing the army. Mr. Canning made bitter sport of Mr. Windham's inconsistencies in this business; but did not prevent the measure from passing. He and his friends made merry with the new method of recruiting, which would, they were sure, bring forth no soldiers. By this time, it had become a very difficult matter to procure recruits. The more stringent the compulsion applied by the preceding ministries, and the more broad the cajoling of the young men of the nation, the fewer came forth for the defence of the country; so that now, after so many years of war and exhaustion, it would have been no wonder if any new scheme had failed. But as soon as Mr. Windham's plan became understood throughout the country, recruiting began to improve, and desertion to diminish. There seemed no doubt that if the minister had been consistent-reducing the barbarity of punishments, and encouraging the award of honors his plan would have worked better still. But he could not be consistent, though he 1 Hansard, vi. pp. 652-688. 12 VOL. I. |