and his own ministers. The message he sent by Lord Temple to the wavering peers was unconstitutional enough, but it decided them at once on the side of royalty. They thought but little about the welfare of the thirty millions of Indians who were subject to the Company, and they cared less. Their eyes were suddenly opened to the injustice of the bill, and their hearts yearned towards the greatest corporation in the empire. To violate its charter, and to substitute a board of Fox's nominees, would place in the hands of one man— and that man the King's mortal aversion-patronage enough to outweigh the Admiralty and the Treasury, and to decide the fate of fifty elections. The King's cause would prove the strongest in the end; and it were surely better to be on the winning side. Seven or eight votes would turn the fortune of the day; and when George III. himself threatened every peer who voted for Fox's bill with his personal displeasure, would it not be wiser to have an eye to the main chance to remember that Lords of the Bedchamber could hold their places only by royal favour, and that mitres were in the gift of the Crown? An adjournment was proposed by the Opposition; and to the astonishment of all who were not in the secret, it was carried by eightyseven to seventy-nine votes. But the intrigue was soon bruited abroad; and the King, standing manfully to his guns, required Fox and North to resign their seals, without even admitting them to an interview. Perhaps he felt that their mere presence would be a merited rebuke. Perhaps he remembered, with a touch of remorse, that on a former occasion,* when the repeal of the Stamp Act was agitated, he had declared to Lord Harcourt, Lord Mansfield, and the Duke of York, that he considered it improper and unconstitutional to interfere with a measure before parliament, or to allow his name to be used to bias the votes of the members. Happy is he who condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth. Pitt was now premier. † Lord Temple, who had been the instrument employed for warping the peers, resigned his place in the new ministry after three days, and thereby removed from it an obvious scandal and reproach. Even those who rejoiced at the King's success were unable to justify the means by which it was brought about, and Pitt was fortunate by being able to affirm that he had no hand in the singular machination. The private virtues of George III., his urbanity and kindness to all who approached him, the concern he felt for their misfortunes, his encouragement of art and science, and the pensions he granted to men of worth and genius, contributed to secure for him the support of the people, and to establish for the Crown an ascendancy which lasted fifty years. The power of the Whig nobles as an oligarchy never returned; and when that of the Sovereign declined, it * In 1766. See Jesse's "George III.,” vol. i. p. 347, and the “Grenville Papers" there referred to. † December, 1783. yielded to the democratic element, which is now always acquiring new force. The Opposition which Pitt had to encounter in the outset was formidable. Though the country applauded him, men of the richest endowments-Fox and Burke, Sheridan and North-opposed him. In sixteen divisions they defeated the government; but the intrepid son of Chatham stood firm as a cliff. The Clerkship of the Pells fell vacant; and it was worth £3,000 a year. Pitt might have appointed himself, for it was in his gift. He was Chancellor of the Exchequer as well as First Lord of the Treasury. It was expected he would avail himself of this privilege, but he generously bestowed it on the poor and blind Colonel Barré. It was a wise stroke of policy; even his enemies praised him in this matter, and none ever ventured afterwards to question his probity. Pecuniary disinterestedness is the rarest of virtues, and there is, therefore, nothing which the public appreciates more highly. Some years later, when, owing to the King's insanity, the Prince of Wales was likely to become Regent, and to dismiss Pitt from office, he showed the same integrity and freedom from sordid ambition. The merchants and bankers of London were aware of his slender resources, and grateful for the many benefits he had conferred on commerce; and they offered most generously to present him with £100,000, that he might be raised above the caprice of fortune. This noble gift he refused without hesitation, saying to George Rose that "nothing on earth should induce him to accept it." It was by conduct like this that he gained the esteem of persons of the highest character, such as Wilberforce and Mrs. Hannah More,* and contrasted to advantage with his dissipated rival. * The King, Lord Thurlow, and Earl Temple, were all of opinion that he should dissolve parliament immediately after taking office; but the young premier thought otherwise, and would not be diverted from his purpose. He was persuaded that if the public were allowed time to reflect, they would support his government the more firmly in the ensuing elections. He submitted, therefore, to endless taunts, to being defeated on five motions in one night, and to being triumphed over by the Opposition sixteen times between the 17th of December, 1783, and the 8th of March, 1784. Even his friend Gibbon judged his case hopeless. Depend upon it," he said, "Billy's painted galley must soon sink under Charles's black collier." But he was amply rewarded for his selfrestraint. Leading men among the Whigs came over to his side. Lords Mahon, Mountmorres, Effingham, and Harcourt, who had all been obnoxious to the court as semi-Republicans; Mason, the Reformer and poet; the Duke of Richmond, who advocated universal suffrage; and Wilkes, once the idol of the mob, gave in their adhesion to the new minister, and were smiled upon by royalty when they appeared at the levees. * See her "Memoirs," vol. ii. p. 140. Butler's "Reminiscences," vol. i. p. 161. The majority in the House which the opponents of Pitt enjoyed for a moment dwindled down to a single vote; and the parliament being then dissolved in March, 1784, the people responded eagerly to the royal appeal, and a hundred and sixty friends of the Fox and North coalition lost their seats. Wilberforce, Pitt's best ally, was returned for Yorkshire, in spite of the strenuous opposition of the great Whig families;* the University of Cambridge elected Pitt as their representative, and at the age of twenty-five he began his reign over a vast empire. It was to last seventeen years—through nine years of peace and eight of war-to be undisputed in the cabinet, approved of parliament, applauded by the nation, and warmly supported by the Sovereign in whose name it was established and carried on. Neither Lord Chatham, Walpole, nor Godolphin had exercised such sway, nor had been able to embody so many different elements in their administration. Never was there a period in our government in which a firmer hand was required, nor one in which it was more excusable to substitute strength for utility, and to face the dangers from without, instead of correcting the evils and abuses within. During the first half of Pitt's long administration, the country enjoyed prosperity and peace. The predictions of its enemies were falsified; the loss of the American colonies had not crippled her strength; her exchequer was not drained, nor her commerce impaired. The debt "Life by his Sons," vol. i. chap. iii. |