William Pitt and the Great War by John Holland Rose (book club reads txt) 📕

has done to me just what I should have done to him if I could."[47] It

is not often that a plotter shows his hand so clearly; and we must

admire Pitt's discernment no less than his firmness at this crisis.

Would that he had found a more faithful successor. Possibly some

suspicion as to Loughborough's powers of intrigue led Pitt to make

cautious advances to that promising lawyer, Sir John Scott. To his

honour, be it said, Scott at once declared that he must cease to be

Solicitor-General, as he had received much assistance from Thurlow. In

vain did Pitt expostulate with him. At last he persuaded him to consult

Thurlow, who advised him to do nothing so foolish, seeing that Pitt

would be compelled at some future time to confer the Great Seal upon

him. With this parting gleam of insight and kindliness, the morose

figure of Thurlow vanishes.

More than once in the session of 1792 rumours were afloat as to a

reconstruction of the Cabinet. Early in that year, when the debates on

the Russian armament somewhat shook Pitt's position, it was stated that

the King desired to get rid of him. Gillray heard of the story, and

visualized it with his usual skill. He represented the Marquis of

Lansdowne ("Malagrida") as driving at full speed to St. James's Palace,

heralded by the dove of peace, while Fox, Sheridan, etc., hang on behind

and cry out, "Stop; stop; take us in." Pitt and Dundas are seen leaving

the palace. The rumour gains in credibility from a Memorandum of the

Marquis; but it is doubtful whether George ever thought seriously of

giving up Pitt, still less of seeking support from the discredited and

unpopular Lansdowne, whose views on the French Revolution were utterly

opposed to those of the King. Probably the King put questions to him

merely with the view of gratifying his own curiosity and exciting unreal

hopes. Certainly Pitt scoffed at the idea of resignation. On 3rd March

he referred to the rumour, in a letter to the Earl of Westmorland,

merely to dismiss it as ridiculous.[48]

Far more important were the negotiations that began in May-June 1792.

Pitt paved the way for a union with the Old Whigs by consulting the

opinions of the Duke of Portland and other leading Whigs, assembled at

Burlington House, respecting the proclamation against seditious

writings. They suggested a few alterations in his draft and he adopted

them. Fox alone declared against the whole scheme, and afterwards hotly

opposed it in the House of Commons. This step having shown the cleavage

in the Whig party, Dundas and Loughborough sought to effect a union of

the Portland Whigs with the Government. The Duke of Portland strongly

approved of it. Even Fox welcomed the proposal, but only on the

understanding that the Whigs joined the Ministry on fair and even terms,

sharing equally in the patronage. The Duke further suggested that Pitt

should give up the Treasury and allow a neutral man like the Duke of

Leeds to take that office. We can picture the upward tilt of the nose

with which Pitt received this proposal.

Lord Malmesbury, who was present at this discussion of the Whig leaders

on 13th June, himself saw great difficulties in such a plan, as also

from the opposition of the King and the Prince of Wales. On the next day

Loughborough met Pitt at Dundas's house, and reported him to be

favourable to the idea of a coalition. Pitt further said that the King

and the Queen would welcome it, except in so far as it concerned Fox,

whose conduct in Parliament during the last few months had given great

offence. Pitt further declared that he did not remember a single word in

all the disputes with Fox which could prevent him honourably and

consistently acting with him. He added that it might be difficult to

give him the Foreign Office at once, but he could certainly have it in a

few months' time. On 16th June Malmesbury saw Fox at Burlington House,

and found him in an unusually acrid and suspicious mood, from the notion

that the whole affair was a plot of Pitt to break up the Whig party.

Beside which, Fox said that it was idle to expect Pitt to admit the Whig

leaders on an equal footing. Malmesbury, however, maintained that, if

Fox and the Duke were agreed, they would lead the whole of their party

with them, at which remark Fox became silent and embarrassed.

Pitt, on the other hand, was very open to Loughborough, and expressed a

wish to form a strong and united Ministry which could face the

difficulties of the time. The chief obstacle to a coalition, he said,

was Fox's support of French principles, which must preclude his taking

the Foreign Office immediately. The remark is noteworthy as implying

Pitt's expectation that either Fox might tone down his opinions, or the

Revolution might abate its violence. Further, when Loughborough

reminded him of the ardour of his advocacy of the Abolitionist cause, he

replied that some concession must be made on that head, as the King

strongly objected to the way in which it was pushed on by addresses and

petitions, a method which he himself disliked. Further, he freely

admitted that the "national Aristocracy" of the country must have its

due weight and power.[49] These confessions (assuming that Loughborough

reported them correctly) prepare us for the half right turn which now

becomes the trend of Pitt's political career. In order to further the

formation of a truly national party, he was willing, if necessary, to

postpone the cause of the slaves and of Parliamentary Reform until the

advent of calmer times.

At this stage of the discussions, then, Pitt was willing to meet the

Whigs half way. But the chief difficulty lay, not with Fox and his

friends, but with the King. When Pitt mentioned the proposal to him,

there came the characteristic reply: "Anything complimentary to them,

but no power."[50] How was it possible to harmonize this resolve with

that of Fox, that the Whigs must have an equality of power? Grenville

was a further obstacle. How could that stiff and ambitious man give up

the Foreign Office to Fox, whose principles he detested? We hear little

of Grenville in these days, probably because of his marriage to Lady Ann

Pitt, daughter of Lord Camelford. But certainly he would not have

tolerated a half Whig Cabinet.

It is therefore strange that the proposals were ever renewed. Renewed,

however, they were, in the second week of July. Loughborough having

spread the impression that Pitt desired their renewal, Leeds was again

pushed to the front, it being suggested that he might be First Lord of

the Treasury. Finally, on 14th August, the King granted him a private

interview at Windsor, but stated that nothing had been said on the

subject for a long time, and that it had never been seriously

considered, it being impossible for Pitt to give up the Treasury and act

as _Commis_ to the Whig leaders. This statement should have lessened the

Duke's astonishment at hearing from Pitt on 22nd August that there had

been no thought of any change in the Government.[51] This assertion

seems to belie Pitt's reputation for truthfulness. But it is noteworthy

that Grenville scarcely refers to the discussions on this subject,

deeply though it concerned him. Further, Rose, who was in close touch

with Ministers, wrote to Auckland on 13th July that he had heard only

through the newspapers of the "negotiations for a sort of Coalition,"

and that he knew there had been none; that Dundas had conferred with

Loughborough, but there had been no negotiation.[52]

Now the proneness of these two men to scheming and intrigue is well

known; and it seems probable that they so skilfully pulled the wires at

Burlington House as to quicken the appetites of the Whig leaders. Dundas

may have acted with a view to breaking up the Whig party, and

Loughborough in order to bring about a general shuffle of the cards

favourable to himself. Malmesbury and others, whose desires or interests

lay in a union of the Portland Whigs with Pitt, furthered the scheme,

and gave full credence to Loughborough's reports. But we may doubt

whether Pitt took the affair seriously after the crushing declaration of

the King: "Anything complimentary to them, but no power." The last blow

to the scheme was dealt by Pitt in an interview with Loughborough, so we

may infer from the following letter from George III to the former:

                                 Weymouth, _August 20, 1792_.[53]

    I cannot but think Mr. Pitt has judged right in seeing Lord

    Loughborough, as that will convince him, however [whoever?] were

    parties to the proposal brought by the Duke of Leeds, that the

    scheme can never succeed: that the Duke of Portland was equally

    concerned with the former appeared clearly from his letters....

The King, then, looked on the whole affair as a Whig plot; and Pitt,

whatever his feelings were at first, finally frowned upon the proposal.

Doubtless, in an official sense, there was justification for his remark

to the Duke of Leeds, that the coalition had never been in

contemplation; for the matter seems never to have come before the

Cabinet. But as a statement between man and man it leaves something to

be desired on the score of accuracy. Annoyance at the very exalted

position marked out for the Duke, whose capacity Pitt rated decidedly

low, may have led him to belittle the whole affair; for signs of

constraint and annoyance are obvious in his other answers to his late

colleague. There, then, we must leave this question, involved in

something of mystery.[54] We shall not be far wrong in concluding that

Pitt wished for the formation of a national Ministry, and that the plan

failed, partly from the resolve of Fox never to play second to Pitt; and

still more from the personal way in which the King regarded the

suggestion.

The King meanwhile had marked his sense of the value of Pitt's services

by pressing on him the honourable position of Warden of the Cinque

Ports, with a stipend of £3,000 a year, intimating at the same time that

he would not hear of his declining it (6th August).[55] It is a proof of

the spotless purity of Pitt's reputation that not a single libel or gibe

appeared in the Press on his acceptance of this almost honorary

post.[56]

One brilliant recruit to the Whig ranks was now won over to the national

cause, of which Pitt was seen to be the incarnation. Already at Eton and

Oxford George Canning had shown the versatility of his genius and the

precocious maturity of his eloquence. When his Oxford friend, Jenkinson

(the future Earl of Liverpool) made a sensational _début_ in the House

on the Tory side, Sheridan remarked that the Whigs would soon provide an

antidote in the person of young Canning. Great, then, was their

annoyance when the prodigy showed signs of breaking away from the

society of the Crewes and Sheridan, in order to ally himself with Pitt.

So little is known respecting the youth of Canning that the motives

which prompted his breach with Sheridan are involved in uncertainty. It

is clear, however, from his own confession that, after some discussion

with Orde, he himself made the first offer of allegiance to Pitt in a

letter of 26th July 1792. He then informed the Prime Minister that,

though on terms of friendship with eminent members of the Opposition, he

was "in no way bound to them by any personal or political obligation,"

and was therefore entirely free to choose his own party; that he was

ambitious of being connected with Pitt, but lacked the means to win an

election, and yet refused to be brought in by any individual--a

reference, seemingly, to an offer made to him by the Duke of Portland.

In reply, Pitt proposed an interview at Downing Street on Wednesday,

15th August.[57]

At noon on that day the two men first met. We can picture them as they

faced one another in the formal surroundings of the Prime Minister's

study. Pitt, at this time thirty-three years of age, had lost some of

the slimness of youth, but his figure was bony, angular, and somewhat

awkward. His face was as yet scarcely marked by the slight Bacchic

blotches which told of carouses with Dundas at Wimbledon. Months and

years of triumph (apart from the Russian defeat) had stiffened his

confidence and pride; but the fateful shadow of the French Revolution

must have struck a chill to his being, especially then, on the arrival

of news of the pitiable surrender of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, and

the shooting down of the Swiss Guards at the Tuileries. No royalist

could look on the future without inward shuddering; and both these men

were ardent royalists. We know from Canning's confession that it was the

starting of the club, the Friends of the People,