Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

THE EARL OF CHATHAM.

From the Edinburgh Review.

1. Correspondence of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham. 4 vols. 8vo. London 1840.

2. Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford, to Sir Horace Mann. 4 vols.

8vo. London: 1843-4.

Our readers will find a rich repast in the peru sal of this article of Macaulay's. It is seldom we are able to furnish one so rich and useful. ED.

the moving power, and the other the steadying power of the state. One is the sail, without which society would make no progress, the other the ballast, without which there would be the small safety in a tempest. But, during the forty-six years which followed the accession of the house of Hanover, these distinctive peculiarities seemed to be effaced. The Whig conceived that he could not better serve the cause of civil and religious freedom than by strenuously supporting the Protestant dynasty. The Tory conceived that he could not better MORE than ten years ago we commenced prove his hatred of revolution than by ata sketch of the political life of the great tacking a government to which a revolution Lord Chatham. We then stopped at the had given being. Both came by degrees death of George the Second, with the in- to attach more importance to the means tention of speedily resuming our task. Cir- than to the end. Both were thrown into cumstances which it would be tedious to unnatural situations; and both, like aniexplain, long prevented us from carrying mals transported to an uncongenial climate, this intention into effect. Nor can we re- languished and degenerated. The Tory, gret the delay. For the materials which removed from the sunshine of the court, were within our reach in 1834 were scanty was as a camel in the snows of Lapland. and unsatisfactory, when compared with The Whig, basking in the rays of royal fathose which we at present possess. Even vor, was as a reindeer in the sands of Arabia, now, though we have had access to some valuable sources of information which have not yet been opened to the public, we cannot but feel that the history of the first ten years of the reign of George the Third is but imperfectly known to us. Nevertheless, we are inclined to think that we are in a condition to lay before our readers a narrative neither uninstructive nor uninteresting. We therefore return with pleasure to our long interrupted labor.

Dante tells us that he saw, in Malebolge, a strange encounter between a human form and a serpent. The enemies, after cruel wounds inflicted, stood for a time glaring on each other. A great cloud surrounded them, and then a wonderful metamorphosis began. Each creature was transfigured into the likeness of its antagonist. The serpent's tail divided itself into two legs; the man's legs intertwined themselves into a tail. The body of the serpent put forth We left Pitt in the zenith of prosperity arms; the arms of the man shrank into his and glory, the idol of England, the terror body. At length the serpent stood up a of France, the admiration of the whole civ-man, and spake; the man sank down a serilized world. The wind, from whatever pent, and glided hissing away. Something quarter it blew, carried to England tidings like this was the transformation which, of battles won, fortresses taken, provinces during the reign of George the First, beadded to the Empire. At home, factions fell the two English parties. Each gradhad sunk into a lethargy, such as had nev-ually took the shape and color of its foe; er been known since the great religious till at length the Tory rose up erect the schism of the sixteenth century had roused zealot of freedom, and the Whig crawled he public mind from repose. and licked the dust at the feet of power. In order that the events which we have to It is true that, when these degenerate relate may be clearly understood, it may be politicansdiscussed questions merely specudesirable that we should advert to the causes lative, and, above all, when they discussed which had for a time suspended the ani- questions relating to the conduct of their mation of both the great English parties. own grandfathers, they still seemed to If, rejecting all that is merely accidental, differ as their grandfathers had differwe look at the essential characteristics of ed. The Whig, who, during three Parlia the Whig and the Tory, we may consider ments, had never given one vote against the each of them as the representative of a great court, and who was ready to sell his soul principle, essential to the welfare of nations. for the Comptroller's staff, or for the Great One is, in an especial manner, the guardian Wardrobe, still professed to draw his politof liberty, and the other, of order. One is [ical doctrines from Locke and Milton, still

the throne, to make an alliance with the Tories, and a truce even with the Jacobites. After Sir Robert's fall, the ban which lay on the Tory party was taken off. The chief places in the administration continued to be filled by Whigs, and, indeed, could scarcely have been filled otherwise; for the Tory nobility and gentry, though strong in numbers and in property, had among them scarcely a single man distinguished by talents, either for business or for debate.

worshipped the memory of Pym and Hampden, and would still, on the thirtieth of January, take his glass, first to the man in the mask, and then to the man who would do it without a mask. The Tory, on the other hand, while he reviled the mild and temperate Walpole as a deadly enemy of liberty, could see nothing to reprobate in the iron tyranny of Stafford and Laud. But, whatever judgment the Whig or the Tory of that age might pronounce on transactions long past, there can be no doubt that, as A few of them, however, were respected the practical questions then pend- admitted to subordinate offices; and this ing, the Tory was a reformer, and indeed indulgence produced a softening effect on an intemperate and indiscreet reformer, the temper of the whole body. The first while the Whig was conservative even to levee of George the Second after Walpole's bigotry. We have ourselves seen similar resignation was a remarkable spectacle. effects produced in a neighboring country Mingled with the constant supporters of by similar causes. Who would have be- the house of Brunswick, with the Russells, lieved, fifteen years ago, that M. Guizot the Cavendishes, and the Pelliams, appeared and M. Villemain would have to defend a crowd of faces utterly unknown to the property and social order against the Jacobinical attacks of such enemies as M. Genoude and M. de La Roche Jaquelin?

pages and gentlemen-ushers, lords of rural manors, whose ale and fox-hounds were renowned in the neighborhood of the Mendip Thus the successors of the old Cavaliers hills, or round the Wrekin, but who had had turned demagogues; the successors of never crossed the threshold of the palace the old Roundheads had turned courtiers. since the days when Oxford, with the white Yet was it long before their mutual ani- staff in his hand, stood behind Queen Anne. mosity began to abate; for it is the nature During the eighteen years which followof parties to retain their original enmities ed this day, both factions were gradually far more firmly than their original princi- sinking deeper and deeper into repose. ples. During many years, a generation of The apathy of the public mind is partly to Whigs whom Sidney would have spurned be ascribed to the unjust violence with as slaves, continued to wage deadly war with a generation of Tories whom Jefferies would have hanged for republicans.

which the administration of Walpole had been assailed. In the body politic, as in the natural body, morbid languor generally Through the whole reign of George the succeeds to morbid excitement. The peoFirst, and through nearly half of the reign ple had been maddened by sophistry, by of George the Second, a Tory was regard- calumny, by rhetoric, by stimulants applied ed as an enemy of the reigning house, and to the national pride. In the fulness of was excluded from all the favors of the bread, they had raved as if famine had been crown. Though most of the country gen- in the land. While enjoying such a measure tlemen were Tories, none but Whigs were of civil and religious freedom as, till then, created peers and baronets. Though most no great society had ever known, they had of the clergy were Tories, none but Whigs cried out for a Timoleon or a Brutus to were created deans and bishops. In every stab their oppressors to the heart. They county, opulent and well-descended Tory were in this frame of mind when the change squires complained that their names were of adminstration took place; and they soon left out out of the commission of the peace; found that there was to be no change whatwhile men of small estate and mean birth, ever in the system of government. The who were for toleration and excise, septen- natural consequences followed. To frantic nial parliaments and standing armies, pre-zeal succeeded sullen indifference. The sided at quarter sessions, and became deputy lieutenants.

cant of patriotism had not merely ceased to charm the public ear, but had become as By degrees some approaches were made nauseous as the cant of Puritanism after towards a reconciliation. While Walpole the downfall of the Rump. The hot fit was at the head of affairs, enmity to his was over: the cold fit had begun and it power induced a large and powerful body was long before seditious arts, or even real of Whigs, headed by the heir-apparent of grievances, could bring back the fiery

paroxysm which had run its course, and reached its termination.

Two attempts were made to disturb this tranquillity. The banished heir of the house of Stuart headed a rebellion; the discontented heir of the house of Brunswick headed an opposition. Both the rebellion and the opposition came to nothing. The battle of Culloden annihilated the Jacobite party; the death of Prince Frederic dissolved the faction which, under his guidance, had feebly striven to annoy his father's government. His chief followers hastened to make their peace with the ministry; and the political torpor became complete.

boroughs, which long afterwards made up
the memorable schedules A and B, were re-
presented by his nominees.
The great
Whig families, which during several gen-
erations had been trained in the discipline
of party warfare, and were accustomed to
stand together in a firm phalanx, acknow-
ledged him as their captain. Pitt, on the
other hand, had what Newcastle wanted,
an eloqence which stirred the passions and
charmed the imagination, a high reputation
for purity, and the confidence and ardent
love of millions.

The partition which the two ministers made of the powers of government was singularly happy. Each occupied a proFive years after the death of Prince vince for which he was well qualified; and Frederic, the public mind was for a neither had any inclination to intrude himtime violently excited. But this excite-self into the province of the other. Newment had nothing to do with the old dis- castle took the treasury, the civil and ecputes between Whigs and Tories. Eng- clesiastical patronage, and the disposal of land was at war with France. The war that part of the secret service money which had been feebly conducted. Minorca had was then employed in bribing members of been torn from us. Our fleet had retired Parliament. Pitt was secretary of state, before the white flag of the House of Bour- with the direction of the war and of foreign bon. A bitter sense of humiliation, new affairs. Thus the filth of all the noisome to the proudest and bravest of nations, and pestilential sewers of government was superseded every other feeling. The cry poured into one channel. Through the of all the counties and great towns of the other passed only what was bright and realm was for a government which would stainless. Mean and selfish politicians, pinretrieve the honor of the English arms. ing for commissionerships, gold sticks, and The two most powerful men in the coun-ribands, flocked to the great house at the try were the Duke of Newcastle and Pitt. corner of Lincoln's Inn Fields. There, at Alternate victories and defeats had made every levee, appeared eighteen or twenty pair them sensible that neither of them could of lawn sleeves; for there was not, it was said, stand alone. The interests of the state, a single Prelate who had not owed either and the interests of their own ambition, his first elevation or some subsequent transimpelled them to coalesce. By their coali-lation to Newcastle There appeared those tion was formed the ministry which was in members of the House of Commons in power when George the Third ascended the throne.

whose silent votes the main strength of the government lay. One wanted a place in the The more carefully the structure of this excise for his butler. Another came about celebrated ministry is examined, the more a prebend for his son. A third whispered shall we see reason to marvel at the skill that he had always stood by his Grace and or the luck which had combined in one the Protestant succession; that his last harmonious whole such various and, as it election had been very expensive; that potseemed, incompatible elements of force. wallopers had now no conscience; that he The influence which is derived from stain-had been forced to take up money on mortless integrity, the influence which is de-gage; and that he hardly knew where to rived from the vilest arts of corruption, the turn for five hundred pounds. The Duke strength of aristocratical connection, the pressed all their hands, passed his arms strength of democratical enthusiasm, all round all their shoulders, patted all their these things were for the first time found backs, and sent away some with wages, together. Newcastle brought to the coali- and some with promises. From this traffic tion a vast mass of power, which had de- Pitt stood haughtily aloof. Not only was he scended to him from Walpole and Pelham. himself incorruptible, but he shrank from The public offices, the church, the courts the loathsome drudgery of corrupting of law, the army, the navy, the diplomatic others. He had not, however, been twenservice, swarmed with his creatures. The ty years in Parliament, and ten in office,

The Whigs, according to what was then considered as their prescriptive right, held by far the largest share of power. The main support of the administration was what may be called the great Whig connection-a connection which, during near half a century, had generally had the chief sway in the country, and which derived an immense authority from rank, wealth, borough interest, and firm union. To this connection, of which Newcastle was the head, belonged the houses of Cavendish, Lennox, Fitzroy, Bentinck, Manners, Conway, Wentworth, and many others of high note.

without discovering how the government | his abilities or from his situation, seemed was carried on. He was perfectly aware likely to be either useful in office or formithat bribery was practised on a large scale dable in opposition. by his colleagues. Hating the practice, yet despairing of putting it down, and doubting whether, in those times, any ministry could stand without it, he determined to be blind to it He would see nothing, know nothing, believe nothing. People who came to talk to him about shares in lucrative contracts, or about the means of securing a Cornish corporation, were soon put out of countenance by his arrogant humility. They did him too much honor. Such matters were beyond his capacity. It was true that his poor advice about expeditions and treaties was listened to with indulgence by a gracious sovereign. If the question were, who should command in North America, or who should be ambassador at Berlin, his colleagues would probably condescend to take his opinion. But he had not the smallest influence with the secretary of the treasury, and could not venture to ask even for a tide-waiter's place.

There were two other powerful Whig connections, either of which might have been a nucleus for a formidable opposition. But room had been found in the govern ment for both. They were known as the Grenvilles and the Bedfords.

The head of the Grenvilles was Richard Earl Temple. His talents for administraIt may be doubted whether he did not tion and debate were of no high order. owe as much of his popularity to his osten- But his great possessions, his turbulent and tatious purity, as to his eloquence, or to unscrupulous character, his restless activhis talents for the administration of war.ity, and his skill in the most ignoble tactics It was every where said, with delight and of faction, made him one of the most foradmiration, that the great Commoner, with- midable enemies that a ministry could have. out any advantages of birth or fortune, had, He was keeper of the privy seal. His in spite of the dislike of the court and of brother George was treasurer of the navy. the aristocracy, made himself the first man They were supposed to be on terms of close in England, and made England the first friendship with Pitt, who had married their country in the world; that his name was sister, and was the most uxorious of husmentioned with awe in every palace from bands. Lisbon to Moscow; that his trophies were The Bedfords, or, as they were called by in all the four quarters of the globe; yet that their enemies, the Bloomsbury gang, prohe was still plain William Pitt, without title fessed to be led by John Duke of Bedford, or riband, without pension or sinecure place. but in truth led him wherever they chose, Whenever he should retire, after saving the and very often led him where he never state, he must sell his coach-horses and his would have gone of his own accord. He silver candlesticks. Widely as the taint had many good qualities of head and heart, of corruption had spread, his hands were and would have been certainly a repectclean. They had never received, they had able, and possibly a distinguished man, if never given, the price of infamy. Thus he had been less under the influence of his the coalition gathered to itself support friends, or more fortunate in choosing from all the high and all the low parts of them. Some of them were indeed, to do human nature, and was strong with the them justice, men of parts. But here, we whole united strength of virtue and of are afraid, eulogy must end. Mammon.

Sandwich

and Rigby were able debaters, pleasant Pitt and Newcastle were co-ordinate boon companions, dexterous intriguers, chief ministers. The subordinate places masters of all the arts of jobbing and elechad been filled on the principle of includ- tioneering, and, both in public and private ing in the government every party and life, shamelessly immoral. Weymouth had shade of party, the avowed Jacobites alone a natural eloquence, which sometimes asexcepted; nay, every public man who, from tonished those who knew how little he

owed to study. But he was indolent and Whigs, the Tories were by no means exdissolute, and had early impaired a fine cluded from employment. Pitt had gratiestate with the dice-box, and a fine consti- fied many of them with commands in the tution with the bottle. The wealth and militia, which increased both their income power of the Duke, and the talents and and their importance in their own counties; audacity of some of his retainers, might and they were therefore in better humor have seriously annoyed the strongest minis- than at any time since the death of Anne. try. But his assistance had been secured. Some of the party still continued to He was Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland; Rigby grumble over their punch at the Cocoawas his secretary; and the whole party Tree; but in the House of Commons not dutifully supported the measures. of the a single one of the malecontents durst lift government. his eyes above the buckle of Pitt's shoe. Two men had, a short time before, been Thus there was absolutely no opposition. thought likely to contest with Pitt the lead Nay, there was no sign from which it could of the House of Commons-William Mur- be guessed in what quarter opposition was ray and Henry Fox. But Murray had likely to arise. Several years passed durbeen removed to the Lords, and was Chiefing which Parliament seemed to have abdiJustice of the King's Bench. Fox was cated its chief functions. The Journals of indeed still in the Commons. But means the House of Commons during four seshad been found to secure, if not his strenu- sions, contain no trace of a division on a ous support, at least his silent acquies-party question. The supplies, though cence. He was a poor man; he was a beyond precedent great, were voted withdoting father. The office of Paymaster-out discussion. The most animated deGeneral during an expensive war was, in bates of that period were on road bills and that age, perhaps the most lucrative situa- inclosure bills.

tion in the gift of the goverment. This The old King was content; and it matoffice was bestowed on Fox. The pros-tered little whether he were content or not. pect of making a noble fortune in a few It would have been impossible for him to years, and of providing amply for his dar- emancipate himself from a ministry so ling boy Charles, was irresistibly tempting. powerful, even if he had been inclined to To hold a subordinate place, however prof- do so. itable, after having led the House of Commons, and having been intrusted with the business of forming a ministry, was indeed a great descent. But a punctilious sense of personal dignity was no part of the character of Henry Fox.

But he had no such inclination. He had once, indeed, been strongly prejudiced against Pitt, and had repeatedly been ill used by Newcastle; but the vigor and success with which the war had been waged in Germany, and the smoothness with which all public business was carried on, had produced a favorable change in the royal mind.

We have not time to enumerate all the other men of weight and talents who were, by some tie or other, attached to the gov- Such was the posture of affairs when, on ernment. We may mention Hardwicke, the 25th of October 1760, George the reputed the first lawyer of the age; Legge, Second suddenly died, and George the reputed the first financier of the age; the Third, then twenty-two years old, became acute and ready Oswald; the bold and King. The situation of George the Third humorous Nugent; Charles Townshend, differed widely from that of his grandfather the most brilliant and versatile of mankind; and that of his great-grandfather. Many Elliot, Barrington, North, Pratt. Indeed, years had now elapsed since a sovereign of as far as we recollect, there were in England had been an object of affection to the whole House of Commons only two any part of his people. The first two men of distinguished abilities who were Kings of the House of Hanover had neither not connected with the government; and those hereditary rights which have often those two men stood so low in public esti- supplied the defect of merit, nor those permation, that the only service which they sonal qualities which have often supplied could have rendered to any government the defect of title. A prince may be popu◄ would have been to oppose it. We speak lar with little virtue or capacity, if he of Lord George Sackville and Bubb Dod-reigns by birthright derived from a long ington. line of illustrious predecessors. An usurp Though most of the official men, and aller may be popular, if his genius has saved the menbers of the cabinet, were reputed or aggrandized the nation which he go

« VorigeDoorgaan »