. X*- i t-'-.rri . 'V . ' r -v i^^"'- ^^^ ^«i ^< .. v/f^y. [fornia L^ VA•.• THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES '^^^€^ , THE MODERN STUDENT'S LIBRARY HISTORICAL ESSAYS BY LORD MACAULAY THE MODERN STUDENT'S LIBRARY EACH VOLUME EDITED BY A LEADING AMERICAN AUTHORITY WILL D. HOWE, General Editor This series is composed of such works as are conspicuous in the province of literature for their enduring influence. Every volume is recognized as essential to a liberal edu- cation' and will tend to infuse a love for true literature and an appreciation of the quali- ties which cause it to endure. A descriptive list of the volumes published in this series appears-in the last pages oj this volume CHi\RLES SCRIBNER'S SONS THE MODERN STUDENT'S LIBRARY HISTORICAL ESSAYS BY LORD MACAULAY SELECTED WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY CHARLES DOWXER HAZEN FHOFESSOa OK HISTOHV AT COI.VJIBIA UNIVKHSITY CHARLES SCRIHNKRS SONS NEW YORK CHICAGO BOSTON Copyright, 1921, by CHARLES SCKIBXER'S SONS A -DA 27 h CONTEXTS PAGE JoHX Hampden 1 William Pitt, Earl of Chatham . . 55 The Earl of Chatham .... . . 99 Lord Clive • • . . 184 Warren Hastings 359 Maciilwelli . .'393 Frederick the Great . . 429 i ft INTRODUCTION One of the three or four most fascinating biographies in the English language is that of Thomas Babington Macaulay written by his nephew, George Otto Trevelyan, with consummate tact and taste and literary art. The story is as full of interest as any that Macaulay himself ever told during a lifetime devoted to historical narration. It contains the record of a great and honorable career, a manly and generous character, a versatile and vari- ously attractive personality. That career and those ex- ceptional endowments were devoted to tasks that meant the enrichment of the intellectual life, not only of his own country and generation, but of many other countries and of generations not yet counted. Nothing could be more instructive or more stimulating than this story of how Macaulay became P'ngland's most widely read his- torian, of how his talents and his time were fused in a great intellectual enterprise, the success of which ren- dered him a classic while yet he was alive, the continued and universal popularity of which attests the enduring quality of his work, the permanciu-y of his influence :iiul his fame. Macaulay knew liow to invest his wf)rk with the magic that presen-es, that defies oblivion and neglect, the magic of style, the immortality nf art. What a remarkable life was Macaulay's, what variety, what achievement, what enjoyment, what renown! He moved ever in a blaze of success from early youth to the end of his life. One of the world's prr'foeious children, he quiekly beeame one of the world's celebrities, univers- ally respected and admired. His career compels us to revise our apothegm that only through adversity dtt we rise to the heights, for, from lieginiiiiig to end, fortune never veiled her face for him but smiled graciously and benignantly, was never fickle but was constancy itself. And another engaging feature of the story is this, that V vi INTRODUCTION his successes were due to his own efforts and talents and not to powerful connections or lucky patronage or adven- titious circumstance. He made and paid his own way in life. His achievements were the product of hard work, of clear thought, of intense application to the task. In- deed all the supposed requirements of our democratic and popular morality were as well satisfied by Macaulay's career as by most of the home-made heroes of the mod- ern age. Macaulay was bom in 1800 and he died in 1859. A brilliant university career was capped immediately after by an essay on Milton, written at the age of twenty-five, an essay of such beauty and power that England became instantly aware that a new and incalculable literary light was blazing in the firmament of English letters. At the age of thirty we find him a member of the House of Commons playing a notable part in the desperate and memorable struggle for the reform of Parliament, and establishing a reputation as an orator as easily as he had established one as an author. Soon followed four years as a high official in India, the vast, mysterious, imposing empire so strangely brought under the sovereignty of Britain. There in that ancient land Macaulay accom- plished an enduring and difficult task, in participating in the great improvement of the criminal law of India and in providing for the education of the Indian people. Back again in England in 1838 he spent the next twenty years, until his death in 1859, in politics, in which his interest was recurrent but on the whole steadily decreas- ing; and in varied, prolific and memorable literary ac- tivity, of such attractive quality, of such compelling interest, of such vital appeal, that he became inevitably England's most widely read man of letters. For his writings which had made him both famous and wealthy and which had given entertainment and instruction to millions of his fellow men he was made a peer of England, Lord Macaulay, in 1850, and when he died three years later he was buried in the Poet's Corner in Westminster Abbey, at the feet of Addison and near Goldsmith and Garrick and Handel and Johnson, honored in death as in life with the high prizes of his calling. ■" About this life, so rich and so honorable, whether in INTRODUCTION vii Parliament or Council or whether in the field of letters, there hung a charm and radiance more personal, more intimate, more winning, which came from the very human and engaging nature of the man, from his buoyancy, his good humor and manly vigor, his helpfulness to others, his lack of affection or vanity. His head remained clear in spite of the heavy volume of incense that arose in his direction. In the private relations of his life, in his steadfast devotion to clean and upright principles of con- duct, in the virility and high spirits which characterized both his thoughts and actions Macaulay was altogether admirable and attractive. He was not only an imposing personage in the politics and literature of the nineteenth century. He was every inch a man. His rare gifts were not those only which shine in public places and before a multitude of men. ]f the reader wishes to know more of all this he will find it pleasantly set forth in Mr. Trevelyan's bright and blithe biography. "During his joyous and shining ])ilgrimage through the world," as Trevelyan calls it, Macaulay did many things and did them all well. But among them was not in- cluded eminence in any sport. Macaulay, says his bi- ographer, was utterly destitute of bodily accomplishments and he viewed his deficiencies with supreme indilTerence. "He couhl neitlier swim, nor row, nor drive, nor skate, nor shoot. He seldom crossed a .saddle, and never will- ingly. When in atteiidanee at Windsor as a cabinet minister he was informed that a horse was at his disposal, he said : 'If her Majesty wishes to see me ride she must order out an elejdiant.' The only e.xereise in whi«li he can be saietter i)lirased. lli liad the capacity for taking infinite i)ains. lie paid the supreme X INTRODUCTION compliment to his reader of considering that the latter was entitled to the very best, and not to the second best. The purpose which he expressed when he undertook the writing of his History was practically the same that had governed him in the production of his Essays: "I shall not be satisfied unless I produce something which shall for a few days supersede the last fashionable novel on the tables of young ladies." He well knew that so unique a triumph could be achieved only by one who brought not only talent and self-reliance to the task bvit endless devotion to detail, an extreme conscientiousness in matters of expression. Macaulay learned by experience that about two pages of print a day were as much as he could do at his best, and except when at his best he would not work at all. His successes were legitimate, if ever successes were, for they were based on prodigies of labor, and on the most studied craftsmanship. It was evidently his motto that what was worth doing at all was worth doing well. "Macaulay," says Trevelyan, "never allowed a sentence to pass muster until it was as good as he could make it. He thought little of recasting a chapter in order to obtain a more lucid arrangement, and nothing whatever of reconstructing a paragraph for the sake of one happy stroke or apt illustration. Whatever the worth of his labor, at any rate it was a labor of love. 'Antonio Stradivari has an eye That winces at false work, and loves the true.' Leonardo da Vinci would walk the whole length of Milan that he might alter a single tint in his picture of the Last Supper. Napoleon kept the returns of his army under his pillow at night, to refer to in case he was sleep- less; and would set himself problems at the Opera, while the overture was playing." Such and such only is the royal road to fame, a very dusty and rocky road, hard for the pilgrim, but command- ing at the other end a magnificent prospect. Macaulay could not rest content "until every paragraph concluded with a telling sentence, and every sentence flowed like running water." The man who would take such pains in the perfecting of his work was an artist, and an artist with a con- science. Macaulay has merited and has received the great INTRODUCTION xi gratitude and regard of mankind. The clarity of his style is but the formal expression of the clarity of his thought and both rested upon intellectual integrity and upon a lively sense of the responsibility an author owes his public. This man who could labor terribly and who never spared himself in his passion for finish of form was aided enor- mously all through life by a priceless possession, namely an extraordinary memory. It is somewhat common in these days to depreciate this precious faculty as if it were something inert, mechnical, low. It would be dif- ficult, however, to name any mental quality which would be more variously useful to an historian, better calcu- lated to enrich his work, to facilitate his productivity. This gift Macaulay possessed in altogether extraordinary measure. It is was as easy for him to remember as it is for most people to forgot and it seems to have been nearly impossible for him to forget anything. Whatever he read he retained with unconscious ease and, as he read voraciously, the result was a remarkable accumulation of knowledge, always at hand to be drawn upon. The great richness of Macaulay's style in allusions, compari- sons, illustrations owes much to this unrivalled and easy command of all his variegated resources. Whatever passed into his mind rcmiiiucd there. The tales that are told of this capacity of his have Ijecome classic and legend- ary. At the age of thirteen while waiting for a mail coach he picked up a country ncwspajx-r and ran across two utterly commoni)la<'e and insignificant poems con- tributed by local bards. lie merely glanced them over once and never again thought of tlicin for forty years, when he repeated them word for word. Challenged on one orcnsion to a feat of mrniorv he wrote out a com- plete list of the senior wranglers ;it ('aniliridgc, with their dates and colleges for a hundred years. On another oc- casion when asked : "Macaulay, do you know your Popes?" he replied "No, 1 always get wrong among the Innocents." "Jiut can you say your Archl)ishop8 of Can- terbury?" "Any ff)ol," said Macanlay. "could say his Archbishops of Canterbury backwiirds." and olV he went, drawing breath only once to remark on the oddity of there having been both an Archbishop Sancroft and an Arch- xii INTKODUCTION bishop Bancroft. He once remarked that if by some devastating wave of vandalism every copy in existence of "Paradise Lost," "The Pilgrim's Progress" and "Sir Charles Grandison" were destroyed he could reproduce them from recollection. He was naturally proud of his good memo,ry and had no patience with people who seemed to pride themselves on having a bad one. "They appear to reason thus; the more memory, the less invention," was his observation. Macaulay possessed another endowment not much in- ferior to this, in enabling him to go far in the world of letters, an extraordinary faculty of assimilating printed matter at first sight. "To the end," says Trevelyan, "he read books faster than other people skimmed them, and skimmed them as fast as any one else could turn the leaves. 'He seemed to read through the skin,' said one who had often watched the operation. And this speed was not in his case obtained at the expense of accuracy." With such endowments Macaulay could and did acquire an amazingly extensive knowledge, and this knowledge he gave forth to the world in his "Essays" and his "His- tory." And the world heard him gladly reading what he wrote with an avidity and a persistence rare, indeed unmatched, in the history of historians. He had several .supreme merits as a writer of history. One was that he was a born story-teller. He places the reader, as, before writing, he has placed himself, in the ve.ry center of the scenes and amid the persons whom he is attempting to portray. No detail of local color, or of individual indiosyncrasy escapes his attention. The very spirit of the times, as well as its grosser mani- festations, is evoked by an imagination which is strong and yet which is controlled by a firm judgment. Every page that Macaulay wrote, every sentence, is made to add something significant and special to the picture which we can watch grow under our very eyes, Macaulay's process- es of literary construction being almost as transparent as are his sentences. The secret of his power lies in the fact that he imparts to others his own living visualiza- tion of the scenes and characters of the past. What he sees intensely, what he feels keenly, the reader sees and feels with similar vividness and force. History becomes INTRODUCTION xiii something quite palpable, almost tangible, palpitating, painful sometimes, magnificent often, throbbing and thrilling always. To make the dead and dry leaves of the year that is gone leap to their places on the tree again and tingle once more with life and beauty would be a thing no more miraculous than the thing Macaulay did. Some of the most sumptuous and gorgeous passages in English literature are his creations fashioned out of material that to the ordinary man would seem as dry as dust. Such thaumaturgy is so rare in the historical field as to be very noteworthy. Not only did Macaulay have this sense of the lively, the vital, he had the dramatic sense in equal measure, the instinct for subordination and arrangement of details so that the central figure or scene should stand forth, not in lonely isolation and grandeur, but in proper setting, sur- rounded, but not obscured or confused, by the lesser figures or incidents; the colors heightened, the lights con- centrated where they should be. Drawing on the inex- haustible resources of his ])rodigious memory, and on the instructive exix'rienccs of his own political career, he is able to enrich his narrative with a breadth of treatment, with a variety of comparisons, analogies and illustrations unmatched elsewhere. The result is that the scene is al- ways c-baiigiiig or ai)p('aring under a new aspect or in a new light, and never becomes tedious. His series of his- torical j)Miiitiiigs includes a nmltifudc of figures, big and litth", for where the sitter is not worthy of a full Icngtli presentment, he is given his due in some small study, a head, or a head and shoulflers. Pictorial history liere reaches its apogee — magnificent panoramas, a spacious gallery of portraits, and an endless collection of minia- tures aiul vignettes filling in the spaces which would otherwise be vacant. No Knglisli historian except Carlyle has equalled Macaulay in this branch of his craft, as a painter of niiforgcttablc jiictiircs. Most of Macaulay 's h'ssai/.s were written when be was quite .young, in the thirties or early forties, and they have tlie fpialities that we associate with youtb, tlie high spirits, tbe movement, the dash, tlie l)rilliant animation, the vigor and the strength, the enjoyment of the con- crete, the dislike of the abstruse, the humor at times too xiv INTRODUCTION pointed and too personal, the repartee at times too brutal. There is an exhilaration in the air, an excitement in the situation that are characteristic of those places where the youn^ are wont to congregate. Macaulay had an- other quality that is shown in all his writings, his sense of absolute certainty. Once he takes pen in hand he has no doubts o,r hesitations, all is clear and emphatic, and no writer is less subtle, less fond of divided or suspended judgments. Lord Melbourne, with the irony of the ex- perienced and disillusioned man of the world, hit off this trait once for all, this overweening self-confidence, when he said that he wished he were as cocksure of anything as Macaulay was of everything. No twilight of dubiety ever hovers ove.r a page of Macaulay. Everything is clean- cut, trenchant, emphatic, downright. Now this, of course, is a defect in an author who has to deal with such miscellaneous and variegated material as does the historian. Not everything is clear and certain and after all one's investigations are over and all one's powers of reflection and analysis have been directed upon a given subject, much remains necessarily somewhat uncertain, more or less obscure, judgment must be more or less ten- tative, there is often insistent need of being on one's guard against the emphatic, there is always a need of nice reserve in the use of pronounced colors, always need of light and shade applied discriminatingly and with cau- tion. But for that we do not go to Macaulay. For him vehe- mence, passion, the sledge-hammer blow, the extravagant phrase of laudation and denunciation. Macaulay always gives you reasons for the faith that is in him but he never leaves you in any doubt as to what that faith is. You always know just where he stands and you are never for an instant left wondering as to why he came there. Unhappily he sometimes came there by mistake. The Essays are of various kinds and value. Many of them concern the great figures in the history of England during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. These are, on the whole, the most important, for in this field Macaulay was most at home. They cover the period fairly well from the time of Elizabeth down nearly to the close of the reign of George III, the period of great INTRODUCTION xv and momentous constitutional struggles, of the contest of the monarchy and the parliament for supremacy in the state ; also the period which witnessed the marvelous es- tablishment of the English control of India, of England'"s entrance into the fabled East. It was an heroic age which Macaulay illuminated by his genius. , Macaulay wrote always from the Whig point of view. His sympathies were pronounced and constant and they are not hidden for a moment from the reader. The Whigs and Tories were wrestling in fierce and bitter fashion for their respective principles and their warfare was over fundamentals. The existence and nature of English liberty, parliamenta,ry, individual, representative, were at stake. Few moderns would deny that the triumph of the Whigs was the triumph of freedom. It is the vicis- situdes of this long and wracking struggle, of this period of violent and profoundly significant contention, that Macaulay recounts with minute and extensive knowledge, and with unexampled vigor of language and pomp of style. He writes frankly from the Whig point of view and he pronounces judgment and delivers verdicts with truly magisterial assurance. Jiut this does not at all mean that he is intentionally unfair, that he suppresses evidence if he dislikes it, tliat he garbles and twists in order to prove his point, that he wilfully misrepresents. Macaulay was an honest and an honorable advocate and there is distinct advantage in having a great struggle for liberty i)owerfulIy jiresented by one who profoundly believed in the importance of the issues at stake and who was greatly stirred liy the reeurrent and desperate crises, the tense dnunatic; situatif)ns, wliicli developerl as the long anrl arduous contest proceeded. Macaulay made errors, just as erinined judges sometimes do. I'.nt bo was above board, his temper was generally fair. He lays the proofs before you and while he has his own views of the matter and expresses them witli eini)basis, the reader is given the evidence frankly and may dissent from the finding if he chooses. Macaulay's version of English history is the Whig version, a version, moreover, very widely and stoutly held to-day in the liberal circles of the world. The essays reproduced in this volume present some of the great, outstanding figures and the mighty ar- xvi INTRODUCTION guments in this memorable civic and political controversy. The two essays on Olive and Warren Hastings are of a diflFerent character. They portray a momentous chapter in British imperial history and abound in striking ad- venture and in the display of remarkable personal quali- ties operating upon a vast and mysterious stage. They are written with a pomp and pageantry worthy of the gorgeous East they celebrate. Immensely popular for three generations their fascination seems as powerful as ever, the magnificence of the scene, the play of personality, the sweep of the destinies involved, still arrest the at- tention and hold it captive. It will be long before these essays die. Macaulay's knowledge of the history of Continental Europe was much less extensive and much less sure than that of his own country. Two of the more famous essays, those on Machiavelli and Frederick the Great, are included in this collection. The studies of English men of letters, Bunyan, Byron, Johnson, Bacon, Addison lie outside the scope of this volume which is devoted to the historical and not to the literary essays. Macaulay's Essays are, of course, of unequal value, No one was more astonished than he at their popularity. Written for the most part for a quarterly review, he thought they would enjoy the usual fate of magazine lit- erature. The natural life of such articles, he said, was only six weeks. When in 1842 his publisher urged him to have them reprinted in book form he was indisposed to do so and only yielded in the end because American publishers were l)ringing out defective editions without his preliminary knowledge or consent. "Now, I know," he wrote, "that these pieces are full of faults and that their popularity has been very far beyond their merit; but if they are to be republished, it would be better that they should be republished under the eye of the author, and with his corrections, than that they should retain all the blemishes inseparable from hasty writing and hasty printing." And when the first edition of the Essays in book form finally appeared in 1843 he wrote: "My collected reviews have succeeded well. Longmans tells me that he must set about a second edition. In spite, however, of the applause and of the profit, neither of IXTRODFCTION xvii wliich I despise, I am sorry that it has become necessary to republish these papws. There are few of them which I read with satisfaction. Those few, however, are generally the latest, and this is a consolatory circumstance. The most hostile critic must admit, I think, that I have improved greatly as a writer. The third volume seems to me worth two of the second, and the second worth ten of the first." Macaulay would have been surprised, indeed, had ho known of the steady demand for his Essaus in the decades to come. Edition after edition has been brought out in England and America and on the Continent and in India. Trevelyan, writing seventeen years after Macaulay's death and thirty-three years after the appearance of the first edition in England, says this : "These productions, which their author classed as ephemeral, are so greedily read and so constantly reproduced, that, taking the world as a whole, there is probably never a moment when they are out of the hands of the compositor. The market for them in their native country is so steady, and apparently so inexhaustible, that it ])erc('ptibly falls and rises with the general prosperity of the nation; and it is hardly too much to assert that the demand for ^facaulay varies with the demand for coal. The astonishing success of this cele- brated book must be regarded as something of far higher consequence than a mere literary or commercial triuiiii)li. It is no insignificant feat to have awakened in hundreds of thousands of minds the taste for letters and the yearn- ing for kiiDwlcdgc; and to have shown by example that, in the interests of its own fame, genius can never be so well employed as on the careful and earnest treatment of serious themes." We may quote as a final comment the criticism of a fastidious and discriminating critic, Lord Morley : "Jlin Essays are as good as a library; they make an inconi- paral)le manual and vade-mecum for a busy, uneducated man, who has curiosity and enlightenment enougli to wish to kiiDW a little about the great lives and great thoughts, the shining words and many-eolored complex- ities of action, that have marked the journey of man thrf>ugli the ages." Chahles Downer Hazen. Columbia TTniversity HISTORICAL ESSAYS JOHN HAMPDEN. (December, 1831.) Some Memorials of John Hampden, his Party, and his Times. By Lord Nugent. 2 vols. 8vo. London: 183L We have read this hook with great pleasure, though not exactly with that kind of pleasure which we had expected. We had hoped that Lord Nugent would have been able to collect, from family papers and local traditions, much new and interesting information respecting the life and char- acter of the renowned leader of the Long Parliament, the first of those great English commoners whose plain addi- tion of Mister has, to our ears, a more majestic sound than the proudest of the feudal titles. In tliis hope we have been disappointed; but assuredly not from any want of zeal or diligence on the part of the noble biographer. Even at PLimpden, there are, it seems, no important papers rebitiny- to the most illiistrio\is propri(>tor of that ancient domain. The most valnalile memorials f)f him wliicli still exist, belong to the family of his friend. Sir John Eliot. Lord Eliot lias furnished the jjortrait wbi<'h is engraved ff»r this work, together with somi' very interesting b'ttera. The portrait is undoubtedly an original, and prol)al)ly the only original now in existence. The intelleetual forehead, the mild penetration of the eye, and the inllexilde resolu- tion expressed by the lines of the mouth, Kufficiently guarantee the likeness. We shall probiibly make some extracts from the letters. They contain ahufist all the new information that Lord Nugent has been able to pro- cure respecting the private pursuits of the great man whose memory he worships with nn enthusiastic, hut not extravagant, veneration. The public life of Hampden is surrounded hy no ob- 1 2 HISTORICAL ESSAYS scurity. His history, more particularly from the year 1040 to his doath, is the history of England. These Memoirs must be considered as Memoirs of the history of England; and, as such, they well deserve to be attentively perused. They contain some curious facts which, to us at least, are new, much spirited narrative, many judicious remarks, and much eloquent declamation. We are not sure that even the want of information re- specting the private character of Hampden is not in itself a circumstance as strikingly characteristic as any which the most minute chronicler, O'Meara, Mrs. Thrale, or Bos- well himself, ever recorded concerning their heroes. The celebrated Puritan leader is an almost solitary instance of a great man who neither sought nor shunned greatness, who found glory only because glory lay in the plain path of duty. During more than forty years he was known to his country neighbors as a gentleman of cultivated mind, of high principles, of polished address, happy in his family, and active in the discharge of local duties; and to political men, as an honest, industrious, and sensible member of Parliament, not eager to display his talents, stanch to his party, and attentive to the interests of his constituents. A great and terrible crisis came. A direct attack was made by an arbitrary government on a sacred right of English- men, on a right which was the chief security for all their other rights. The nation looked round for a defender. Calmly and unostentatiously the plain Buckinghamshire Esquire placed himself at the head of his countrymen, and right before the face and across the path of tyranny. The times grew darker and more troubled. Public service, perilous, arduous, delicate was required; and to every service the intellect and the courage of this wonderful man were found fully equal. He became a debater of the first order, a most dexterous manager of the House of Commons, a negotiator, a soldier. He governed a fierce and turl)ulont assembly, abounding in able men, as easily as he had governed his family. He showed himself as competent to direct a campaign as to conduct the business of the petty sessions. We can scarccJy express the admira- tion which we feel for a mind so great, and at the same time, so healthful and so well proportioned, so willingly contracting itself to the humblest duties, so easily ex- JOHN HAMPDEN 3 panding itself to the hig'hest, so contented in repose, so powerful in action. Almost every part of this virtuous and blameless life which is not hidden from us in modest privacy is a precious and splendid portion of our national history. Had the private conduct of Hampden aiforded the slightest pretense for censure, he would have been assailed by the same blind malevolence which, in defiance of the clearest proofs, still continues to call Sir John Eliot an assassin. Had there been even any weak part in the character of Hampden, had his manners been in any respect open to ridicule, we may be sure that no mercy would have been shown to him by the writers of Charles's faction. Those writers have carefully preserved every little circumstance which could tend to make their op- ponents odious or contemptible. They have made them- selves merry with the cant of injudicious zealots. They have told us that Pym broke down in a speech, that Ireton had his nose pulled by Hollis, that the Earl of Northum- berland cudgeled Henry Marten, that St. John's manners were sullen, that Vane had an ugly face, that Cromwell had a rrnl nose. But neither the artful Clarendon nor the fieurrilous Denham could venture tration, the name of Ilamjxlen was omitted. "But I must tell tli(' reader." says liaxter, "that I di' CoiMiiiissioncrs. They impeached the treasurer. Lord Middlesex, for corrui)tion, and they passed a bill by which patents of monopoly were declared illegal. iriimpden did not, during the reign of James, take any prominent part in puljlic alTairs. Jt is certain, however, that he paid great attention to the details of Parliamen- tary business, and to tlu' local interests of his own '•ountry. It was in a great measure owing to his (exer- tions that Wendover and some other boroughs on which the popular i)arfy fDiild depend recov«'red the elective franchise, in spite of tlie fjpposition of the Court. The health of the King had for some time been declin- ing. On the twenty-seventh of March, 1<">2r), be cx[)ired. I'nder his weak rule, the sj)irit of liberty liad grown strong, and had become equal to a great contest. The contest was brought on by tlie policy of bis successor. Charles bore no resemblaiic*' to his fatlier. He was not a driveler, or a pedant, or a buffoon, or a coward. It would be absurd to deny that he was a scholar and a gentleman, • Sfenin was tho namo given by KliiK James to tho Duke of Duckingham. on account of a auppoHed reHemblancc to St. Stephen. 14 HISTORICAL ESSAYS a man of exquisite taste in the fine arts, a man of strict morals in private life. His talents for business were re- spectable; his demeanor was kingly. But he was false, imperious, obstinate, narrow-minded, ignorant of the temper of his people, unobservant of the signs of his times. The whole principle of his government was re- sistance to public opinion; nor did he make any real concession to that opinion till it mattered not whether he resisted or conceded, till the nation which had long ceased to love him or to trust him, had at last ceased to fear him. His first Parliament met in June, 1G25. Hampden sat in is as burgess for Wendover. The King wished for money. The Commons wished for the redress of griev- ances. The war, however, could not be carried on without funds. The plan of the Opposition was, it should seem, to dole out supplies by small sums, in order to prevent a speedy dissolution. They gave the King two subsidies only, and proceeded to complain that his ships had been employed against the Huguenots in France, and to peti- tion in behalf of the Puritans who were persecuted in England. The King dissolved them, and raised money by Letters under his Privy Seal. The supply fell far short of what he needed ; and, in the spring of 1C>2G, he called together another Parliament. In this Parliament, Hamp- den again sat for Wendover. The Commons resolved to grant a very liberal supply, but to defer the final passing of the act for that purpose till the grievances of the nation should be redressed. The struggle which followed far exceeded in violence any that had yet taken place. The Commons impeached Bucking- ham. The King threw the managers of the impeachment into prison. The Commons denied the right of the King to levy tonnage and poundage without their consent. The King dissolved them. They put forth a remonstrance. The King circulated a declaration vindicating his meas- ures, and committed some of the most distinguished mem- bers of the Opposition to close custody. Money was raised by a forced loan, which was apportioned among the people according to the rate at which they had been re- spectively assessed to the last subsidy. On this occasion it was that Hampden made his first stand for the funda- JOHN HAMPDEN 15 mental principle of the English constitution. He posi- tively refused to lend a farthing. He was required to give his reasons. He answered "that he could be con- tent to lend as well as others, but feared to draw upon himself that curse in Magna Charta which should be read twice a year against those who infringe it." For this spiritcid answer, the Privy Council committed him close prisoner to the Gate House. After some time, he was again brought up ; but he persisted in his refusal, and was sent to a place of confinement in Hampshire. The government went on, oppressing at home, and blun- dering in all its measures abroad. A war was foolishly undertaken against France, and more foolishly conducted. Buckingham led an expedition against Rhe, and failed ignominously. In the mean time soldiers were billeted on the people. Crimes of which ordinary justice should have taken cognizance were punished by martial law. Near eighty gentlemen were imprisoned for refusing to contribute to the forced loan. The lower people who showed any signs of insubordination were pressed into the fleet, or compelled to ser\'e in the army. Money, how- ever, came in slowly; and the King was compelled to summon another J^arlianicnt. In the hope of conciliating his subjects, he set at liberty the persons who had been imprisoned for refusing to comply with his unlawful de- mniuls. I[ainj»(lcn regained his freedom, and was im- mediately reelected burgess for Wendover. Early in ^(]2x the ParlianicTit met. During its first ses- sion, the Commons prevailed on the King, after maiiy delays and much equivocntion, to give, in retnni for five snbsiflies, his full aTid solemn assent to that celebrated instrument, tlie second great charter of the lilxTties of England, known liv tbe name of the Petition of Right. By agreeing to tins net. the King bonnd himself to raise no taxes witliont the cf>nsent of l*!irliainetit, to imprison no man except by h-gal process, to liilb't no more soldiers on the peojile. iind to leave the cognizance of offenses to the ordinary tribnnnls. In the summer, this memoral'le Piirliament was pro- rogued. It met ag:iin iti Jiiiuinry, 1020. Buckingham was no more. That weak, violi nt and dissolute iidven- turer. who with no talents or acquirements but those of a 16 HISTORICAL ESSAYS mere courtier, had, in a great crisis of foreign and domes- tic politics, ventured on the part of prime minister, had fallen, during the recess of Parliament, by the hand of an assassin. Both before and after his death the war had been feebly and unsuccessfully conducted. The King had continued, in direct violation of the Petition of Right, to raise tonnage and poundage without the consent of Parliament. The troops had again been billeted on the people ; and it was clear to the Commons that the five sub- sidies which they had given as the price of the national liberties had been given in vain. They met accordingly in no complying humor.. They took into their most serious consideration the measures of the government concerning tonnage and poundage. They summoned the officers of the customhouse to their bar. They interrogated the barons of the exchequer. They committed one of the sheriffs of London. Sir John Eliot, a distinguished member of the Opposition, and an intimate friend of Hampden, proposed a resolution con- demning the unconstitutional imposition. The Speaker said that the King had commanded him to put no such question to the vote. This decision produced the most violent burst of feeling ever seen within the walls of Par- liament. Hayman remonstrated vehemently against the disgraceful language which had been heard from the chair. Eliot dashed the paper which contained his resolution on the floor of the House. Valentine and llollis held the Speaker down in his seat by main force, and read the motion amidst the loudest shouts. The door was locked. The key was laid on tlic table. Black Rod * knocked for admittance in vain. After passing several strong resolu- tions, the House adjourned. On the day appointed for its meeting it was dissolved by the King, and several of its most eminent members, among whom were HoUia and Sir John Eliot, were committed to prison. Though Hampden had as yet taken little part in the debates of the House, he had been a member of many very important committees, and had read and written much concerning the law of Parliament. A manuscript volume * Black Rod was the name given in the Houses of Lords and Commons to an usher with special duties, who always carried with him a black rod surmounted with a gold lion. JOHN HAMPDEN 17 of Parliamentary cases, which is still in existence, con- tains many extracts from his notes. He now retired to the duties and pleasures of a rural life. During the eleven years which followed the disso- lution of the Parliament of 1628, he resided at his seat in one of the most beautiful parts of the county of Bucking- ham. The house, which has since his time been greatly altered, and which is now, we believe, almost entirely neglected, was an old English mansion built in the days of the Plantagenets and the Tudors. It stood on the brow of a hill which overlooks a narrow valley. The extensive woods which surround it were pierced by long avenues. One of these avenues the grandfather of the great states- man had cut for the approach of Elizabeth; and the open- ing, which is still visible for many miles, retains the name of the Queen's Gap. In this delightful retreat Hamp- den passed several .vears, performing with great activ- ity all tlic duties of a landed gentleman and a magis- trate, and amusing himself with books and with field ports. He was not in his retirement unmindful of his perse- cuted friends. In particular, he kept up a close corre- spondence with Sir John I^liot, who was confined in the Tower. Lord Nugent has published several of the Let- ters. We may perhaps be fiineiful ; but it seems to us that every one of them is an admirable illustration of some part of the character of Hampden which Clarendon has drawn. Part of the correspondence relates to the two sons of Sir John Eliot. Tbese young men were wild and un- steady; and tbi'ir father, who was now separated from tliem, was naturally anxious about their conduct. He at length resolved to send one of them to I*' ranee, and the other t<^» serve a camijaign in tlie Low (\iuiitries. The letter which we sulijoin shows that Hampden, tliough rig- orotis towards himself, was not uncbiiritalib', towards otliers, anfl tliat liis j»uritanism was perfectly comjtatible witli the sentiments and the tastes f)f an accomplished gentleninn. It also illustrates ndmirM})ly what has l)ecn said of him by Clarendon : "He was of that rare alTability and temper in flebate, and of that seeming humility and submission of judgment, as if be brought no opinion of 18 HISTORICAL ESSAYS his own with him, but a desire of information and instruc- tion. Yet he had so subtle a way of interrogating, and, under cover of doubts, insin\iating his objections, that he infused his own opinion into those from whom he pre- tended to learn and receive them." The letter runs thus : "I am so perfectly acquainted with your clear insight into the dispositions of men, and ability to fit them with courses suitable, that, had you be- stowed sons of mine as you have done your own, my judg- ment durst hardly have called it into question, especially when, in laying the design, you have prevented the objec- tions to be made against it. For if Mr. Richard Eliot will, in the intermissions of action, add study to practice, and adorn that lively spirit with flowers of contemplation, he will raise our expectations of another Sir Edward Vere, that had this character — all summer in the field, all winter in his study — in whose fall fame makes this king- dom a great loser ; and, having taken this resolution from counsel with the highest wisdom, as I doubt not you have, I hoi)e and pray that the same power will crown it with a blessing answerable to our wish. The way you take with my other friends shows you to be none of the Bishop of Exeter's converts ; * of whose mind neither am I super- stitiously. But had my opinion been asked, I should, as vulgar conceits use to me do, have showed my power rather to raise objections than to answer them. A teui- per between France and Oxford, might have taken away his scruples, with more advantage to his years. . . . For although he be one of those that, if his age were looked for in no other book but that of the mind, would be found no ward if you should die to-morrow, yet it is a great hazard, methinks, to see so sweet a disposition guarded with no more, amongst a people whereof many make it their religion to be superstitious in impiety, and their l)e- havior to be affected in ill manners. But God, who only knoweth the periods of life and opportunities to come, hath resigned him, I hope, for his own service betime, and stirred up your providence to husband him so early for great affairs. Then shall he be sure to find Him in • Hall, Bishop of Exeter, had written strongly, both in verse and in prose, against the fashion of sending young men of quality to travel. JOHN HAMPDEN 19 France that Abraham did in Sechem and Joseph in Egypt, under whose wing alone is perfect safety." Sir John Eliot employed himself, during his imprison- ment, in writing a treatise on government, which he transmitted to his friend. Hampden's criticisms are strikingly characteristic. They are written with all that "flowing courtesy" which is ascribed to him by Clarendon. The objections are insinuated with so much delicacy that they could scarcely gall the most irritable author. We see too how highly Hampden valued in the writings of others that conciseness which was one of the most striking peculiarities of his own eloquence. Sir John Eliot's style was, it seems, too diffuse, and it is impossible not to ad- mire the skill with which this is suggested. "The piece," says Hampden, "is as complete an image of the pattern as can be drawn by lines, a lively character of a large mind, the subject, method, and expression, excellent and homogeneal, and, to say truth, sweetheart, somewhat ex- ceeding my commendations. My words cannot render them to the life. Yet, to show my ingenuity rather than wit. wf)uld not a less model have given a full representa- tion of that subject, not by diminution but by contraction of parts? I desire to learn. I dare not say. The varia- tions upon each particular seem many; all, I confess, ex- cellent. The fountain was full, the rhannel narrow; that may be the cause; or that the author resembled Virgil, who made more verses by many than he intended to write. To extract a just number, had T seen all bis, I could easily have bid him make fewer; b>it if be had bade me tell him whifh he shoulrl have spared, T had l)een posed." This is evidfiitly the writing nf)t only of a man of good sense and natural good taste, but of a man of literary habits. Of the stiulifs of TTampdcii little is known. But. ns it was at nno time in contemplation U> give him the charge of the oducation of the Prince of Wales, it r-annnt bf doubtrd that his acquiremonts were conHitlcrablo. Havila* it is said, was one of his favorite writers. The iiKidr-nition of Davila's opinions nnd tbo perspicuity and manliness of his style could not but rci-funmend him to so judicious a reader. It is not improbable that the parallel * pavlla was an Italian nolrllor and hlHtorlan. af one time a page of CatluTlno (le Mpfllrl, anri a contemporary of Hampden. 20 HISTORICAL ESSAYS between France and Enjiland, the Hufiuenots and the Puritans, had struck the mind of Hampden, and that he already found within himself powers not unequal to the lofty part of Coligny. While he was engaged in these pursuits, a hea\'y domes- tic calamity fell on him. His wife, who had borne him nine children, died in the summer of 1634. She lies in the parish church of Hampden, close to the manor-house. The tender and energetic language of her epitaph still attests the bitterness of her husband's sorrow, and the consolation which he found in a hope full of immortality. In the meantime, the aspect of public affairs grew darker and darker. The health of Eliot had sunk under an unlawful imprisonment of several years. The brave sufferer refused to purchase liberty, though liberty would to him have been life, by recognizing the authority which had confined him. In consequence of the representations of his physicians, the severity of restraint was somewhat relaxed. But it was in vain. He languished and expired a martyr to that good cause for which his friend Hampden was destined to meet a more brilliant, but not a more honorable death. All the promises of the King were violated without scruple or shame. The Petition of Right, to which he had, in consideration of moneys duly numbered, given a solemn assent, was set at nought. Taxes were raised by the royal authority. Patents of monopoly were granted. The old usages of feudal times were made pretexts for harassing the people with exactions unknown during many years. The Puritans were persecuted with cruelty worthy of the Holy Office. They were forced to fly from the country. They were imprisoned. They were whipped. Their ears were cut off. Their noses were slit. Their cheeks were branded with red-hot iron. But the cruelty of the oppressor could not tire ovit the fortitude of the victims. The mutilated defenders of liberty again defied the vengeance of the Star Chamber, came back with undi- minished resolution to the place of their glorious infamy, and manfully presented the stumps of their ears to be grubbed out by the hangman's knife. The hardy sect grew up and flourished in spite of everything that seemed likely to stunt it, stuck its roots deep into a barren soil. JOHN HAMPDEN 21 and spread its branches wide to an inclement sky. The multitude thronged round Prynne in the pillory with more respect than they paid to Mainwaring in the pulpit, pnd treasured up the rags which the blood of Burton had soaked, with a veneration such as miters and surplices had ceased to inspire. For the misgovernment of this disastrous period Charles himself is principally responsible. After the death of Buckingham, he seems to have been his own prime min- ister. He had, however, two counselors who seconded him, or went beyond him. in intolerance and lawless vio- lence; the one a superstitious driveler, as honest as a vile temper would suffer him to be, the other a man of great valor and capacity, but licentious, faithless, cor- rupt, and cruel. Never were faces more strikingly characteristic of the individuals to whom they belongeil, than those of Laud and Strafford, as they still remain portrayed by the most skilful hand of that age. The mean forehead, the pinched features, the peering eyes, of the prelate, suit admirably with his disposition. They mark him out as a lower kind of Saint Dominic, differing from the fierce and gloomy enthusiast who founded tlie lnast him. that he saw Thomas Flexney in green garments, and the Bishop of Worcester with his shoulders wrapped in linen. Tn the early part of 1627, the sleep of this grent ornament of the church seems to have been much distnrbiHl. On the fiftli of Januar>'. he saw a merry old man with a wrinkled coimtenance, named Grove, lying on the ground. C)n the fourteenth of the same memorable mfrnth. he saw the P>ishop of Lincoln jump on a horse and ride away. A day or two after this 22 HISTOKICAL ESSAYS he dreamed that he gave the King drink in a silver cup, and that the King refused it, and called for glass. Then he dreamed that he had turned Papist; of all his dreams the only one, we suspect, which came through the gate of horn. But of these visions our favorite is that which, as he has recorded, he enjoyed on the night of Friday, the ninth of February, 1627. "I dreamed," says he, "that I had the scurvy ; and that forthwith all my teeth became loose. There was one in especial in my lower jaw, which I could scarcely keep in with my finger till I had called for help." Here was a man to have the superintendence of the opinions of a great nation ! But Wentworth. — who ever names him without thinking of those harsh dark features, ennobled by their expression into more than the majesty of an antique Jupiter; of that brow, that eye, that cheek, that lip, wherein, as in a chronicle, are written the events of many stormy and disastrous years, high enterprise accomplished, frightful dangers braved, power unsparingly exercised, suffering unshrinkingly borne; of that fixed look, so full of severity, of mournful anxiety, of deep thought, of dauntless reso- lution, which seems at once to forbode and to defy a ter- rible fate, as it lowers on us from the living canvass of Vandyke? Even at this day the haughty earl overawes posterity as he overawed his contemporaries, and excites the same interest when arraigned before the tribunal of history which he excited at the bar of the House of Lords. In spite of ourselves, we sometimes feel towards his mem- ory a certain relenting similar to that relenting which his defense, as Sir John Denham tells us, produced in Westminster Hall. This great, brave, bad man entered the House of Com- mons at the same time with Hampden, and took the same side with Hampden. Both were among the richest and most powerful commoners in the kingdom. Both were equally distinguished by force of character, and by per- sonal courage. Hampden had more judgment and sagac- ity than Wentworth. But no orator of that time equaled Wentworth in force and brilliancy of expression. In 1626 both these eminent men were committed to prison by the King. Wentworth, who was among the leaders of the Op- position, on account of his parliamentary conduct, Hamp- JOHN HAMPDEN 23 den, who had not as yet taken a prominent part in debate, for refusing: to pay taxes illegally imposed. Here their path separated. After the death of Buck- ingham, the King attempted to seduce some of the chiefs of the Opposition from their party; and Wentworth was among those who yielded to the seduction. He abandoned his associates, and hated thorn ever after with the deadly hatred of a renegade. High titles and great employments were heaped upon him. He became Earl of Strafford, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, President of the Council of the North; and he emi)loyod all his power for the purpose of crushing those liberties of which he had been the most distinguished champion. His counsels respecting public affairs were fierce and arbitrary. His correspondence with Laud abundantly proves that government without parlia- ments, government by the sword, was his favorite scheme. He was angry even that the course of justice between man and man should l)e unrestrained by the royal pre- rogative. He grudged to the Courts of King's Bench and Common Pleas even that measure of liberty which the most al)solute of the Bourbons allowed to the Parlia- ments of France. In Ireland, where he stood in the phu-e of the King, his praotifc was in strict accordance with his theory. He set uj) the authority of the executive government over that of the courts of law. He permitted no person to leave the island without his license. He estal)lished vast monopolies for his own i)rivate benefit. He imposed taxes arbitrarily. He levied them by military foree. Some of his aets are described even by the partial Clarendon as powerful aets, aets which marked a na- ture excessively imperious, acts which caused flislike and terror in so})er and dispassionate persons, high acts of oppression. Fpon a most frivolous charge, be oiitained n capital sentence from a court-martial against a man of high rank who had given him offense. lie deliauclied the daugbter-i)i-bi\v of the Lord Chancellor of Irelaml, and then commanded that nobleman to settle his estate nccordintr to the wishes of the lady. The Chancellor re- fused. The Lord Lieutenant turned liim out of office, and threw him into prison. When the violent acts of the Long Parliament are bliiined. let it not be forgotten from what a tyranny they rescued the nation. 24 HISTORICAL ESSAYS Amoiif? the humbler tools of Charles were Chief-Justice Finch and Noy the Attornoy-Cieneral. Noy had, like Wentworth, supported the cause of liberty in Parliament, and had, like Wentworth, abandoned that cause for the sake of office. He devised, in conjunction with Finch, a scheme of exaction which made the alienation of the peo- ple from the throne complete. A writ was issued by the King-, conunanding the city of London to equip and man ships of war for his service. Similar writs were sent to the towns along the coast. These measures, though they were direct violations of the Petition of Right, had at least some show of precedent in their favor. But, after a time, the government took a step for which no precedent could be pleaded, and sent writs of ship-money to the inland counties. This was a stretch of power on which Elizabeth herself had not ventured, even at a time when all laws might with propriety have been made to bend to that highest law, the safety of the state. The inland coun- ties had not been required to furnish ships, or money in the room of ships, even when the Armada was approaching our shores. It seemed intolerable that a prince who, by assenting to the Petition of Right, had relinquished the power of levying ship-money even in the out-ports, should be the first to levy it on parts of the kingdom where it had been unknown under the most absolute of his prede- cessors. Clarendon distinctly admits that this tax was intended, not only for the support of the navy, bu^ "for a spring and magazine that should have no bottom, and for an everlasting supply of all occasions." The nation well un- derstood this; and from one end of England to the other the public mind was strongly excited. Buckinghamshire was assessed at a ship of four hundred and fifty tons, or a sum of four thousand five hundred pounds. The share of the tax which fell to Hampden was very small; so small, indeed, that the sheriff was blamed for setting so wealthy a man at so low a rate. But, though the sum demanded was a trifle, the principle involved was fearfully important. Hampden, after con- sulting the most eminent constitutional lawyers of the time, refused to pay the few shillings at which he was assessed, and determined to incur all the certain expense. JOHN HAMPDEN 25 and the probable danger, of bringing to a solemn hearing this great controversy between the people and the Crown. "Till this time," says Clarendon, "he was rather of repu- tation in his own country than of public discourse or fame in the kingdom; but then he grew the argument of all tongues, ever;^- man inquiring who and what he wa« that durst, at his own charge, support the liberty and prnut his de- meanor, though it impressed Lord Falkland with the deep- est respoet, thougli it drew forth the prjiises of Solieitor- General Herbert, only kiiulled intrt a fiercer flame the ever- burning hatred of Strafford. That minister, in his let- 26 HISTOKIOAL ESSAYS ters to Laud, murmured against the lenity with which Hampden was treated. "In good faith," he wrote, "were such men rightly served, they should be whipped into their right wits." Again he says, "I still wish Mr. Hamp- den, and others to his likeness, were well whipped into their right senses. And if the rod be so used that it smart not, I am the more sorry." The person of Hampden was now scarcely safe. His prudence and moderation had hitherto disappointed those who would gladly have had a pretense for sending him to the prison of Eliot. But he knew that the eye of a tyrant was on him. In the year 1637 misgovernment had reached its height. Eight years had passed without a Parliament. The decision of the Exchequer Chamber had placed at the disposal of the Crown the whole property of the English people. About the time at which that de- cision was pronounced, Prynne, Bastwick, and Burton were mutilated by the sentence of the Star Chamber, and sent to rot in remote dungeons. The estate and the per- son of every man who had opposed the Court were at its mercy. Hampden determined to leave England. Beyond the Atlantic Ocean, a few of the persecuted Puritans had formed, in the wilderness of Connecticut, a settlement which has since become a prosperous commonwealth, and which, in spite of the lapse of time and of the change of government, still retains something of the character given to it by its first founders. Lord Saye and Lord Brooke were the original projectors of this scheme of emi- gration. Hampden had been early consulted respecting it. He was now, it appears, desirous to withdraw himself be- yond the reach of oppressors who, as he probal)ly suspected, and as we know, were bent on punishing his manful re- sistance to their tyranny. He was accompanied by his kinsman Oliver Cromwell, over whom he possessed great influence, and in whom he alone had discovered, under an exterior appearance of coarseness and extravagance, those great and commanding talents which were afterward the admiration and the dread of Europe. The cousins took their passage in a vessel which lay in the Thames, and which was bound for North America. They were actually on board, when an order in council JOHN HAMPDEN 27 appeared, by which the ship was prohibited from sailing. Seven other ships, filled with emigrants, were stopped at the same time. Hampden and Cromwell remained; and with them re- mained the Evil Genius of the House of Stuart. The tide of public affairs was even now on the turn. The King had resolved to change the ecclesiastical constitution of Scotland, and to introduce into the public worship of that kingdom ceremonies which the great body of the Scots regarded as popish. This absurd attempt produced, first discontents, then riots, and at length open rebellion. A provisional government was estal)lishe(l at Edinburgh, and its authority was obeyed throughout the kingdom. This government raised an army, appointed a general, and summoned an Assembly of the Kirk. The famous instrument called the Covenant was put forth at this time, and was eagerly subscribed by the people. The beginnings of this formidable insurrection were strangely neglected by the King and his advisers. But towards the close of the year 103s the danger became pressing. An army was raised; and early in the following spring Charles marched northward at the head of a force sufficient, as it seemed, to reduce the Covenanters to sub- mission. But Charles acted at this conjuncture as he acted at every important conjuncture througliout his life. After oppressing, threatening, and blustering, he hesitated and failed. He was bf)ld in the wrong j)]ace, and timid in the wrong place. He would have shown his wisdom by being afraid before the liturgy was read in St. (Jiles's chureh. He ptit off his fear till lie had reached the Scot- tish border with his troops. Then, after a feeble cam- paign, he concluded a treaty with the insurgents, and withdrew his army. P.ut the terms of the pacification were not obsen'ed. Each jiarty charged tlic nther with foul play. The Scots refused tf> disiirni. 'I'Ih- King found great difficidty in re-assembling bis forces. His late expe- dition had drained his treasury. The revenues of the next year had been anticipated. At another time, he might have attempted to make up the deficiency by illegal ex- pedients; but such a course would clearly have been dan- gerous when part of the island was in rebellion. It was 28 HISTORICAL ESSAYS necessary to call a Parliament. After eleven years of suffering, the voice of the nation was to be heard once more. In April, 1640, the Parliament met; and the King had another chance of conciliating his people. The new House of Commons was, beyond all comparison, the least refractory House of Commons that had been known for many years. Indeed, we have never been able to under- stand how, after so long a period of misgovernment, the representatives of the nation should have shown so mod- erate and so loyal a disposition. Clarendon speaks with admiration of their dutiful temper. "The House, gen- erally," says he, "was exceedingly disposed to please the King, and to do him service." "It could never be hoped," he observes elsewhere, "that more sober or dispassionate men would ever meet together in that place, or fewer who brought ill purposes with them." In this Parliament Hampden took his seat as member for Buckinghamshire, and thenceforward, till the day of his death, gave himself up, with scarcely any intermission, to public affairs. He took lodgings in Gray's Inn Lane, near the house occupied by Pym, with whom he lived in habits of the closest intimacy. He was now decidedly the most popular man in England. The Opposition looked to him as their leader, and the servants of the King treated him with marked respect. Charles requested the Parliament to vote an immediate supply, and pledged his word that, if they would gratify him in this request, he would afterward give them time to represent their grievances to him. The grievances un- der which the nation suffered were so serious, and the royal word had been so shamefully violated, that the Com- mons could hardly be expected to comply with this request. During the first week of the session, the minutes of the proceedings against Hampden were laid on the table by Oliver St. John, and a committee reported that the case was matter of grievance. The King sent a message to the Commons, offering, if they would vote him twelve subsidies, to give up the prerogative of ship-money. Many years before, he had received five subsidies in considera- tion of his assent to the Petition of Right. By assenting to that petition, he had given up the right of levying ship- JOHN HAMPDEN 29 money, if he ever possessed it. How he had observed the promises made to his third Parliament, all England knew: and it was not strange that the Commons should be some- what unwilling to buy from him, over and over again, their own ancient and undoubted inheritance. His message, however, was not unfavorably received. The Commons were ready to give a large supply ; but they were not disposed to give it in exchange for a prerogative of which they altogether denied the existence. If they acceded to the proposal of the King, they recognized the legality of the writs of ship-money. Hampden, who was a greater master of parliamentary tactics than any man of his time, saw that this was the prevailing feeling, and availed himself of it with great dexterity. He moved that the question should be put, "Whether the House would consent to the proposition made by the King, as contained in the message." Hyde interfered, and proposed that the question should be di- vided ; that the sense of the House should be taken merely on the point whether there should be a supply or no sup- ply; and that the manner and the amount should be left for subsequent consideration. The majority of the House was for granting a supply, hut against granting it in the manner proposed by the King. If the House had divided on iranipdcn's qu(»stion. tlu' Court would liave sustained a defeat; if on Hyde's, the Court would have gained an apparent victory. Some members ealled for Hyde's motion, others for Hampden's. In the midst of the uproar, the secretary of state. Sir Harry Vane, rose and stated that the supply would not be accepted unless it wore vf)ted aeeordiiig to tlie tenor of the message. Vane was supported by Herbert, the Solici- tor-Cieneral. Hyde'.s motion was therefore no further pressed, and the debate on the general question was ad- journed till the next clay. On the next day the King came down to the House of Lords, and dissolved the Parliament witli an angry speeeh. His conduet on tliis occasion has never been defended by any of his apologists. Clarendon eondemns it severely. "No man," says he, "eould imagine wbat offense the Com- mons had given." The ftffense which they had given is plain. They had, indeed, behaved most temperately and 30 HISTORICAL ESSAYS most respectfully. But they had shown a disposition to redress wronp;s and to vindicate the laws; and this was enough to make them hateful to a king whom no law could bind, and whose whole government was one system of wrong. The nation received the intelligence of the dissolution with sorrow and indignation. The only persons to whom this event gave pleasure were those few discerning men who thought that the maladies of the state were beyond the reach of gentle remedies. Oliver St. John's joy was too great for concealment. It lighted up his dark and melancholy features, and made him, for the first time, in- discreetly communicative. He told Hyde that things must be worse before they could be better, and that the dissolved Parliament would never have done all that was necessary. St. John, we think, was in the right. No good could then have been done by any Parliament which did not fully understand that no confidence could safely be placed in the King, and that, while he enjoyed more than the shadow of power, the nation would never enjoy more than the shadow of liberty. As soon as Charles had dismissed the Parliament, he threw several members of the House of Commons into prison. Ship-money was exacted more rigorously than ever; and the Mayor and Sheriffs of London were prose- cuted before the Star Chamber for slackness in levying it. Wentworth, it is said, observed with characteristic insolence and cruelty, that things would never go right till the Aldermen were hanged. Large sums were raised by force on those counties in which the troops were quar- tered. All the wretched shifts of a beggared exchequer were tried. Forced loans were raised. Great quantities of goods were bought on long credit and sold for ready money. A scheme for debasing the currency was under consideration. At length, in August, the King again marched northward. The Scots advanced into England to meet him. It is by no means improbable that this bold step was taken by the advice of Hampden, and of those with whom he acted ; and this has been made matter of grave accusation against the English Opposition. It is said that to call in the aid of foreigners in a domestic quarrel is the worst of JOHN HAMPDEN 31 treasons, and that the Puritan leaders, by taking this course, showed that they were regardless of the honor and independence of the nation, and anxious only for the success of their own faction. We are utterly unable to see any distinction between the case of the Scotch inva- sion in 1640, and the case of the Dutch invasion in 16SS; or rather, we see distinctions which are to the advantage of Hampden and his friends. We believe Charles to have been a worse and more dangerous king than his son. The Dutch were strangers to us, the Scots a kindred people, speaking the same language, subjects of the same prince, not aliens in the eye of the law. If, indeed, it had been possible that a Scotch army or a Dutch army could have enslaved f]ngland, those who persuaded Leslie to cross the Tweed, and those who signed the invitation to the Prince of Orange, would have been traitors to their coun- trj'. But such a result was out of the question. All that fitlKT a Scotch or a Dutch invasion could do was to give the puldic feeling of England an opportunity to show it- self. Both expeditions would have ended in complete and ludicrous discomfiture, had Charles and James been sup- ported by their soldiers and their people. In neither case, therefore, was the independence of England endangered ; in both cases her liberties were preservecl. The second camijaign of Charles against the Scots was short and ignominous. His soldiers, as soon as they saw the enemy, ran away as English sobliers have never run either beff)re or since. It can scarcely be doubted that their flight was the effect, not of cowardice, but of disaf- fection. The ff>ur ii(»rtliern cfninties of England were oc- cupied by the S<'otch army, and the King retire^ met, there was a war wagrv] by them against the King, a war for all that they held dear, a war carried on at first by means of parliamentary' forms, at last by physical force; any the Court; and. when the Parliament met again in November, aftor a short recess, the Puritans were more intr.ictable than ever. I»ut that which HamiKlen had ("eared had come to pass. A reaction ha«l taken plai-c. A large body of moderate and well-meaning men. who had heartily concurred in th(i strong measures atjofjtefl before the recess, were in- clined to pause. Their oi)inion was that, during many years, the country had been grievously misgoverned, and that a great reform bad been necessary; but that a great reform had been made, that the grievances of the nation 38 HISTOEICAL ESSAYS had been fully redressed, that sufficient vengeance had been exacted for the past, that sufficient security had been provided for the future, and that it would, therefore, be both ungrateful and unwise to make any further at- tacks on the royal prerogative. In support of this opinion many plausible arguments have been used. But to all these arguments there is one short answer. The King could not be trusted. At the head of those who may be called the Constitu- tional Royalists were Falkland, Hyde, and Culpeper. All these eminent men had, during the former year, been in very decided opposition to the Court. In some of those very proceedings with which their admirers reproach Hampden, they had taken a more decided part than Hamp- den. They had all been concerned in the impeachment of Strafford. They had all, there is reason to believe, voted :for the Bill of Attainder. Certainly none of them voted against it. Thoy had all agreed to the act which made the consent of the Parliament necessary to a dissolution or prorogation, Hyde had been among the most active of those who attacked the Council of York. Falkland had voted for the exclusion of the bishops from the Upper House. They were now inclined to halt in the path of reform, perhaps to retrace a few of their steps. A direct collision soon took place between the two parties into which the House of Commons, lately at almost perfect unity with itself, was now divided. The opponents of the government moved that celebrated address to the King which is known by the name of the Grand Remon- strance. In this address all the oppressive acts of the preceding fifteen years were set forth with great energy of language; and, in conclusion, the King was entreated to employ no ministers in whom the Parliament could not confide. The debate on the Remonstrance was long and stormy. It commenced at nine in the morning of the twenty-first of November, and lasted till after midnight. The division showed that a great change had taken place in the temper of the House. Though many members had retired from exhaustion, three hundred voted ; and the Remonstrance was carried by a majority of only nine. A violent debate followed, on the question whether the minority should be JOHN HA:NrPDEN 39 allowed to protest against this decision. The excitement was so great that several members were on the point of proceeding to personal violence. "We had sheathed our pwords in each other's bowels," says an eye-witness, "had not the sagacity and great calmness of Mr. Hampden, by a short speech, prevented it." The House did not rise till two in the morning. The situation of the Puritan leaders was now difficult and full of peril. The small majority which they still had might soon become a minority. Out of doors, their supporters in the higher and middle classes w^ere begin- ning to fall off. There was a growing opinion that the King had been hardly used. The English are always in- clined to side with a weak party wliicli is in the wrong, rather than with a strong i)arty which is in the right. This may be seen in all contests, from contests of boxers to contests of faction. Thus it was that a violent reaction took place in favor of Charles the Second against tli.' Whigs in K'tSl. Thus it was that an ctpially violent reac- tion took place in favor of (Icorge the Third against tlie coalition in 1784. A similar reaction was beginning to take idace should abstain from treachery, from vifilence, from gross breaches of the law. This was all that the nation was 40 HISTORICAL P^SSAYS thon disposoil tu rccjuiro of liiiii. And even this was too much. For a short time he seemed inclined to take a wise and temperate course. He resolved to make Falkland secre- tary of state, and Culpeper chancellor of the exchequer. He declare, the shires lying in the neigh- borhood of London, which were devoted to tlie cause of the Parliament, were incessantly annoyed by Rupert an\\in^' mind." In an age of low ainl dirty i)rostitution, in tlie age of Doddington and Sandys, it was something to have a man who might y)erliaps. under some strong excitement, have been temptef] to ruin liis country, but wlio never would have stooped to pilfer from her. a man whose errors arose, 58 HISTORICAL ESSAYS not from a sorilid desire of gain, but from a fierce thirst for power, for fjl^^ry, and for vengeance. History owes to him this attestation, that, at a time when anything short of direct embezzlement of the public, money was considered as quite fair in jjublic men, he showed the most scrupulous disinterestedness, tliat, at a time when it seemed to be generally taken for granted that Government could be upheld only by the basest and most immoral arts, he ap- pealed to tiie better and nobler parts of human nature, that he made a brave and splendid attempt to do, by means of public opinion, what no other statesman of his day thought it possible to do, except by means of corruption, that he looked for support, not, like the Pelhams, to a strong aristocratical connection, not, like Bute, to the personal favor of the sovereign, but to the middle class of Englishmen, that he insiiired that class with a firm con- fidence in his integrity and al)ility, that, backed by them, he forced an unwilling court and an unwilling oligarchy to admit him to an ample share of power, and that he used his power in such a manner as clearly proved him to have sought it, not for the sake of profit or patronage, but from a wish to establish for himself a great and durable reputation by means of eminent services rendered to the state. The family of Pitt was wealthy and respectable. His grandfather was Governor of ^Madras, and brought back from India that celebrated diamond which the Regent Orleans, by the advice of Saint-Simon, purchased for up- ward of two millions of livres, and which is still consid- ered as the most precious of the erowni jewels of France. Governor Pitt bought estates and rotten boroughs, and sat in the House of Commons for Old Sarum. His son Robert was at one time memlier for Old Sarum, and at another for Oakhampton. Robert had two sons. Thomas, the elder, inherited the estates and the parliamentary interest of his father. The second was the celebrated William Pitt. He was born in November, 1708. About the early part of his life little more is known than that he was educated at Eton, and that at seventeen he was entered at Trinity College, Oxford. During the second year of his residence at the University, George the First died; and the event WILLIAM PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM 59 was, after the fashion of that generation, celebrated by the Oxonians in many very middling copies of verses. On this occasion Pitt published some Latin lines, which Mr. Thackeray has preserved. They prove that the young student had but a very limited knowledge even of the mechanical part of his art. All true Etonians will hear with concern that their illustrious school-fellow is guilty of making the first syllable in lahentl short.* The matter of the poem is as worthless as that of any college exercise that was ever written before or since. There is, of course, much about Mars, Themis, Neptune, and Cocytus. The Pluses are earnestly entreated to weep over the urn of Gspsar; for Capsar, says the Poet, loved the Muses; Ca>sar, who could not read a line of Pope, and who loved nothing but punch and fat women. Pitt had been, from his school-days, cruelly tormented by the gout, and was at last advised to travel for his health. He accordingly left Oxford without taking a degree, and visited France and Italy. He returned, how- ever, without having received much benefit from his ex- cursion, and continued, till the close of his life, to suffer most severely from his constitutional malady. His father was now dead, and had left very little to the younger children. It was necessary that William should choose a profession. He decided for the army and a coronet's commission was pnnnircd for him in the ]51ues. But, small as his fortune was, his family had both the power and the iiiclinatioii to scTve him. At the general election of 17')4, his elder l)roth('r Thomas was chosen both for Old Sarnin aiien years, at the head of affairs. He had risen to ])ower under the jnost favorable eireiinistanees. The wliole of the Whig party, of that party which professed peculiar attachment to the principles of the Revolution, iind wliieh exclusively en- joyed the confidence of tlie reigning house, had been united in support of his administration. Happily for liiin, he had been out of office when the South-Seji Act was • So Mr. Th.Tfkcrny hnH print. •(! tli.' i>nnt occasions, gave ample proof that he was one of those tardy penitents. But his conduct, even where it appeared most criminal to himself, appears admirable to his biographer. The elections of 1741 were unfavorable to Walpole; and after a long and obstinate struggle he found it necessary to resign. The Duke of Newcastle and Lord TIardwicke opened a negotiation with the leading patriots, in the hope of forming an administration on a Whig basis. At this conjuncture, Pitt and those persons who were most nearly connected with him acted in a manner very little to their honor. They attempted to come to an understand- WILLIAM PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM 73 ing with Walpole, and offered, if he would use his influ- ence with the King in their favor, to screen him from prosecution. They even went so far as to engage for the concurrence of the Prince of Wales. But Walpole knew that the assistance of the Boys, as he called the young- patriots, would avail him nothing if Pulteney and Car- teret should prove intractable, and would be superfluous if the great leaders of the Opposition could be gained. He, therefore, declined tho proposal. It is remarkable that Mr. Thackeray, who has thought it worth while to preserve Pitt's bad college verses, has not even alluded to this story, a story which is supported by strong testimony, and which may be found in so common a book as Coxe's Life of Walpole. The new arrangements disappointed almost every mem- ber of the Opposition, and none more than Pitt. He was not invited to become a placeman ; and he therefore stuck firmly to his old trade of ))atriot. Fortunate it was for him that he did so. Had he taken ofiicc at this time, he would in all probability have shared largely in the un- popularity of Pultciioy, Sandys, and Carteret. He was now the fiercest and most implacable of those who called for vengeance on Walpole. He spoke with great energy and ability in favor of the most unjust and violent propo- sitions which the enemies of the falh'n minister could invent. He urgemper had ruined the party to which she belonged and the husband whom she adored. Time had made her neither wiser nor kinder. Whoever was at any moment great and prosperous was the object of her fiercest detestation. She had hated Wal- pole; she now hated Carteret. Pope, long before her death, predicted the fate of her vast property. "To heirs unknown (Ifsccnds tl»e unguarded store, f)r wanders, licaveii-direoted, to the poor." Pitt was then one of the poor ; and to him . Heaven directed a portion of the wealth of the haughty Dowager. She left him a legacy of ten thousand jjounds, in consid- eration of "the noble defense be had made for the support of the laws of England, and to prevent the ruin of his country." I WILLIAM PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM 75 The will was made in August. The Duchess died in October. In November Pitt was a courtier. The Pelhams had forced the King, much against his will, to part with Lord Carteret, who had now become Earl Granville. They proceeded, after this victor;s% to form the Government on that basis, called by the cant name of "the broad bottom." Lyttelton had a seat at the Treasury, and several other friends of Pitt were provided for. But Pitt himself was, for the present, forced to be content with promises. The King resented most highly some expressions which the ardent orator had used in the debate on the Hanoverian troops. But Newcastle and Pelham expressed the strong- est confidence that time and their exertions would soften the royal displeasure. Pitt, on his part, omitted nothing that might facilitate his admission to office. He resigned his i)lace in the household of Prince Frederick, and, when Parliament met, exerted his eloquence in support of the Government. The Pelhams were really sincere in their endeavors to remove the strong prejudices which had taken root in the King's mind. They knew that Pitt was not a man to be deceived with ease or offended with impunity. They were afraid that they should not be long al)]e to put him off with promises. Nor was it their interest so to put him off. There was a strong tie between him and them. He was the enemy of their enemy. The brothers hated and dreaded the eloquent, aspiring, iiiid imperious Granville. They had traced his intrigues in many quarters. Th(\v knew his influence over tlie royal mind. Tliey knew that, as soon as a favorable opportunity should arrive, he would be recalled to the head of affairs. They resolved to bring things to a crisis; and tlie 4 were favorable to the administra- tion. Put the aspect of foreign afTairs was tbreateiiinj^. In India the English and the French bad been emplo.yed, ever since the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, in cutting each f)tber's throats. They had lately taken to the same practice in America. It might have been foreseen that stirring times were nt hand, times wliieb would c.ill for aliilifies very different from those of Xewcastle and Kobinsoti. 82 HISTORICAL ESSAYS In November the Parliament met; and before the end of that month tlie new Si'cretary of State liad been so un- mercifully baited by the Paymaster of the Forces and the Seeretary-at-War that he was thoroughly sick of his situa- tion. Fox attacked him with great force and acrimony. Pitt affected a kind of contemptuous tenderness for Sir Thomas, and directed his attacks principally against New- castle. On one occasion, he asked in tones of thunder whether Parliament sat only to register the edicts of one too-powerful subject? The Duke was scared out of his wits. lie was afraid to dismiss the mutineers; he was afraid to promote them; l)ut it was absolutely necessary to do something. Fox, as the less proud and intractable of the refractory pair, was preferred. A seat in the Cabi- net was offered to him on condition that he would give efficient sui)port to the ministry in Parliament. In an evil hour for his fame and his fortunes he accepted the offer, and abandoned his connection with Pitt, who never forgave this desertion. Sir Thomas, assisted by Fox, contrived to get through the business of the year without much trouble. Pitt was waiting his time. The negotiations pending between France and England took every day a more unfavorable aspect. Toward the close of the session the King sent a message to inform the House of Commons that he had found it necessary to make preparations for war. The House returned an address of thanks, and passed a vote of credit. During the recess, the old animosity of both nations was inflamed by a series of disastrous events. An Engli.sh force was cut off in America ; and several French merchantmen were taken in the West Indian Seas. It was plain that an appeal to arms was at hand. The first object of the King was to secure Hanover; and Newcastle was disposed to gratify his master. Treaties were concluded, after the fashion of those times, with several petty Oerman princes, who bound themselves to find soldiers if England would find money; and, as it was susper-ted that PVederick the Second had set his heart on the electoral dominions of his uncle, Russia was hired to keep Prussia in awe. When the stipulations of these treaties were made known, there arose throughout the kingdom a murmur WILLIAM PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM 83 from which a judicious observer might easily prognosti- cate the approach of a tempest. Newcastle encountered strong opposition, even from those whom he had always considered as his tools. Legge. the Chancellor of the Exchequer, refused to sign the Treasury warrants which were necessary to give effect to the treaties. Those persons who were supposed to possess the confidence of the young Prince of Wales and of his mother held very menacing language. In this perplexity Newcastle sent for Pitt, hugged him, patted him, smirked at him, wept over him, and lisped out the highest compliments and the most spjcndid promises. The King, who had hitherto been as sulky as possible, would be civil to him at the levee; he should be brought into the Cabinet; he should be con- sulted about everj'thing; if he would only be so good as to support the Hessian subsidy in the House of Commons. Pitt coldly declined the proffered seat in the Cabinet, ex- pressed the highest love and reverence for the King, and said that, if his Majesty felt a strong personal interest in the Hessian treaty he would so far deviate from the line which he had traced out for himself as to give that treaty his support. ''Well, and the Russian subsidy," said New- castle. "No," said Pitt, "not a system of subsidies." The Duke summoned Lord Hardwicke to his aid ; but Pitt was inflexible. ^Murray would do nothing. Robinson could do nothing. It was necessary to have recourse to Fox. He became Secretary of State, with the full authority of a loader in the House of Commons ; and Sir Thomas was pensioned off on the Irish establishment. In November, 175.5, the Houses met. Public expectation was wound up to the height. After ten quiet years there was to be an Opposition, countenanced by the heir-appar- ent of the throne, and headed by the most brilliant orator of the age. The del)ate on the address was long remem- bered ns one of the greatest parlininentnry conflicts of that penerntion. It began at three in the afternoon, and lasted till five the next morning. It was on this night that ("Jerard Hamilton * delivered that single speeeh from which his nieknarne was derived. His elo(|nence threw into the • Oornrfl Unmllton wnw nlcknnmorl "HltiKlP-Bpecch Hamilton" be- rauao h«< novcr nrhli-vcd r Bcrond oration equal to the maiden speech here referred to. 84 HISTORICAL ESSAYS shade every orator except Pitt, who declaimed against the subsidies for an hour and a half with extraordinary energy and effect. Those powers wliich had formerly spread terror through the majorities of Walpole and Carteret were now displayed in their highest perfection before an audience long unaccustomed to such exhibitions. One fragment of this celebrated oration remains in a state of tolerable preservation. It is the comparison between the coalition of Fox and ISTeweastle, and the junction of the Rhone and the Saone. "At Lyons," said Pitt, "I was taken to see the place where the two rivers meet, the one gentle, feeble, languid, and, though languid, yet of no depth, the other a boisterous and impetuous torrent; but different as they are, they meet at last." The amendment moved by the Opposition was rejected by a great majority; and Pitt and Legge were immediately dismissed from their offices. During several months the contest in the House of Com- mons was extremely sharp. Warm debates took place ou the estimates, debates still warmer on the subsidiary treaties. The Government succeeded in every division; but the fame of Pitt's eloquence, and the influence of his lofty and determined character, continued to increase through the Session; and the events which followed the prorogation made it utterly impossible for any other per- son to manage the Parliament or the country. The war began in every part of the world with events disastrous to England, and even more shameful than dis- astrous. But the most humiliating of these events was the loss of Minorca. The Duke of Richelieu, an old fop who had passed his life from sixteen to sixty in seducing women for whom he cared not one straw, landed on that island, and succeeded in reducing it. Admiral Byng was sent from Gibraltar to throw succors into Port-Mahon; but he did not think fit to engage the French squadron, and sailed back without having effected his purpose. The people were inflamed to madness. A storm broke forth, which appalled even tliose who remembered the days of Excise and of South-Sea. The shops were filled with labels and caricatures. The walls were covered with placards. The city of London called for vengeance, and the cry was echoed from every corner of the kingdom. Dorsetshire, Huntingdonshire, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Som- WILLIAM PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM 85 ersetshire, Lancashire, Suffolk, Shropshire, Surrey, sent up strong addresses to the throne, and instructed their representatives to vote for a strict inquiry into the causes of the late disasters. In the great towns the feeling was as strong as in the counties. In some of the instructions it was even recommended that the supplies should be stopped. The nation was in a state of angry and sullen despon- dency, almost unparalleled in history. People have, in all ages, been in the habit of talking about the good old times of their ancestors, and the degeneracy of their contem- poraries. This is in general merely a cant. But in 1756 it was something more. At the time appeared Brown's Estimate, a book now remembered only by the alhisions in Cowper's TaV)le Talk and in Burke's Letters on a Regicide Peace. It was universally read, admired, and believed. The author fully cdnviuced his readers that they were a race of cowards and scoundrels; tliat nothing could save them; that they were on the point of being enslaved by their enemies, and that th<\v richly deserved their fate. Such were the speculations to wliich ready credence was given at the outset of the most glorious war in which England had ever been engaged. Newcastle now began to tremble for his place, and for the only thing which was dearer to him than his place, his neck. The i)coplc were not in ji mood to be trifled with. Their cry was for iilood. F(tr this once they might be contented with the sacrifice of Tiyiig. But what if fresh disasters should take place? What if an unfriendly sov- ereign should ascend tlic throne ? What if a hostile House of Commons should be chosen? At length, in OctolxT, the decisive crisis came. The new Secretary of State bad l>cen long sick of tlie i)crfidy and levity of the First Lord of the Treasury, and begun to fear that he might be made a scapegoat to save the old intriguer who, imbecile as he seemed, never wanted dexterity where danger was to be avoidecl. Fox threw tip his office. Xewr-astlc had rccoiir^te to Murray; but \furray had now within his reach the favorite obji'ct of his arubi- tion. The situation of Chief-Justice of the King's lieuch was vacant; and the Attorney-CMMKTal was fully resolved to obtain it, or to go into ()i)pfisitioii. Newcastb; offered 86 HISTORICAL ESSAYS him any terms, the Duchy of Lancaster for life, a teller- sliip of the Exchequer, any amount of pension, two thou- sand a year, six thousand a year. When the Ministers found that Murray's mind was made up, they pressed for delay, tlie dchiy of a session, a month, a week, a day. Would he only make his appearance once more in. the House of Commons? Would he only speak in favor of the address? He was inexorahlo, and peremjjtorily said that they might give or withhold the Chief-Justiceship, but that he would be Attorney-General no longer. Newcastle now contrived to overcome the prejudices of the King, and overtures were made to Pitt, through Lord Hardwicke. Pitt knew his power, and showed that he knew it. He demanded as an indispensable condition that Newcastle should be altogether excluded from the new arrangement. The Duke was now in a state of ludicrous distress. He ran about chattering and crying, asking advice and listen- ing to none. In tlie mean time, the Session drew near. The public excitement was unabated. Nol)ody could be found to face Pitt and Fox in the House of Commons. Newcastle's heart failed him, and he tendered his res- ignation. The King sent for Fox, and directed him to form the plan of an administration in concert with Pitt. But Piti had not forgotten old injuries, and positively refused to act with Fox. The King now ajjiilicd to the Duke of Devonshire, and this mediator succeeded in making an arrangement. He consented to take the Treasury. Pitt became Secretary of State, with the lead of the House of Commons. The Great Seal was i)ut into commission. Legge returned to the Exchequer; and Lord Temple, whose sister Pitt had lately married, was jdaccd at the head of the Admiralt3\ It was clear from the first that this administration would last but a very short time. It lasted not quite five months; and, during those five months, Pitt and Lord Temple were treate<| with rudeness by the King, and found but feeble support in the House of Commons. It is a remarkable fact, that the Oi)j)osition prevented the reelec- tion of some of the new Ministers. Pitt, who sat for one of the boroughs which were in the Pelham interest, found WILLIAM PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM 87 some difficulty in obtaining a seat after his acceptance of the seals. So destitute was the new Government of that sort of influence without which no government could then be durable. One of the arguments most frequently •urged against the Reform Bill was that, under a system of popular representation, men whose presence in the House of Commons was necessary to the conducting of public business might often find it impossible to find seats. Should this inconvenience ever be felt, there cannot be the slightest difficulty in devising and applying a remedy. But those who threatened us with this evil ought to have reiueml)ered that, under the old system, a great man called to power at a great crisis by the voice of the whole nation was in danger of being excluded, by an aristo- cratical cabal, from that House of which he was the most distinguished ornament. The most important evetit of this short administration was the trial of Byng. On that subject public opinion is still divided. We think the punishment of the Admiral altogether unjust and absurd. Treachery, cowardice, ig- norance amounting to what lawyers have called cfossa ignorantia, are fit objects of severe penal inflictions. But Byng was not found guilty of treachery, of cowardice, or of gross ignorance of bis ])rofes.sion. He dic^l for doing what the most loyal subject, the most intrepid warrior, tlie most experienced seaman, might have done. He died for an errf)r in judgrncnt. an error such as the greatest commanders, Frederick, Napoleon, Wellington, have often committx'd, and have often acknowledged. Such errors are not y)roper olg'ects of iinnisliineiit, for this reason, tliat the punishing of such errors tends not to ])revent tliein, but to prrtdnce them. Tbc dread of an ignominious death may stinnilate sluggisliiiess to exertion, may keej) a traitor to his standard, may jireveiit a coward from running away, but it lias no tendency to bring out tliose qualities wbich enable men to form jiromjit and judicious decisions in great emergencies. The best marksman may be ex- pected to fail when the apple wbieb is to be his mark is set on his child's bead. We cannot conceive anything more likely to deprive an offii-er of his self-possession at the time when be nu>st needs it than tlie knowledge that, if the judgment of liis H>ii)eriors shouM nf)t agree 88 HISTORICAL ESSAYS Avith his, he will be executed with every circumstance of shiuiie. Queens, it has often been said, run far greater risk in childbed than private women, merely because their medical attendants are more anxious. The surgeon who attendt'd ^larie Louise was altofjether unners'cd by his emotion. "Compose yourself," said Bonaparte; "imagine that you are assisting a poor girl in the Faubourg St. Antoine." This was surely a far wiser course than that of the Eastern king in the Arabian Nights' Entertain- ments, who proclaimed that the physicians who failed to cure his daughter should have their heads ('hopped oif. Bonaparte knew mankind well ; and, as he acted toward this surgeon, he acted toward his officers. No sovereign was ever so indulgent to mere errors of judgment; and it is certain that no sovereign ever had in his service so many military men fit for the highest commands. Pitt actcil a l)rave and honest part on this occasion. He ventured to put both his power and his popularity to haz- ard, and spoke manfully for Byng, both in Parliament and in the royal presence. But the King was inexor- able. "The House of Commons, Sir," said Pitt, "seems inclined to mercy." "Sir," answered the King, "you have taught me to look for the sense of my peo[)le in other places than the House of Commons." The saying has wore point than most of those which are recorded of George the Second, and, though sarcastically meant, con- tains a high and just compliment to Pitt. The King disliked Pitt, but absolutely hated Temple. The new Secretary of State, his Majesty said, had never read Vattel,* and was tedious and pompous, but respectful. The First Lord of the Admiralty was grossly imy)ertinent. Walpole tells one story, which, we fear, is much too good to be true. He assures us that Temple entertained his royal master with an claV)orate parallel between Byng's Ixihavior at ^linorca, and his Majesty's behavior at Oude- narde, in which the advantage was all on the side of the Admiral. This state of things could not \aA. Early in April, Pitt and all his friends were turned out, and Newcastle was • Emerlch de Vattel was a Swiss diplomat and publicist of the 18th century, whose "Law of .N'ations" was regarded in Europe as high authority. WILLIAM PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM 89 summoned to St. James's. But the public discontent was not extinguished. It had subsided when Pitt was called to power. But it still glowed under the embers ; and it now burst at once into a llame. The stocks fell. The Common Council met. The freedom of the city was voted to Pitt. All the greatest corporate towns followed the example. "For some weeks," says Walpole, "it rained golrl boxes." This was the turning point of Pitt's life. It might have been expected that a man of so haughty and vehe- ment a nature, treated so ungraciously by the Court, and supported so enthusiastically by the people, would have eagerly taken the first op])ortuiiity of showing his power and'gratifying his resentment; and an opportunity was not wanting. The members for many counties and large towns had been instriu-tccl to vote for an inquiry into the circumstances which had proilueed the miscarriage of the preceding year. A motion for inquiry had been car- ried in the House of Commons, without opposition; and, a few days after Pitt's dismissal, the investigation com- menced, Newcastle and his colleagues obtained a vote of acquittal; but the niiuority were so strong that they could not venture to ask for a vote of approbation, as they had at first intended; and it was thought by some shrewd observers that, if Pitt had exerted himself to the Utmost of his power, the inciuiry might have ended in a censure, if not in an impeachment. Pitt showed on this occasion a moderation and self- govenmieiit which was not hal)itual to him. He had found by experience, that he could not stand alone. His eloquence and his po|)ularity had done much, very much for him. Wit bout rank, witliout fortune, without borough interest, hated by tlie King, hated by the aristocracy, ho was a person of tbe first imiiortance in tlie state. Ho had been sulFered to form a ministry, and to pn»no»nico sentence of exclusion on all his rivals, on the most pow- erful nobleman of the Whig party, on the ablest debater in till" House of Conunons. And he now found that ho had gone ton far. The Knglish Constitution was not, in- deed, without a juipular elr-inent. I'nt other elements generally predominateij. The conHficnce and admiration of the natif>n might make a statesman formidalile at the 90 HISTORICAL ESSAYS head of an Opposition, niipht load him with framed and ghized parchments and gold boxes, might possibly undei* very peculiar circumstances, such as those of the preced- ing year, raise him for a time to power. But, constituted as Parliament then was, the favorite of the people could not depend on a majority in the people's own House. The Duke of Newcastle, however contemptible in morals, manners, and understanding, was a dangerous enemy. His rank, his wealth, his unrivaled parliamentary inter- est, would alone have made him important. But this was not all. The Whig aristocracy regarded him as their leader. His long possession of power had given him a kind of prescriptive right to possess it still. The House of Commons had been elected when he was at the head of affairs. The members for the ministerial boroughs had all been nominated by him. Tlie public offices swarmed with his creatures. "" Pitt desired power, and he desired it, we really believe, from high and generous motives. He was, in the strict sense of the word, a patriot. He had none of that philan- thropy which the great French writers of his time preached to all the nations of Europe. He loved England as an Athenian loved the City of the Violet Crown, as a Roman loved the City of the Seven Hills. He saw his country insulted and defeated. He saw the national spirit sink- ing. Yet he knew what the resources of the empire, vig- orously emjdoyed, could effect; and he felt that he was the man to employ them vigorously. "My Lord," he said to the Duke of Devonshire, "I am sure that I can save this country, ajul that nobody else can." Desiring, then, to be in power, and feeling that his abilities and the public confidence were not alone suffi- cient to keep him in power against the wishes of the Court and of the aristocracy, he began to think of a coalition with Newcastle. Newcastle was equally disposed to a reconciliation. He, too, had profited by his recent experience. He had found that the Court and the aristocracy, though powerful, were not everything in the state. A strong oligarchical con- nection, a great borough interest, ample patronage, and secret-service-money, might, in quiet times, be all that a Minister needed ; but it was unsafe to trust wholly to such WILLIAM PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM 91 support in time of war, of discontent, and of agitation. The composition of the House of Commons was not wholly aristocratical ; and, whatever be the composition of large deliberative assemblies, their spirit is always in some de- gree popular. Where there are free debates, eloquence must have admirers, and reason must make converts. Where there is a free press, the governors must live in constant awe of the opinions of the governed. >- Thus these two men, so unlike in character, so lately mortal enemies, were necessarj' to each other. Newcastle had fallen in November, for want of that public confidence which Pitt possessed, and of that parliamentary support wnich Pitt was bettor qualified than any man of his time to give. Pitt had fallen in April, for want of that species of influence which Newcastle had passed his whole life in acquiring and hoarding. Neither of them had power enough to support himself. Each of them had power enough to overturn the other. Their union would be ir- resistible. Neither the King nor any party in the state would be able to stand against them. Under these circumstances, Pitt was not disposed to proceed to extremities against his predecessors in office. Something, however, was due to consistency; and some- thing was necessary for the preservation of his popularity. He did little; but that litth^ he did in such a manner as to produce great effect. lie came down to the Houhc in all the pomp of gout, his legs swathed in flannels, his arm dangling in a sling. He kept his seat through sev- eral fatiguing days, in spite of pain and languor. He ut- tered a few sharp and vehement sentences; but, during the greater part of the discussion, his language was uvuU usually gentle. Wlien the inquir>' had termitiated without a vote either of approbation or of censure, the great obstacle to a coali- tion was removed. Many o!)stacles, however, remained. The King was still rejoicing in his deliverance from the proud and aspiring ^Minister who had been forced on him by the cry of the nation. His ^fajesty's indignation was excited to the highest point when it ai)f)eiire(l that New- castle, who had. during thirty years, l)een loaded with marks of roynl favor, and who had bonnd himself, by a solemn promise, never to coales<-e witli Pitt, was meditat- 92 HISTORICAL ESSAYS inpT a now perfidy. Of all tho statesmen of that age, Fox had the larjiest share of royal favor. A coalition between Fox and Newcastle was the arraiiirenitMit which the Kiiij? wished to bring about. But the Duke was too cunning: to fall into such a snare. As a speaker in Parliament, Fox mifjht perhaps he, on the whole, as useful to an ad- ministration as his {Treat rival; hut he was one of the most uni)<)i)ular men in Enjrland. Then, again, Newcastle felt all that jealousy of Fox which, according to the proverb, generally exists between two of a trade. Fox would cer- tainly intermeddle with that department which the Duke was most desirous to reserve entire to himself, the jobbing department. Pitt, on the other hand, was quite willing to leave the drudgery of corruption to any who might be inclined to undertake it. During eleven weeks England remained without a min- istry; and in the mean time Parliament was sitting, and a war was raging. The prejudices of the King, the haughtiness of Pitt, the jealousy, levity, and treachery of Newcastle, delayed the settlement. Pitt knew the Duke too well to trust him without security. The Duke loved power too much to he inclined to give security. While they were haggling, the King was in vain attempting to produce a final rupture between them, or, to form a Gov- ernment without them. At one time he applied to Lord Waldcgrave, an honest and sensible man, but unpracticed in affairs. Lord Waldcgrave had the courage to accept the Treasur\', but soon found that no administration formed by him had the smallest chance of standing a single week. At length the King's pertinacity yielded to the necessity of the case. After exclaiming with great bitterness, and with some justice, against the Whigs, who ought, he said, to be ashamed to talk about lilx'rty while they sul)mitted to be the footmen of the Didic of Newcastle, his llaje«ty submitted. The influence of Leicester House prevailed on Pitt to abate a little, and but a little, of his high demands; and all at once, out of the chaos in which parties had for some time been rising, falling, meeting, separating, arose a government as strong at home as that of Pelham, as successful abroad as that of Godolphin. WILLIAM PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM 93 Newcastle took the Trcivsury. Pitt was Secretary of State, with the lead in the House of Commons, and with the supreme direction of the war and of foreign affairs. Fox, the only man who could have given much annoyance to the new government, was silenced with the office of Paymaster, which, during the continuance of that war, was probably the most lucrative place in the whole Gov- ernment. He was poor, and the situation was tempting; yet it cannot but seem extraordinary that a man who had played a first part in politics, and whose abilities had been found not unequal to that part, who had sat in the Cabinet, who had led the House of Commons, who had been twice intrusted by the King, with the office of form- ing a ministry, who was regarded as the rival of Pitt, and who at one time seemed likely to be a successful rival, should have consented, for the sake of emolument, to take a subordinate place, and to give silent votes for all the measures of a government to the deliberations of which he was not summoned. The first jneasures of the new administration were char- acterized rather by vigor than hy judgment. Expeditions were sent against different parts of the French coast with little success. The small island of Aix was taken, lloche- fort threatened, a few ships burned in the harbor of St. Malocs, and a few guns and mortars brought home as tr(Ji)hics from the fortitiratinns of (;herbuurg. ]>ut soon conquests of a very different kind filled the kingdom with pride and rejoicing. A succession of victories undoubt- edly l)rilliant, and. as it was tliougbt. not barren, raised to the highest point the f.nnc (if tlic minister to whom the condnct of tlie war hail lieen intrusted. In .ruly, 1758, Lo'iisliurg fell. 'I'lie whole isliuid of dxpo Breton war. reduced. The fleet to wbieli the Court of Versailles liad confined the (lefen^e of French Anierica was destroyed. The cjiptnred standards were borne in triumph from Ken- sington Palace to tlu' city, and were 8usj)eniled in St. Paul's Church, amidst the rf)ar of giins and kettle-drums, and the shouts of an inunense multitude. Addresses of congrattdation came in from all the great towtis of En- gland. Pirliiimeiit met fudy to decree thanks and monu- ments, and to bestow, without on«' unirmur, sujiplies more 94 HISTORICAL ESSAYS than double of those wliieh had been given during tho war of the CJrand Alliance. The year 1759 opened with the conquest of Goree. Next fell nuadaloupe; then Ticoiulerofjra ; then Niagara. The Toulon squadron was completely defeated by Boscawen off Cape Lagos. But the greatest exploit of the year was the achievement of Wolfe on the heights of Abraham. The news of his glorious death and of the fall of Quebec reached London in the very week in which the Houses met. All was joy and triumph. Envy and faction were forced to join in the general applause. Whigs and Tories vied with each other in extolling the genius and energy of Pitt. His colleagues were never talked of or thought of. The House of Commons, the nation, the colonies, our allies, our enemies, had their eyes fixed on him alone. Scarcely had Parliament voted a monument to Wolfe when another great event called for fresh rejoicings. The Brest fleet, under the command of C'onflans, had put out to sea. It was overtaken by an English squadron under Hawke. Conflans attempted to take shelter close under the French coast. The shore was rocky; the night was black: the wind was furious: the waves of the Bay of Biscay ran high. But Pitt had infused into every branch of the service a spirit which had long been unknown. No British seaman was dispr.sed to err on the same side with Byng. The pilot told Hawke that the attack could not be made without tho greatest danger. "You have done your duty in remonstrating," answered Hawke; "I will answer for everything. I command you to lay me alongside tho French admiral." Two French ships of the line struck. Four were destroyed. The rest hid them- eelves in the rivers of Brittany. The year 1760 came; and still triumph followed tri- umph. Montreal was taken ; the whole province of Canada was subjugated; the French fleets underwent a succession of disasters in the seas of Europe and Anierica. In the mean time conquests equaling in rapidity, and far surpassing in magnitude, those of Cortez and Pizarro, had Vjeen achieved in the East. In the space of three years the English had founded a mighty empire. The French had been defeated in every part of India. \YILLIAM PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM 95 Chandernagore had surrendered to Clive, Pondicherry to Coote. Throughout Bengal, Bahar, Orissa, and the Car- natic, the authority of the East India Company was more absolute than that of Akbar or Aurungzebe * had ever been. On the continent of Europe the odds were against England. We had but one important ally, the King of Prussia; and he was attacked, not only by France, but also by Russia and Austria. Yet even on the Continent the energy of Pitt triumphed over all dTflSculties. Vehe- mently as he had condemned the practice of subsidizing foreign princes, he now carried that practise farther than Carteret would have ventured to do. The active and able Sovereign of Prussia received such pecuniary assistance ^s- enabled him to maintain the conflict on equal terms against his powerful enemies. On no subject had Pitt ever spoken with so much eloquence and ardor as on the mischiefs of the Hanoverian connection. He now de- clared, not without much show of reason, that it would be unworthy of the English people to suffer their King to be deprived of his electoral dominions in an English quarrel. He assured his countrymen that they should be no losers, and that he would conquer America for them in Germany. By taking this line he conciliated the King, and lost no part of his influence with the nation. In Parliament, such was the ascendency which his eloquence, his success, his high situation, his pride, and his intrepidity had ob- tained for him, that he took liberties with the House of which there had been no example, and wliich have never since been imitated. No orator could there venture to reproach him with inconsistency. One unfortunate man made the attemf)t, and was sn nnich disconcerted by th<' scornful demeanor of tlic Minister that he stammcretl, fltoppefl, and sat down. Even the old Tory country gen- tlemen, to whom the very name of Hanover had been odious, gave their hearty ayes to suljsidy after subsidy. In a lively contemi)orary satire, much more lively indeed than delicate, this renuirkable conversion is not unhappily described. • Akbar and AurunKZobn wore two fnmouH Indian ••mpororB. Thf^ formiT waH famouH for fcHkIouh toliTunn- and Hound rcfoririH in admlnlHtratlon. Thut he bad not the smallest influence with the Secretary of tlie Treiisury, and coiild not venture to ask even for a tidewaiters i)lace. It may be doubted whether he did not owe as much of his popularity to his ostentatious ]iurity as to his elo- quence, or to his talents for tlie a first country in the world; that his name was meniionod with awe in every pahice from Lishon to Moscow; that his trophies were all in the four quarters of tlie plohe; yet that he was still plain William Pitt, without title or ribbon, without pension or sinecure place. Whenever he should retire, after saving the state, he must sell his coach horses and his silver candlesticks. Widely as the taint of corruption had spread, his hands were clean. They had never received, they had never given, the price of infamy. Thus the coalition gathered to itself support from all the high and all the low parts of human nature, and was strong with the whole united strength of virtue and of Mammon. Pitt and Newcastle were coordinate chief ministers. The subordinate places had been filled on the principle of including in the government every party and shade of party, the avowed Jacobites alone excepted, nay, every public man who, from his abilities or from his situation, seemed likely to be either useful in office or formidable in opposition. 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 coimection, of which Newcastle was the head, belonged the houses of Cavendish, Lennox, Fitzroy, Bentinck, Manners, Conway, Wentworth, and many others of high note. There were two other powerful Whig connections, either of which might have been a nucleus for a strong opposi- tion. Put room had been found in the government for both. They were known as the Orenvilles and the Bed- fords. The head of the Crcnvilles was Pichard Earl Temple. His talents for administration and debate were of no high order. But his great possessions, his turbulent and un- scrupulous character, his restless activity, and his skill in the most ignoble tactics of faction, made him one of the THE EARL OF CHATHAM 107 most formidable enemies that a ministry could have. He was keeper of the privy seal. His brother George was treasurer of the navy. They were supposed to be on terms of close friendship with Pitt, who had married their sis- ter, and was the most uxorious of husbands. The Bedfords, or, as they were called by their enemies, the Bloomsbury gang, professed to be led by John, Duke of Bedford, but in truth led him wherever they chose, and very often led him where he never would have gone of his own accord. He had many good qualities of head and heart, and would have been certainly a respectable, and possibly a distinguished man, if he had been less under the influence of his friends, or more fortunate in choosing them. Some of them were indeed, to do them justice, men of parts. But here, we are afraid, eulogy must end. Sandwich and Kigby were able debaters, pleasant boon companions, dexterous intriguers, masters of all the arts of jobbing and electioneering, and, both in public and private life, shamelessly immoral. Weymouth had a nat- ural eloquence, which sometimes astonished those who knew how little he owed to study. But he was indolent and dissolute, and had early impaired a fine estate with the dicebox, and a tine constitution with ,the bottle. The wealth and power of the Duke, and the talents and au- dacity of some of his retainers, might have seriously an- noyed the strongest ministry. But his assistance had been secured. He was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; Kigby was his secretary'; and the wliole party dutifully sujiported the measures of the (Government. Two men had, a short time before, been thought likely to contest with Pitt the lead of the House of Commons, William Murray and Henry Fox. But Murray had been removed to the Lords, and was Chief Justice of the King's Bench. Vox was indeed still in the Commons: but means had been found to secure, if not his strenuous support, at least his silent acquieseence. He was a poor man ; hv was a doting fatlier. The office of Pnymaster-Ceneral during an expensive war was, in that age, perhaps the most lucrative situation in the gift of the government. This offier- wjis bestowed on Fox. The prospect of making a noble fortune in a few years, and of providing amply for his darling boy Charles, was irresistibly tempting. To 108 HISTORICAL ESSAYS hold a subordinate place, however profitable, after having led the House of Commons, and having been intrusted with the business of foruiiiifj a ministry, was indeed a great descent. But a punctilious sense of personal dignity was no part of the character of Henry Fox. We have no time to enumerate all the other men of weight who were, by some tie or other, attached to the government. We may mention Hardwicke, reputed the first lawyer of the age; Legge, reputed the first financier of the age; the acute and ready Oswald; the bold and humorous Nugent; Charles Townshend, the most brilliant and versatile of mankind; Elliot, Barrington, North, Pratt. Indeed, as far as we recollect, there were in the whole House of Commons only two men of distinguished abilities who were not connected with the government; and those two men stood so low in public estimation, that the only service which they could have rendered to any government would have been to oppose it. We speak of Lord George Sackville and Bubb Dodington. Though most of the ofiicial men, and all the members of the cabinet, were reputed Whigs, the Tories were by no means excluded from employment. Pitt had gratified many of them with commands in the militia, which in- creased both their income and their importance in their own counties; and they were therefore in better humor than at any time since the death of Anne. Some of the party still continued to grumble over their punch at the Cocoa-Treo;* but in the House of Commons not a single one of the malcontents durst lift his eyes above the buckle of Pitt's shoe. Thus there was absolutely no opposition. Nay, there was no sign from which it could be guessed in what quar- ter opposition was likely to arise. Several years passed during which Parlijunent seemed to have abdicated its chief functions. The Journals of the House of Commons, during four sessions, contain no trace of a division on a party question. The supplies, though beyond precedent great, were voted without discussion. Thi- most animated debates of that period were on road bills and inclosure bills. • The rocoa-Tree was a London club at 64 James Street, started during the reign of Anne, which became the headquarters of the Jacobite party. I THE EARL OF CHATHAM 109 The old King was content ; and it mattered little whether he were content or not. It would have been impossible for him to emancipate himself from a ministry so power- ful, even if he had been inclined to do so. 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. Such was the posture of affairs when, on the twenty-fifth of October, 1760, George the Second suddenly died, and George the Third, then twenty-two years old, became Iving. The situation of George the Third differed widely from that of his grandfather and that of his great-grandfather. Many years had elapsed since a sovereign of England had been an object of affection to any part of his people. The first two Kings of the House of Hanover had neither those hereditary rights which have often supplied the defect of merit, nor those personal qualities which have often supplied the defect of title. A prince may be popular with little virtue or capacity, if he reigns by birthright derived from a long line of illustrious predecessors. An usurper mav be popular, if his genius has saved or ag- grandized the nation which he governs. Perhaps no rul- ers have in our time had a stronger hold on the affection of subjects than the Emperor Francis, and his son-in-law the Emperor Napoleon. But imagine a ruler with no better title than Xapolcon, and no better understanding than Francis. Richard CroMiwcll was such a ruler; and. as soon as an arm was lifted up against him, he fell with- out a struggle, amidst universal derision. George the First and George tlu' Second were in a situation wliich bore some resemblance to that of Richard Cromwell. They were saved from the fate of Richard (^romwell by the strenuous and al)le exertions of the Wliig party, and by the general conviction that the nation had no choice but between the House of Brunswick and I'opery. But l)y no class were the Gu<"li»lis regarded with that devoted affection, of which Charles the P'irst, Charles the Second, and James the Second, in spite of the greatest faults, and in the midst of the greatest misfortunes, received in- 110 HISTORICAL ESSAYS « lunnerable proofs. Those Wliigs who stood by the new dynasty so nianfully with purse and sword did so on prin- ciples independent of, and indeed ahnost incompatihlo with, the sentiment of devoted royalty. The moderate Tories regarded the foreign dynasty as a great evil, which mnst be endnred for fear of a greater evil. In the eyes of the high' Tories, the Elector was the most hateful of robbers and tyrants. The crown of another was on his head ; the blood of the brave and loyal was on his hands Thus, during many years, the Kings of England were objects of strong personal aversion to many of their sub- jects, and of strong personal attachment to none. They found, indeed, firm and cordial support against the pre- tender to their throne; but this support was given, not at all for their sake, but for the sake of a religious and political system which would have been endangered by their fall. This support, too, the.v were compelled to pur- chase by perpetuall.v sacrificing their private inclinations to the party which had set them on the throne, and which maintained them there. At the close of the reign of George the Second, the feel- ing of aversion with which the House of Brunswick had long been regarded by half the nation had died away; but no feeling of affection to that house had yet sprung up. There was little, indeed, in the old King's character to inspire esteem or tenderness. He was not our country- man. He never set foot on our soil till he was more than thirty years old. His speech betrayed his foreign origin and breeding. His love for his native land, though the most amiable part of his character, was not likely to en- dear him to his British subjects. He was never so happ.y as when he could exchange St. James's for Hernhausen. Year after year, our fleets were employed to convoy him to the Continent, and the interests of his kingdom were as nothing to him when compared with the interests of his Electorate. As to the rest, he had neither the qualities which make dulness respectable, nor the qualities which make libertinism attractive. He had been a bad son and a worse father, an unfaithful husband and an ungraceful lover. Not one magnanimous or humane action is re- corded of him ; but man.y instances of meanness and of a harshness which, but for the strong constitutional re- THE EARL OF CHATHAM 111 straints under which he was phiced, might have made the misery of his people. He died ; and at once a new world opened. The young King was a born Englishman. All his tastes and habits, good or bad, were English. ISTo portion of his subjects had anything to reproach him with. Even the remaining adherents of the House of Stuart could scarcely impute to him the guilt of usurpation. He was not responsible for the Revolution, for the Act of Settlement, for the sup- pression of the risings of 1715 and of 1745. He was in- nocent of the blood of Derwentwatcr and Kilmarnock, of Balmorino and Cameron. Born fifty years after the old-line had been expelled, fourth in descent and third in succession of the Hanoverian dynasty, he might plead some show of hereditary right. His age, his appearance, and all that was known of his character, conciliated public favor. He was in the bloom of youth; his person and ad- dress were pleasing. Scandal imputed to him no vice; and flattery might, without any glaring absurdity, ascribe to him many princely virtues. It is not strange, tbcrcfore, that the sentiment of loyalty, a sentiment which had lately seemed to be as much out of date as the belief in witches or the practise of pilgrim- age, should, from the day of his accession, have begun to revive. The Tories in particular, who had always been inclined to King-worsliip, and who had long felt with pain the want of an idol before whom tliey could bow them- selves down, were as joyful as the priests of Apis,* when, after a long interval, they found a new calf to adore. It was .soon dear that Ceorge the Tliird was regarded by a liortion of the nation with a very dilTerent feeling from tbat which his two jiredeeessors had inspired. Tliey had been merely first .Magistrates, Doges, Stadtlmlders ; be was cinpbatically a King, the anointed of heaven, liu' breath of liis people's nostrils. Tlie years of the widowliood and mourning of tbe Tory i)arty were over. Dido had kej)! faith long enough to the cold ashes of a former lord ; she had at last found a comforter, and reeogni/ed Ibe vestiges of the old flame. The golden days of liarley would return. The Somersets, the Lees, and the Wyndhaifts would again • Apis wan an Idol In Ih.- form of a bull, the aacred emblem of Osiris. wor«hlp|>ubted honor. But his understatirling was narrow, and his manners cold and baugbly. 1 1 is (juali- fications for the part of a statesman were Itest described by Frederic. wIk) often indulged in the unprineely luxury of sneering at his dependents. "I»ute,'' said his Iloyal Highness, "you are the very man to be envoy nt some small proud fJerman court where there is nothing to do." ♦ sir fharlOB OrandlBon Ih the iianio of a novel by HIchardBon, pubUshfd In 1753. 114 HISTORICAL ESSAYS Scandal represented the Groom of the Stole as the fa- vored lover of the Princess Dowager. He was undoubtedly her confidential friend. The influence which the two united exercised over the mind of the King was for a time unbounded. The Princess, a woman and a foreigner, was not likely to be a judicious adviser about affairs of state. The Earl could scarcely be said to have served even a novitiate in politics. His notions of government had been acquired in the society which had been in the habit of assembling round Frederic; at Kew and Leicester House. That society consisted principally of Tories, who had been reconciled to the House of Hanover by the civil- ity with which the Prince had treated them, and by the hope of obtaining high preferment when he should come to the throne. Their political creed was a peculiar modi- fication of Toryism. It was the creed neither of the Tories of the seventeenth nor of the Tories of the nine- teenth century ; it was the creed, not of Filmer and Sacheverell, not of Perceval and Eldon, but of the sect of which Bolingbroke may be considered as the chief doctor. This sect deserves commendation for having pointed out and justly reprobated some great abuses which sprang up during the long domination of the Whigs. But it is far easier to point out and reprobate abuses than to propose beneficial reforms: and the reforms which Bolingbroke proposed would either have been utterly inefficient, or would have produced much more mischief than they would have removed. The Revolution had saved the nation from one class of evils, but had at the same time — such is the imperfection of all things hunuxn — engendered or aggravated another class of evils which required new remedies. Liberty and property were secure from the attacks of prerogative. Conscience was respected. No government ventured to in- fringe any of the rights solemnly recognized by the instru- ment which had calU'd William and Mary to the throne. But it cannot be denied that, under the new system, the public interests and the public morals were seriously en- dangered by corruption and faction. During the long struggle against the Stuarts, the chief object of the most enlightened statesmen had been to strengthen the House of Commons. The struggle was over; the victory wa* THE EARL OF CHATHAM 115 ■won; the House of Commons was supreme in the state; and all the vices which had till then been latent in the representative system were rapidly developed by prosperity and power. Scarcely had the executive government be- come really responsible to the House of Commons, when it began to appear that the House of Commons was not really responsible to the nation. Many of the constituent bodies were under the absolute control of individuals; many were notoriously at the command of the highest bidder. The debates were not published. It was very sel- dom known out of doors how a gentleman had voted. Thus, while the ministry was accountable to the Parlia- rtieht, the majority of the Parliament was accountable to nobody. Under such circumstances, nothing could be more natural than that the members should insist on being paid for their votes, should form themselves into combina- tions for the purpose of raising the price of their votes, and should at critical conjunctures extort large wages by threatening a strike. Thus the Whig ministers of George the First and George the Second were compelled to reduce corruption to a system, and to practice it on a gigantic scale. If we are right as to the cause of these abuses, we can scarcely be wrong as to the remedy. The remedy was surely not to deprive the House of Commons of its weight in the state. Such a course would undoubtedly have put an end to parliamentary corruption and to parliamentary factions: for, when votes cease to be of importance, they will cease to be bought; and, when knaves can get nothing l)y coml)ining, they will cease to combine. Put to destroy corruption and faction by introducing despotism would have been to cure bad I)y worse. The proper remedy evi- dently was, to make the House of Commons responsible to the nation; and this was to be effected in two ways; first, by giving piil)]ifity to parliamentary proceedings, and thus placing every member f>n bis trial before tbe tribunal of public opinion; and secondly, by so refortniiig tbe consti- tution of the House tliat no man should be able to sit in it wbo had not been returned Ity a resjiectable and indepen- dent body of constituents. Poliiifrliroke and T^oliiifrbroke's diseiples recommended a very different mode of treating the diseases of tlie state. 116 HISTORICAL ESSAYS Their doctrine was, that a vijiorous use of the prerogative by a patriot King would at once break all factious combi- nations, and supersede the pretended necessity of bribing members of Parliam(Mit. The King had only to resolve that he would be master, that he would not be held in thraldom by any set of men, that he would take for min- isters any persons in whom he had confidence, without distinction of party, and that he would restrain his ser- vants from influencing by immoral means, either the con- stituent bodies or the representative body. This childish scheme proved that those who proposed it knew nothing of the nature of the evil with which they pretended to deal. The real cause of the prevalence of corruption and faction was that a House of Commons, not accountable to the people, was more powerful than the King. Bolingbroke's remedy could be applied only by a King more powerful than the House of Commons. How was the patriot Prince to govern in defiance of the body without whose consent he could not equip a sloop, keep a battalion under arms, send an embassy, or defray even the charges of his own househoUH Was he to dissolve the Parliament? And what was he likely to gain by appealing to Sudbury and Old Sarum against the venality of their representatives? Was he to send out privy seals? Was he to levy ship- money? If so, this boasted reform must commence in all probability by civil war, and, if consummated, must V)e consunnnated by the establishment of absolute monarchy. Or was the patriot King to carry the House of Commons with him in his upright designs? By what means? Inter- dicting himself from the use of corrui)t influence, what motive was he to address to the Dodringtons and Wilming- tons? Was cupidity, strengthened by habit, to be laid asleep by a few fine sentences about virtue and union? Absurd as this theory was, it had many admirers, partic- ularly among men of letters. It was now to be reduced to practice; and the result was, as any man of sagacity must have foreseen, the most piteous and ridiculous of failures. On the very day of the young King's accession, ap- peared some signs which indicated the approach of a great change. The speech which he nuide to his council was not submitted to the cabinet. It was drawn up by Bute, and contained some expressions which might be construed THE EARL OF CHATHAM 117 into reflections on the conduct of affairs during the late reign. Pitt remonstrated and begged that these ejcpres- sions might be softened down in the printed copy; but it was not till after some hours of altercation that Bute yielded; and, even after Bute had yielded, the King affected to hold out till the following afternoon. On the same day on which the singular contest took place, Bute was not only sworn of the pri^^y council, but introduced into the Cabinet. Soon after this Lord Holdernesse, one of the Secretaries of State, in pursuance of a plan concerted with the court, resigned the seals. Bute was instantly appointed to the vacant place. A general election speedily followed, and the new Secretary entered parliament in the only way in which he then could enter it, as one of the sixteen repre- sentative peers of Scotland.* Had the ministers been firmly united it can scarcely be doubted that they would have been able to withstand the court. The parliamentary influence of the Whig aristocracy, combined with the genius, the virtue, and the fame of Pitt, would have been irresistible. But there had been in the caliinet of George the Second latent jealousies and enmities, which now l)egan to show themselves. Pitt had been estranged from his old ally Legge, the Chancel- lor of the E.\che(iuer. Some of the ministers were envious of Pitt's popularity. Others were, not altogether without cause, disgusted by his imperious and haughty demeanor. Others, again, were hojiestjy opposed to some parts of his policy. They admitted that lie had found the country in the depths of humiliation, and had raised it to the height of glory; they admitted that he had conducted the war with energy, al)ility, and splendid success. lint they began to hint that the drain on the resources of the state was imexampled, and that the public debt was increasing with a spci'd at wliidi Montague or (Jodolpliin wrmld have stood aghast. Some of the acquisitions made by our fleets and armies were, it was aeknowledged, profitable as well as honorable; but, now that (Jeorge the Second was dead, a courtier might venture to ask why England was to become • In tho rflKn of Antif. the IlnuHc of Kordn lind roBolvMl that, under the 2.''.fl iirflclf- of I'nion, no Scotch pfcr codid bf crcntcd a peer of fJreat Ilrltaln. Thia rosolutlon wuh not uunullcd tUl the year 1782. (Author.) 11sia? Why were the best English regiments figlitiiig on tlie Main? Why were the Prussian battalions paid with English gold? The great minister seemed to think it beneath him to calculate the price of victory. As long as the Tower guns were fired, as the streets were illuminated, as French banners were carried in triumph through London, it was to him matter of indifference to what extent the iniblic burdens were augmented. Nay, he seemed to glory in the magnitude of those sacrifices which the people, fascinated by his eloquence and success, had too readily made, and would long and bitterly regret. There was no check on waste or embezzlement. Our commissaries returned from the camp of Prince Ferdinand to buy boroughs, to rear palaces, to rival the magnificence of the old aristocracy of the realm. Already had we borrowed, in four years of war, more than the most skilful and economical government would pay in forty years of peace. But the prospect of peace was as remote as ever. It could not be doubted that France, smarting and prostrate, would consent to fair terms of accommodation ; but this was not what Pitt wanted. War had made him powerfid and popidar; with war, all that was brightest in his life was associated: for war his talents were peculiarly fitted. He had at length begun to love war for its own sake, and was more disposed to quarrel with neutrals than to make peace with enemies. Such were the views of the Duke of Bedford and of the Earl of Hardwicke; but no member of the government held these opinions so strongly as George Grenville, the treasurer of the navy. George Grenville was brother-in- law of Pitt, and had always been reckoned one of Pitt's personal and political friends. But it is difficult to con- ceive two men of talents and integrity more iittely unlike each other. Pitt, as his sister often said, knew nothing accurately except Spenser's Faerie Queen. He had never applied himself steadily to any branch of knowledge. He was a wretched financier. He never became familiar even with the rules of that House of which he was the brightest ornament. He had never studied public law as a system;. THE EARL OF CHATHAM 119 and was, indeed, so ignorant of the whole subject, that George the Second, on one occasion, comphiined bitterly that a man who had never read Vattel should presume to undertake the direction of foreign affairs. But these defects were more than redeemed by high and rare gifts, by a strange power of inspiring great masses of men with confidence and affection, by an eloquence which not only delighted the ear, but stirred the blood, and brought tears into the eyes, by originality in devising plans, by vigor in executing them. Grenvillo. on the other hand, was by nature and habit a man of details. He had been bred a lawj'er; and he had brought the industry and acuteness o£, the Temple into official and parliamentary life. He was supposed to be intimately acquainted with the whole fiscal system of the country. He had paid especial atten- tion to the law of Parliament, and was so learned in all things relating to the privileges and orders of the House of Commons that those who loved him least pronounced hi in the only person conii)otent to succeed Onslow in the Chair. His speeches were generally instructive, and sometimes, from the gravity and earnestness with which he spoke, even impressive, Init never brilliant, and gen- erally tedious. Indeed, even when ho was at the head of affairs, he sometimes found it ilifficult to obtain the ear of the House. In disposition as well as in intellect, he differed widely from his l)rother-in-law. Pitt was utterly regardless of money. He would scarcely stretch out his liMTid to take it; and, when it came, he threw it away with childish profusion. (Jrenville, though strictly up- right, was grasping and i)arsimonious. Pitt was a man of excitable nerves, sanguine in hope, easily elated by suc- cess and popularity, keenly sensil)le of injury, but prompt to forgive; f Jrenvillc's character was stern, inchinclioly, and pertinacious. Nothing was more remarkable in him than his inclination always to look on the dark side of things. He was tlie raven of the House of C%)ininons, always croaking defeat in the midst of triiinii)lis, nnd bankruptcy witli an overfbiwing exchequer. Purkc, with general applause, cdnipured him, in a time of quiet and i)lenty, to the evil si)irit whom Ovid described looking down on the stately tetiq)l(-i ;ind wc.dthy haven of Athens. and scarce able to refrain from weeping because she 120 HISTORICAL ESSAYS could find nothing: at which to weep. Such a man was not likely to be popular. But to unpopularity Grenville opposed a dogged determination, which sometimes forced even those who hated him to respect him. It was natural that Pitt and Grenville, being such as they were, should take very different views of the situa- tion of affairs. Pitt could see nothing but the trophies; Grenvillo could see nothing but the bill. Pitt boasted that England was victorious at once in America, in India, and in Germany, the umpire of the Continent, the mis- tress of the sea. Grenville cast up the subsidies, sighed over the army extraordinarics, and groaned in spirit to think that the nation had borrowed eight millions in one year. With a ministry thus divided it was not difficult for Bute to deal. Legge was the first who fell. He had given offense to the young King in the late reign, by refusing to support a creature of Bute at a Hampshire election. He was now not only turned out, but in the closet, when he delivered up his seal of office, was treated with gross incivility. Pitt, who did not love Legge, saw this event with in- difference. But the danger was now fast approaching himself. Charles the Third of Spain had early conceived a deadly hatred of England. Twenty years before, when he was King of the Two Sicilies, he had been eager to join the coalition against Maria Theresa. But an Eng- lish fleet had suddenly appeared in the Bay of Naples. An English captain had landed, had proceeded to the palace, had laid a watch on the table, and had told his majesty that, within an ho\ir, a treaty of neutrality must be signed, or a bombardment would commence. The treaty was signed; the squadron sailed out of the bay twenty-four hours after it had sailed in; and from that day tiie ruling passion of the humbled Prince was aversion to the English name. He was at length in a situation in which he might hope to gratify that passion. He had recently become King of Sjjain and the Indies. He saw, with envy and apprehension, the triumphs of our navy, and the rapid extension of (uir colonial Empire. He was a Bourbon, and sympathized with tbe distress of the house from which he sprang. He was a Spaniard; and THE EAKL OF CHATHAM 121 no Spaniard could bear to see Gibraltar and Minorca in the possession of a foreign power. Impelled by such feel- ings, Charles concluded a secret treaty with France. By this treaty, known as the Family Compact, the two powers bound themselves, not in express words, but by the clearest implication, to make war on England in common. Spain postponed the declaration of hostilities only till her fleet, laden with the treasures of America, should have arrived. The existence of the treaty could not be kept a secret from Pitt. He acted as a man of his capacity and energy might be expected to act. He at once proposed to declare war against Spain, and to intercept the American fleet. He jiad determined, it is said, to attack without delay both Havana and the Philippines. His wise and resolute counsel was rejected. Bute was foremost in opposing it, and was supported by almost the whole cabinet. Some of the ministers doubted, or affected to doubt, the correctness of Pitt's intelligence; some shrank from tbe responsibility of advising a course so bold and decided as that which he proposed ; some were ■weary of his ascendency, and were glad to be rid of him on any pretext. One only of his colleagues agreed with him, his brotber-in-law, Earl Temple. Pitt and Temple resigned their offices. To Pitt the young King behaved at parting in the most gracious man- ner. Pitt, who, proud and fiery everywhere else, was always meek and bumble in the closet, was moved even to tears. The King and the favorite urged him to accept some substantial mark of royal gratitude. Would he like to be appointed governor of Canada? A salary of Ave thousand pounds a year should be annexed to tbe office. Residence would not be required. It was true that the governor of Canada, as the law then stood, could not be a memljor of the Hf)use of Commons, lint a bill should be brought in, autlujriziiig Pitt to hold his government together with a seat in Parliament, and in the preamble should be set forth his claims to the gratitude of his country'. Pitt answered, with all delieacy, that his anxieties were rather for his wife and family than for himself, find that nothing woulr] be so aeecptaiile to him as a mark r>f royal goodness whii'h might be beneficial to those who were dearest to him. The hint was taken. The 122 HISTORICAL ESSAYS same Gazette which aiiiiounced the retirement of the Sec- retary of State announced also that, in consideration of his great public services, his wife had been created a peeress in her own right, and that a pension of three thousand pounds a year, for three lives, had been be- stowed on himself. It was doubtless thought that the rewards and honors conferred on the great minister would have a conciliatory eifect on the public mind. Perhaps, too, it was thought that his popularity, which had partly arisen from the contempt which he had always shown for money, would be damaged by a pension ; and, indeed, a crowd of libels instantly apjicared, in which he was accused of having sold his country. Many of his true friends thought that he would have best consulted the dignity of his character by refusing to accept any pe- cuniary reward from the court. Nevertheless, the general opinion of his talents, virtues, and services remained unaltered. Addresses were presented to him from several large towns. London showed its admiration and affection in a still more marked manner. Soon after his resigna- tion came the Lord Mayor's day. The King and the royal family dined at Guildhall. Pitt was one of the guests. The young sovereign, seated by his bride in his state coach, received a remarkable lesson. He was scarcely noticed. All eyes were fixed on the fallen minister; all acclamations directed to him. The streets, the balconies, the chimney tops, burst into a roar of delight as his chariot passed by. The ladies waved handkerchiefs from the windows. The conniiou people clung to the wheels,, shook hands with the footmen, and even kissed the horses. Cries of "No Bute!" "Xo Newcastle salmon!" were mingled with the shouts of "Pitt forever!" When Pitt entered Guildhall, he was welcomed by loud huzzas and clapping of hands, in which the very magistrates of the city joined. Lord Bute, in the mean time, was hooted and pelted through Cheapside, and would, it was thought, have been in some danger, if he had not taken the precau- tion of surrounding his carriage with a strong body guard of boxers. Many persons blame the conduct of Pitt on this occasion as disrespectful to the King. Indeed, Pitt himself afterward owned that he had done wrong. He was led into this error, as he was afterward led into more THE EARL OF CHATHAM 123 serious errors, by the influence of his turbulent and mis- chievous brother-in-law, Temjile. The events which immediately followed Pitt's retire- ment raised his fame higher than ever. War with Spain proved to be, as he had predicted, inevitable. News came from the West Indies that Martinique had been taken by an expedition which he had sent forth. Havana fell; and it was known that he had planned an attack on Havana. Manila capitulated ; and it was believed that he had meditated a blow against Manila. The American fleet, which he had projiosed to intercept, had unloaded an immense cargo of bullion in the haven of Cadiz, before B'ute could be convinced that the court of Madrid really entertained hostile intentions. The session of Parliament which followed Pitt's retire- ment passed over without any violent storm. Lord Bute took on himself the most prominent part in the House of Lords. He had become Secretary of State, and indeed prime minister, without having once opened his lips in public except as an actor. There was, therefore, no small curiosity to know how he would acquit himself. Mem- bers of the House of Commons crowded the bar of the Lords, and covered the steps of the throne. It was gen- erally expected that the orator would break down ; but his most malicious hearers were forced to own that he had made a better figure than they expected. They, in- deed, ridiculed his action as theatrical, and his style as tumid. They were especially amused by the long pauses which, nf)t from hesitation, but from afFeetatioii, he made at all the emphatic words, and Charh'S Towusheiid cried out, "Minute guns!" The general opinion however was, that, if liiite had been early practised in debate, he might liave become an impressive speaker. In the Commons, CJcorge (Jreiiville had been intrusted with th(' lead. The task was not, as yet, a very diflicult one: for Pitt did not think fit to raise the standard of Opposition. His speeches at this time were distinguished, not only l)y that elf)(|uence in which he excelled all his rivals, but also by a temperance and a modesty which had too often been wanting to his character. When war was declared against Spain, he justly laid claim to the merit of having foreseen what had at length become inani- 124 HISTORICAL ESSAYS fest to all, but he carefully abstained from arrogant and acrimonious expressions; and this abstinence was the more honorable to him, because his temper, never very placid, was now severely tried, both by gout and by calumny. The courtiers had adopted a mode of warfare, which was soon turned with far more formidable effect against themselves. Half the inhabitants of the Grub Street garrets paid their milk scores and got their shirts out of pawn, by abusing Pitt. His German war, his subsidies, his pension, his wife's peerage, were shin of beef and gin, blankets and baskets of small coal, to the starving poetasters of the Fleet. Even in the House of Commons, he was, on one occasion during this session, assailed with an insolence and malice which called forth the indignation of men of all parties; but he endured the outrage with majestic patience. In his younger days he had been but too prompt to retaliate on those who at- tacked him ; but now, conscious of his great services, and of the space which he filled in the eyes of all mankind, he would not stoop to personal squabbles. "This is no season," he said, in the debate on the Spanish war, "for altercation and recrimination. A day has arrived when every Englishman should stand forth for his country. Arm the whole; be one people; forget everything but the public. I set you the example. Harassed by slanderers, sinking under pain and disease, for the public I forget both my wrongs and my infirmities!" On a general re- view of his life, we are inclined to think that his genius and virtue never shone with so pure an effulgence as during the session of 17^2. The session drew towards the close; and Bute, em- boldened by the acquiescence of the Houses, resolved to strike another great blow, and to become first minister in name as well as in reality. That coalition, which a few months before had seemed all powerful, had been dissolved. The retreat of Pitt had deprived the govern- ment of popularity. Newcastle had exulted in the fall of the illustrious colleague whom he envied and dreaded, and had not foreseen that his own doom was at hand. He still tried to flatter himself that he was at the head of the government; but insults heaped on insults at length undeceive^l him. Places which had always been consid- THE EAKL OF CHATHAM 125 ered as in his gift, were bestowed without any reference to him. His expostulations only called forth significant hints that it was time for him to retire. One day ho pressed on Bute the claini.s of a Whig Prelate to the Archbishopric of York. ''If your grace thinks so highly of him," answered Bute, "I wonder that you did not promote him when you had the power." Still the old man clung with a desperate grasp to the wreck. Seldom, in- deed, have Christian meekness and Christian humility equalled the meekness and humility of his patient and abject ambition. At length ho was forced to understand that ajl was over. He quitt(>d that court where he had held high office during forty-five years, and hid his shame and regret among the cedars of Claremont. Bute became first lord of the treasury. i The favorite had undoubtedly committed a great error. It is impossible to imagine a tool better suited to his purposes than that which he thus threw away, or rather put into the hands of his enemies. If Newcastle had been suffered to play at being first minister, Bute might se- curely and quietly have enjoyed the substance of power. The gradual introduction of Tories into all the depart- ments of the government might have been effected with- out any violent clamor, if the chief of the great Whig connection had been ostensibly at the head of affairs. This was strongly represented to Bute by Lord Mansfield, a man who may justly be called tlie father of modern Toryism, of Toryism modified to suit an order of things under whifh the House of Commons is the most powerful body in tlie state. The theories wliich had dazzled ]5uto could not impose on the fine intellect of Mansfield. The temerity with which Bute i)rovnkcd the hostility of pow- erful aiHJ (l('ei)ly rooted intercHts, was displeasing to Mansfield's cold and timid nature. E.xpostulation, how- ever, was vain. Bute was impatient of advice, drunk with success, eager to be, in show as well as in reality, the head of the government. He had engaged in an undertaking in which a screen was absolutely necc'ssary to his success, and even to his safety. He found an excellent screen ready in the very place where it was most needed ; and he rudely pushed it away. And now the new system of government came into fnll 126 HISTOKICAL ESSAYS operation. For the first time since the accession of the House of Hanover, the Tory party was in the ascendant. The prime minister himself was a Tory. Lord Egremont, who had succeeded Pitt as Secretary of State, was a Tory, and the son of a Tory. Sir Francis Daahwood, a man of slender parts, of small experience, and of notoriously immoral character, was made Chancellor of the Ex- chequer, for no reason that could be imagined, except that. he was a Tory, and had been a Jacobite. The royal household was filled with men whose favorite toast, a few years before, had been the King over the water. The relative position of the two great national seats of. learn- ing was suddenly changed. Tlie university of Oxford had long been the chief seat of disaffection. In troubled times, the High Street had been lined with bayonets; the colleges had been searched by the King's messengers. Grave doctors were in the habit of talking very Ciceronian treason in the theater; and the undergraduates drank bumpers to Jacobite toasts, and chanted Jacobite airs. Of four successive Chancellors of the University, one had notoriously been in the Pretender's service; the other three were fully believed to be in secret correspondence with the exiled family. Cambridge had therefore been especially favored by the Hanoverian Princes, and had shown herself grateful for their patronage. George the First had enriched her library; George the Second had contributed munificently to her Senate House. Bishoprics and deaneries were showered on her children. Her Chan- cellor was Newcastle, the chief of the Whig aristocracy; her High Steward was Hardwicke, the Whig head of the law. Both her burgesses had held office under the Whig ministry. Times had now changed. The University of Canil^ridge was received at St. James's with comparative coldness. The answers to the addresses of Oxford were all graciousness and warmth. The watchwords of the new government were preroga- tive and purity. The sovereign was no longer to be a puppet in the hands of any subject, or of any combination of subjects. George the Third would not be forced to take ministers whom he disliked, as his grandfather had been forced to take Pitt. George the Third would not be forced to part with any whom he delighted to honor, as THE EARL OF CHATHAM 127 his grandfather had been forced to part with Carteret. At the same time, the system of bribery which had grown up during the kite reigns was to cease. It was ostenta- tiously proclaimed that, since the accession of the young King, neither constituents nor representatives had been bought with the secret ser\-ice money. To free Britain from corruption and oligarchical cabals, to detach her from continental connections, to bring the bloody and expensive war with France and Spain to a close, such were the specious objects which Bute professed to pro- cure. Some of these objects he attained. England withdrew, at^the cost of a deep stain on her faith, from her German connections. The war with France and Spain was termi- nated by a peace, honorable indeed and advantageous to our country, yet less honorable and less advantageous than might have been expected from a long and almost unbroken series of victories, by land and sea, in every part of the world. But the only effect of Bute's domestic administration was to make faction wilder, and corrup- tion fouler than ever. The mutual animosity of the Whig and Tory iiartics had begun to languish after the fall of Walpole, and had seemed to be almost extinct at the close of the reign of George the Second. It now revived in all its force. Many Whigs, it is true, were still in office. The Duke of Bedford had signed tbc treaty with France. The Duke of Devonshire, though iriuch out of humor, still continued to be Lord Chamberlain. Grenville, who led the House of Commons, and Fox, who still enjoyed in silence the immense gains of the Pay Office, had always been regarded as strong Whigs. But the bulk of the party througliout the country regarded the new minister with abhorreru-e. There was, indeed, no want of popular themes for invective against his character. He was a favorite; and favorites have always been odious in this countrj'. No mere favorite had been at the head of the government since the dagger of Felfon had reached the, heart of the Duke of Buckiiighaiu. After that event the most arbitrary and the most frivolous of the Stuarts had felt the necessity of confiding the cliief direction f)f affairs to men who had given some proof of parliamentary official 128 HISTORICAL ESSAYS talent. Strafford, Falkland, Clarendon, Clifford, Shaftes- bury, Lauderdale, Danby, Temple, Halifax, Rochester, Sunderland, wliatevor their faults mifrht be, were all men of afl^nowledj^ad ability. They did not owe their eminence merely to the favor of the sovereign. On the contrary, they owe great war minister, the liopes of I'^ox began to revive. His feuds with th(; Princess Mother, with the Scots, with the Tories, ho was ready to forget, if by the help of his old erieuiies he could now regain the importance which lie had lost, and cinilront Pitt on e()ual terms. The alliance was, therefore, soon concluded. Fox was assured that, if he would pilot the goveriuneut out of its embarrassing situation, he should be rewarded with a peerage, of which he had long been desirous. He under- tcjok on his side to obtain, by fair or foul means, a vote in favor of the peace. In conse<|uence of this arrange- ment he became leader of the House of Commons; and (Jrcnville, stifling his vexation as well as he could, sul- lenly acquiesced in the change. Fox had expected that his influence would secure to 134 HISTORICAL ESSAYS the court the cordial support of some eminent Whigs who were his personal frioiuls, particularly of the Duke of Cumberland and of tlie Duke of Devonshire. He was disappointed, and soon found that, in addition to all his other difficulties, he must reckon on the opposition of the ablest prince of the blood, and of the great house of Cavendish. But he had pledged himself to win the battle; and he was not a man to go back. It was no time for squeamish- ness. Bute was made to comprehend that the ministry could be saved only by practising the tactics of Walpole to an extent at which Walpole himself would have stared. The Pay Office was turned into a mart for votes. Hun- dreds of members were closeted there with Fox, and, as there is too much reason to believQ, departed carrying with them the wages of infancy. It was affirmed by per- sons who had the best opportunities of obtaining infor- mation, that twenty-five thousand pounds were thus paid away in a single morning. The lowest bribe given, it was said, was a bank-note for two hundred pounds. Intimidation was joined with corruption. All ranks, from tlie highest to the lowest, were to be taught that the King would be obeyed. The Lords Lieutenants of several counties were dismissed. The Duke of Devon- shire was especially singled out as the victim by whose fate the magnates of England were to take warning. His wealth, rank, and influence, his stainless private character, and the constant attachment of liis family to the House of Hanover, did not secure him from gross personal in- dignity. It was known that he disapproved of the course wliich- the government had taken; and it was accordingly determined to humble the Prince of the Whigs, as he had been nicknamed by the Princess Mother, He went to the palace to pay his duty. ''Tell him," said the King to a page, "that I will not see him." The page hesitated. "Go to him," said the King, "and tell him those very words." The message was delivered. The Duke tore off his gold key, and went away boiling with anger. His relations who were in office instantly resigned. A few days later, the King called for the list of Privy Council- lors, and with his own hand struck out the Duke's name. In this step there was at least courage, though little THE EAEL OF CHATHAM 135 wisdom or good nature. But, as nothing was too high for the revenge of the court, so also was nothing too low. A persecution, such as had never been known before and has never been known since, raged in every public depart- ment. Great numbers of humble and laborious clerks were deprived of their bread, not because they had neglected their duties, not because they had taken an active part against the ministry, but merely because they had owed their situations to the recommendation of some nobleman or gentleman who was against the peace. The proscription extended to tidewaiters, to gangers, to door- keepers. One poor man to whom a pension had been giyen for his gallantry in a fight with smugglers, was deprived of it because he had been befriended by the Duke of Grafton. An aged widow, who, on account of her husband's services in the navy, had, many years before, been made housekeeper to a public office, was dismissed from her situation, because it was imagined that she was distantly connected by marriage with the Cavendish family. The public clamor, as may well be supposed, grew daily louder and louder. But the louder it grew, the more resolutely did Fox go on with the work which he had begun. His old friends <'ould not conceive what had possessed him. "I could forgive," said the Duke of Cumberland, "Fox's political vagaries, but I am quite confounded by his inluimanitj'. Surely he used to be the best-natur^d of men." At last Fox went so far as tt) take a legal opinion on the (luestion, whether the patents granted by George the Second were binding on George the Third. It is said that, if his colleagues had not flinched, he would at nnee have turned out the Tellers of the Exchequer and Justices in Eyre. M«'anwhile the Parliament met. The ministers, more hated by the people tlian ever, were secure of a majority, and they had also reason to hope that they would have the advantage in the debates as well as in the divisions; for I'itt was ef)nfine(l to his chanilier liy a severe attack of gout. His friends moved to defer the consideration of the treaty till he should be able to attend; but the jnotion was rejected. The great day arrived. The dis- cussion had lasted some time, when a loud huzza was 136 HISTORICAL ESSAYS hoard in Palace Yard. Tlie noise came nearer and nearer, up the stairs, tlinnijih tlic lobby. The door opened, and from the midst of a shouting multitude came forth Pitt, borne in the arms of his attendants. His face was thin and fihastly, his limbs swathed in flannel, his crutch in his hand. The bearers set him down within the bar. His friends instantly surrounded him, and with their help he crawled to his seat near the table. In this condition he spoke three hours and a half ajxainst the peace. During? that time he was repeatedly forced to sit down and to use cordials. It may well be supposed that his voice was faint, that his action was languid, and that his speech, thoufih occasionally brilliant and impressive, was feeble when compared with his best oratorical performances. But those who remembered what he had done, and who saw what he suffered, listened to him with emotions stronger than any mere ehxpience can produce. He was imable to stay for the division, and was carried away from the House amidst shouts as loud as those which had announced his arrival. A large majority approved the peace. The exaltation of the court was l)oundless. "Now," exclaimed the Princess Mother, "my son is really King." The young sovereign spoke of himself as freed from the bondage in which his grandfather had been held. On one point, it was announced, his mind was unalterably made \ip. Under no circumstances whatever should those Whig grandees, who had enslaved his predecessors and endeav- oured to enslave himself, be restoretl to power. This vaunting was premature. The real strength of the favorite was by no means proportioned to the number of votes which he had, on one particular division, been able to command. He was soon again in difficulties. The most important part of his budget was a tax on cider. This measure was opposed, not only by those who were generally hostile to his admini.stration, but also by many of his supporters. The name of excise had always been hateful to the Tories. One of the chief crimes of Walpole, in their eyes, had been his partiality for this mode of raising money. The Tory Johnson had in his Dictionary given so scurrilous a definition to the word Excise, that the Commissioners of Excise had seriously thought of THE EARL OF CHATHAM 137 prosecuting him. The counties which the new impost particularly affected had always been Tory counties. It was the boast of John Philips, the poet of the English vintage, that the Cider-land had ever been faithful to the throne, and that all the pruning-hooks of her thousand orchards had been beaten into swords for the service of the ill fated Stuarts. The effect of Bute's fiscal scheme was to produce a union between the gentry and yeomanry of the Cider-land and the Whigs of the capital. Hereford- shire and Worcestershire were in a flame. The city of London, though not so directly interested, was, if possible, still more excited. The debates on this question irrepar- ^i>ly damaged the goveriuiient. Dashwood's financial statement had been confused and absurd beyond belief, and had been received by the House with roars of laugh- ter. He had sense enough to be conscious of his unfitness for the high situation which he held, and exclaimed in a comical fit of despair, "What shall I do? The boys will point at me in the street, and cry, 'There goes the worst Chancellor of the Exchequer that ever was.' " George drenville came to the rescue, and spoke strongly on his favorite theme, the profusion with which the late war had been carried on. That profusion, he said, had made taxes necessary. He called on the gentlemen opposite to him to say where they would have a tax laid, and dwelt on this topic with his usual [)rolixity. "Let them tell me where," he repeated in a monotonous and somewhat fret- ful tone. "I say, sir, let them tell me where. I repeat it, sir; T am entitled to say to them, Tell me where." ITnluckily for him, Pitt had come down to the House that night, and had been bitterly provoked by the reflec- tions thrown on the war. He revenged himself by murniuririg, in a wliine resembling (Irenville's ii line of a well known song, "(lentle Shepherd, tell me where." "If," cried (Irenville, "gentlemen are to be treated in this way " Pitt, as was his fashion, when he meant to mark extreme contempt, rose (h-liberately, made his bow, and walked out of IIk- House, leaving liis brother-in-law in convulsions of rage, and everybody else in convulsions of laughter. It was long before Cirenvillo lost the nick- name of the rjcntle Sliepherd. But the ministry had vexations still more serious to 138 HISTORICAL ESSAYS endure. The hatred which the Tories and Scots bore to Fox was imphu'al)k\ In a moment of extreme peril, thej' had consented to put themselves under his {guidance. But the aversion with which they rejfarded him broke forth as soon as the crisis seemed to be over. Some of them attacked him about the accounts of the Pay Office. Some of them rudely interrupted him when speaking, by laughter and ironical cheers. He was naturally de- sirous to escape from so disagreeable a situation, and demanded the peerage which had been promised as the reward of his services. It was clear that there must be some change in the composition of the ministry. Rut scarcely any, even of those who, from their situation, might be supposed to be in all the secrets of the government, anticipated what really took place. To the amazement of the Parliament and the nation, it was suddenly announced that Bute had resigned. Twenty different explanations of this strange step were suggested. Some attributed it to profound design, and some to sudden panic. Some said that the lampoons of the opposition had driven the Earl from the field; some that he had taken office only in order to bring the war to a close, and had always meant to retire when that object had been accomplished. He publicly assigned ill health as his reason for quitting business, and privately eomplained that he was not cordially seconded by his colleagues, and that Lord Mansfield, in particular, whom he had himself brought into the cabinet, gave him no support in the House of Peers. Mansfield was, indeed, far too sagacious not to perceive that Bute's situation was one of great peril, and far too timorous to thrust himself into peril for the sake of another. The prob- ability, however, is that Bute's conduct on this occasion, like the conduct of most men on most occasions, was determined by mixed motives. We suspect that he was sick of office; for this is a feeling much more common among ministers than persons who see public life from a distance are disposed to believe; and nothing could be more natural than that this feeling should take possession of the mind of Bute. In general, a statesman climbs by slow degrees. Many laborious years elapse before he THE EARL OF CHATHAM 139 reaches the topmost pinnacle of preferment. In the earlier part of his career, therefore, he is constantly lured on by seeing something above him. During his ascent he gradually becomes inured to the annoyances which belong to a life of ambition. By the time that he has attained the highest point, he has become patient of labor and callous to abuse. He is kept constant to his vocation, in spite of all its discomforts, at first by hope, and at last by habit. It was not so with Bute. His whole public life lasted little more than two years. On the day on which he became a politician he became a cabinet minister. In a few months he was, both in name and in show, chief of the administration. Greater than he had been he could not be. If what he already possessed was vanity and vexation of spirit, no delusion remained to entice him onward. He had been cloyed with the pleasures of ambition before he had been seasoned to its pains. His habits had not been such as were likely to fortify his mind against obloquy and public hatred. He had reached his forty-eighth year in dignified ease, without knowing, by personal experience, what it was to be ridiculed and slandered. All at once, without any previous initiation, he had found himself exposed to such a storm of invective and satire as had never burst on the head of any states- man. The emoluments of office were now nothing to him; for he had just succeeded to a princely property by the death of his father-in-law. All the honors which could be bcstowfnl on him ho had already secured. Ho had obtained the Garter for him.self, and a British peerage for his son. He seems also to have imagined that by quitting the treasury ho shonld escape from dniiiicr and abuse without really resigning power, and sliould still be able to exercise in private supreme influence over the royal mind. Whatever may have boon his motives, ho retiro(l. Fox at the same time took refuge in the House of Lords; and Oeorgo rironvillr- boeaino First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer. We believe that those who made this arrangement fully intondo^l that Oronvillo shonld be a mere pnj)i)ot in the hands of Bute; for Clrenvillo was as yet very injporfectly known even to those who had observed him long. He 140 HISTORICAL ESSAYS passed for a mere official drudge; and he had all the in- dustry, the minute accuracy, the formality, the tedious- ness, which bclouf? to the character. But he had other qualities whicli liad not yet shown themselves, devouring ambition, dauntless courage, self-confidence amounting to presumption, and a temper which could not endure opposition. He was not disposed to be anybody's tool; and, ho had no attachment, political or personal, to Bute. The two men had, indeed, nothing in common, except a strong proi)ensity toward harsh and unpopular courses. Their principles were fundamentally diflFerent. Bute was a Tory. Grenville would have been very angry with any person who should have denied his claim to be a Whig. He was more prone to tyrannical measures than Bute; but he loved tyranny only when disguised under the forms of constitutional liberty. He mixed up, after a fashion then not very unusual, the theories of the republicans of the seventeenth century with the technical maxims of English law, and thus succeeded in combining anarchical speculation with arbitrary practice. The voice of the people was the voice of God ; but the only legitimate organ through which the voice of the people could be uttered was the Parliament. All power was from the people; but to the Parliament the whole power of the people had l)een delegatcxl. No Oxonian divine had ever, even in the years which immediately followed the Resto- ration, demanded for the king so abject, so unreasoning a homage, as Grenville, on what he considered as the purest Whig fjrinciplos, demanded for the Parliament. As he wished to see the Parliament despotic over the nation, so he wished to see it also despotic over the court. In his view the prime minister, possessed of the confidence of the House of Commons, ought to be Mayor of the Palace. The King was a mere Childerie or Chilperic,* who might well think himself lucky in being permitted to enjoy such handsome apartments at Saint James's, and so fine a park at Windsor. Thus the opinions of l^ute and those of Grenville were * Chllderlc III, a Franklsh klnR of the 8th century, the last of the Merovingian dynasty, was a mere tool In the hands of the mayors, and was finally deposed. Chllpfric n, reigned under similar circumstances, but died while still nominally king. THE EARL OF CHATHAM 141 diametrically opposed. Nor was there any private friend- ship between the two statesmen. Grenville's nature was not forgiving ; and he well remembered how, a few months before, he had been compelled to yield the lead of the House of Commons to Fox. We are inclined to think, on the whole, that the worst administration which has governed England since the Revolution was that of George Grenville. His public acts may be classed under two heads, outrages on the liberty of the people, and outrages on the dignity of the crown. He began by making war on the press. John Wilkes, member of Parliament for Aylesbury, was singled out for persecution. Wilkes had, till very lately, been known chiefly as one of the most profane, licentious, and agree- able rakes about town. Ho was a man of taste, reading, and engaging manners. His sprightly conversation was the delight of green rooms and taverns, and pleased even grave hearers when he was sufficiently under restraint to abstain from detailing the particulars of his amours, and from breaking jests on the New Testament. His expensive debaucheries forced him to have recourse to the Jews. He was soon a ruined man, and determined to try his chance as a political adventurer. In parliament he did not succeed. His speaking, though pert, was feeble, and by no means interested his hearers so much as to make them forget his face, wliich was so hideous that the caricaturists were forced, in lluir own despite, to flatter him. As a writer, he made a better figure. He set up a weekly i)aper, calleci tlie Nortli Hriton. This journal, written with some pU\nsantry. and great audacity and im- ymdenee, had a considerable nninber of readers. Forty- ffnir nnrnliers had been publislied . when Hute resigned; and, though almost every numlur li.id contained matter grossly libelous, no jn'osecntion bad liecii instituted. The forty-fifth nunilier was innocent when compared with tbe majority of those whicb bad preceded it, anr] indeetl contained notliini; so strong as may in our time lie found daily in the Icjiding articles of tbe Times and Morning Chronicle. Jjiit Grenville was now at the luad of affairs. A new spirit had been infused into tbe admitnstration. Authority was to be upheld. 'J'lie government was no 142 HISTORICAL ESSAYS longer to be braved with impunity. Wilkes was arrested under a general warrant, conveyed to the Tower, and confined there with circumstances of unusual severity. His papers were seized, and carried to the Secretary of State. These harsh and illegal measures produced a violent outbreak of popular rage, which was soon changed to delight and exultation. The arrest was pronounced unlawful by the Court of Connuon Pleas, in which Chief Justice Pratt presided, and the prisoner was discharged. This victory over tlie government was celebrated with enthusiasm both in London and in the Cider coun- ties. While the ministers were daily becoming more odious to the nation, they were doing their best to make them- selves also odious to the court. They gave the King plainly to understand that they were determined not to be Lord Bute's creatures, and exacted a promise that no secret adviser should have access to the royal ear. They soon found reason to suspect that this promise had not been observed. They remonstrated in terms less respectful than their master had been accustomed to hear, and gave him a fortnight to make his choice between his favorite and his cabinet. George the Third was great disturbed. He had but a few weeks before exulted in his deliverance from the yoke of the Great Whig connection. He had even declared that his honor would not permit him ever again to admit the members of that connection into his service. He now found that he had only exchanged one set of masters for another set still harsher and more imperious. In his dis- tress he thought on Pitt. From Pitt it was possible that better terms might l)e obtained than either from Grenville, or from the party of which Newcastle was the head. Grenville, on his return from an excursion into the country, repaired to Buckingham House. He was as- tonished to find at the entrance a chair, the shape of which was well known to him, and indeed to all London. It was distinguished by a large boot, made for the pur- pose of accommodating the great Commoner's gouty log. Greenville guessed the whole. His brother-in-law was closeted with the King. Bute, provoked by what he considered as the unfriendly and ungrateful conduct of THE EAEL OF CHATHAM 143 his successors, had himself proposed that Pitt should be summoned to the palace. Pitt had two audiences on two successive days. What passed at the first interview led him to expect that the negotiations would be brought to a satisfactory close; but on the morrow he found the King less complying. The best account, indeed the only trustworthy account of the conference, is that which was taken from Pitt's own mouth by Lord Hardwicke. It appears that Pitt strongly represented the importance of conciliating those chiefs of the Whig party who had been so unhappy as to incur the royal displeasure. They had, he said, been the most constant friends of the House of Hanover. Their power was great ; they had been long versed in public business. If they were to be under sentence of exclusion, a solid administration could not be formed. His Majesty could not bear to think of putting himself into the hands of those whom he had recently chased from his court with the strongest marks of anger. "I am sorry, Mr. Pitt," he said, "but I see this will not do. My honor is con- cerned. I must support my honor." How his Majesty succeeded in supporting his honor, we shall see. Pitt retired, and the King was reduced to request the ministers, whom he had been on the point of discarding, to remain in office. During the two years which followed, Crenville, now closely leagued with the Tiedfords, was the master of the court; aud a hard mast<'r he proved. He knew that he was kept in place only because tliere was no ehoieo except between himself and the Whigs. That, under any circumstances, the Whigs would be for- given, he thought impossible. Tbe late attempt to get rid of him had roused bis resentment; the fnilure of that attemj)t had lilcratid liiiu from all fear. He bad nev(!r been very courtly, lie now began to hold a language, to which, since tbe d;iys of Pornet Joyce and I'resjdent T>radshaw, no Knt,Mi-;li King bad been comiiclled to listen. In one matter, indeed. (Irenville. at tbe expense of justice and liberty, gratified tbe jiassions of the court while gratifying his own. Tbe persecution of Wilkes was eagerly pressed. He bad written a [larody on Pojie's Essay on ^^an, entitled the Essay on Woman, and bad 144 HISTORICAL ESSAYS appondod to it notes, in ridicule of Warburton's famous Conniii'ntary. This composition was exceedingly proflifrate, but not more so, we think, than some of Pope's own works, the imitation of the second satire of the first book of Horace, for example; and, to do Wilkes justice, he had not, like Pope, piven his ribaldry to the world. He had merely printed at a private press a very small number of copies, which he meant to present to some of his boon compan- ions, whose morals were in no more danger of being cor- rupted by a loose book than a negro of being tanned by a warm sun. A tool of the government, by giving a bribe to the printer, procured a copy of this trash, and placed it in the hands of the ministers. The ministers resolved to visit Wilkes' offense against decorum with the utmost rigor of the law. What share piety and respect for morals had in dictating this resolution, our readers may judge from the fact that no person was more eager for bringing the libertine poet to punishment than Lord March, afterward Duke of Queensbury. On the first day of the session of Parliament, the book, thus disgrace- fully obtained, was laid on the table of the Lords by the Earl of Sandwich, whom the Duke of Bedford's interest had made Secretary of State. The unfortunate author had not the slightest suspicion that his licentious poem had ever been seen, except by his printer and by a few of his dissipated companions, till it was produced in full ParliaiufMit. Though he was a man of easy temper, averse from danger, and not very susceptil)]e of shame, the sur- prise, the disgrace, the prospect of utter ruin, put him beside himself. He picked n quarrel with one of Lord Bute's dependents, fought a duel, was seriously wounded, and, when half recovered, fled to France. His enemies had now their own way both in the Parliament and in the King's Bench. He was censured, expelled frfim the House of Commons, outlawed. His works were ordered to be burned })y the common hniiginan. Yet was the nniltitude still true to him. In the minds even of many moral and religious men, his crime seemed light when compared with the crime of his acoisers. The conduct of Sandwich, in particular, excited universal disgust. His own vices were notorious; and, only a fortnight before he laid the Essay THE EARL OF CHATHAM 145 on Woman before the House of Lords, he had been drink- ing and singing loose catches with Wilkes at one of the most dissohite clubs in London. Shortly after the meet- ing of Parliament, the Beggar's Opera* was acted at Covent Garden theater. When Macheath uttered the words — "That Jemmy Twitcher should peach me I own surprised me," — pit, boxes, and galleries, burst into a roar which seemed likely to bring the roof down. From that day Sandwich was universally known by the nickname of Jemmy Twitcher. The ceremony of burning the North Briton was interrupted by a riot. The constables were beaten; the paper was rescued; and, instead of it, a jack- boot and a petticoat were committed to the flames. Wilkes had instituted an action for the seizure of his papers against the L'ndersccretary of State. The .jury gave a thousand pounds damages. But neither these nor any indications of public feeling had power to move Grenville. Ho had the Parliament with him; and, according to his political creed, the sense of the nation was to be collected from the Parliament alone. Soon, however, he found reason to fear that even the Parliament might fail him. On the question of the legality of general warrants, the Opposition, having on its side all sound principles, all constitutional authorities, and the voice of the whole nation, nnistcred in great force, and was joined by many who did not ordinarily vote against the government. On one occasion the ministry, in a very full house, had a majority of only fourteen votes. The storm, however, blew over. The spirit of the Opposition, from whatever cause, began to flag at the moment when success seemed almost certain. The session ended without any change. Pitt, whose eloqnenc(^ had shone with its usual luster in all the principal debates, and whose popularity was greater than ever, was still a private man. Grenville, detested alike by the court and by the people, was still iiiiTiister. As soon as the House harl risen, Grejiville took a step which proved, even more signally than any of his past acts, how despotie. how aerinumious, and how fearless his nature was. Among the gentlemen not ordinarily opposed • Tho Beggar's Opera Is a comic opera l>y John Gay, originally produced at Lincoln's Inn Fields, January 29, 1728. 146 HISTORICAL ESSAYS to the government, who, on the great constitutional ques- tion of general warrants, had voted with the minority, was Henry Conway, brotlier of the Earl of Hertford, a brave sohlier, a tolerable speaker, and a well-meaning, though not a wise or vigorous politician. He was now deprived of his regiment, the merited reward of faithful and galhint service in two wars. It was confidently as- serted that in this violent measure the King heartily concurred. But whatever pleasure the persecution of Wilkes or the dismissal of Conway may have given to the royal mind, it is certain that his Majesty's aversion to his ministers increased day by day. Grenville was as frugal of the public money as of his own, and morosely refused to ac- cede to the King's request, that a few thousand pounds might be expended in buying some open fields to the west of the gardens of Euckinghham House. In consequence of this refusal, the fields were soon covered with buildings, and the King and Queen were overlooked in their most private walks by the upper windows of a liundred houses. Nor was this the worst. Grenville was as liberal of words as he was sparing of guineas. Instead of explaining himself in that clear, concise, and lively manner, which alone could win the attention of a young mind new to business, he spoke in the closet just as he spoke in the House of Commons. When he had harangued two hours, he looked at his watch, as he had been in the habit of looking at the clock opposite the Speaker's chair, apolo- gized for the length of his discourse, and then went on for an hour more. The members of the House of Com- mons can c()\igh an orator down, or can walk away to dinner; and they were by no means sparing in the use of these privileges when Grenville was on his legs. But the poor young King had to endure all this eloquence with mournful civility. To the end of his life he continued to talk with horror of Grenville's orations. About tliis time took place one of the most singular events in Pitt's life. There was a certain Sir William Pynsent, a Somersetshire baronet of Whig politics, who had been a member of the House of Commons in the days of Queen Anne, and had retired to rural privacy when the Tory party, towards the end of her reign, obtained THE EARL OF CHATHAM 147 the ascendency in her councils. His manners were ec- centric. His morals lay under very odious imputations. But his fidelity to his political opinions was unalterable. During fifty years of seclusion he continued to brood over the circumstances which had driven him from public life, the dismissal of the Whigs, the peace of Utrecht, the desertion of our allies. He now thought that he perceived a close analogy between the well-remembered events of his youth and the events which he had witnessed in ex- treme old age; between the disgrace of Marlborough and the disgrace of Pitt; between the elevation of Harley and the elevation of Bute; between the treaty negotiated by Stf John and the treaty negotiated by Bedford ; between the wrongs of the House of Austria in 1712 and the wrongs of the House of Brandenburg in 1762. This fancy took such possession of the old man's mind that he determined to leave his whole property to Pitt. In this way Pitt unexpectedly came into possession of near three thousand pounds a year. Xor could all the malice of his enemies find any ground for reproach in the trans- action. Nobody could call him a legacy hunter. Nobody could accuse him of seizing that to which others had a better claim. For he had never in his life seen Sir William; and Sir William had left no relation so near as to bo entitled to form any expectations respecting the estate. The fortunes of Pitt seemed to flourish ; but his health was worse than ever. We cannot find tliat, during the session whidi began in .January, 17G5, he once appeared in parliament. He remained some months in profound retirement at Hayes, his favorite villa, scarcely moving except from his armchair to his bed, and from his bed to his armchair, and often employing his wife as his amanuensis in his most confidential correspondence. Some of his dftraftors whisjxTcd that his invisil)ility was to bo ascrii)c(l (jiiite as much to alTcctation as to gout. Jn trtith Ins charar-ter, high and si)len(li(l as it was, wanted 8im|)liritj'. With genius which did not need the aid of stage tri<-ks, and with a spirit which should have been far above them, he had yet been, through life, in the habit of practising tlu-ni. It was, therefore, now surmised that, having acfjuired all the consi(lerati(»n which couhl be dc- 148 HISTORICAL ESSAYS rived from eloquence and from great services to the state, he had determined not to make himself cheap by often appearing in public, but, under the pretext of ill health, to surround himself with mystery, to emerge only at long intervals and on momentous occasions, and at other times to deliver his oracles only to a few favored votaries, who were suffered to make pilgrimages to his shrine. If such were his object, it was for a time fully attained. Never was the magic of his name so powerful, never was he regarded by his country with such supersti- tious veneration, as during this year of silence and se- clusion. While Pitt was thus absent from Parliament, Grenville proposed a measure destined to produce a great revolu- tion, the effects of which will long be felt by the whole human race. We speak of the act for imposing stamp duties on the North American colonies. The plan was eminently characteristic of its author. Every feature of the parent was found in the child. A timid statesman would have shrunk from a step of which Walpole, at a time when the colonies were far less powerful, had said — "He who shall propose it, will be a much bolder man than I." But the nature of Grenville was insensible to fear. A statesman of large views would have felt that to lay taxes at Westminster on New England and New York, was a course opposed, not indeed to the letter of the Statute Book, or to any decision contained in the Term Reports, but to the principles of good government, and to the spirit of the constitution. A statesman of large views would also have felt that ten times the estimated produce of the American stamps would have been dearly purchased by even a transient (luarrel between the mother country and the colonies. But Grenville knew of no spirit of the constitution distinct from the letter of the law, and of no national interests except those which are expressed by pounds, shillings, and pence. That his policy might give birth to deep discontents in all the provinces, from the shore of the Great Lakes to the Mexican sea; that France and Spain might seize the opportunity of revenge; that the Empire might be dismeml)ered; that the deltt, that debt with the amount of which he per- petually reproached Pitt, might in consequence of his THE EARL OF CHATHAM 149 own policy, be doubled; these were possibilities which never occurred to that small, sharp mind. The Stamp Act will be remembered as long as the globe lasts. But, at the time, it attracted much less notice in this country than another Act which is now almost utterly forgotten. The King fell ill, and was thought to be in a dangerous state. His complaint, we believe, was the same which, at a later period, repeatedly incapacitated him for the performance of his regal functions. The heir appar- ent was only two years old. It was clearly proper to make provision for the administration of the government, in case of a minority. The discussions on this point brought the quarrel between the court and the ministry to a crisis. The King wished to be intrusted with the power of naming a regent by will. The ministers feared, or affected to fear, that, if this power were conceded to him, he would name the Princess Mother, nay, possibly the Earl of Bute. They, therefore, insisted on introducing into the bill words confining the King's choice to the royal family. Having thus excluded Bute, they urged the King to let them, in the most marked manner, exclude the Princess Dowager also. They assured him that the House of Commons would undoubtedly strike hor name out, and by this throat they wrung from him a reluctant assent. In a few days, it appeared that the representa- tions by which thoy had induced the King to put this gross and public affront on his mother were unfounded. The friends of the Princess in the House of Commons moved that her name should be inserted. The ministers could not decently attack the parent of their master. They hoped that the Opposition would come to their help, and put on thr-m a force to which they would gladly have yielded. But the majority of the Opposition, though hating the Princess, hated Grenville more, IxOield his embarrassment with delight, and would do nothing to extricate him from it. The Princess's name was accord- ingly placed in the list of persons qualified to hold the regency. The King's resentment was now at its height. The present evil seemed to him more intolerable than any other. Even the jiinta of Whig grnndces could not treat him worse than he hsul Itcen treated by his present miu- 150 HISTORICAL ESSAYS isters. In his distress he poured out his whole heart to his uncle, the Duke of Cumberland. The Duke was not a man to be loved; but he was eminently a man to be trusted. He had an intrepid temper, a strong: understand- ing, and a high sense of honor and duty. As a general, he belonged to a remarkable class of captains, captains, we mean, whose fate it has been to lose almost all the battles which they have fought, and yet to be reputed stout and skilful soldiers. Such captains were Coligny and William the Third. We might, perhaps, add Marshal Soult to the list. The bravery of the Duke of Cumber- land was such as distinguished him even among the princes of his brave house. The indifference with which he rode about amidst musket balls and cannon balls was not the highest proof of his fortitude. Hopeless maladies, horrilile surgical operations, far from unmanning him, did not even discompose him. With courage, he had the virtues which are akin to courage. He spoke the truth, was open in enmity and friendship, and upright in all his dealings. But his nature was hard; and what seemed to him justice was rarely tempered with mercy. He was, therefore, during many years one of the most unpopular men in England. The severity with which he had treated the rebels after the battle of Culloden, had gained for him the name of the Butcher. His attempts to introduce into the army of England, then in a most disorderly state, the rigorous discipline of Potsdam, had excited still stronger disgust. Nothing was too bad to be believed of him. Many honest people were so absurd as to fancy that, if he were left Regent during the minority of his nephews, there would be another smothering in the Tower. These feelings, however, had passed away. The Duke had been living, during some years, in retirement. The English, full of animosity against the Scots, now blamed his Royal Highness only for having left so many Camerons and Macphersons to be made gangers and custom-house officers. He was, therefore, at present, a favorite with his country- men, and especially the inhabitants of London. He had little reason to love the King, and had shown clearly, though not obtrusively, his dislike of the system which had lately been pursued. But he had high and almost romantic notions of the duty which, as a prince of THE EARL OF CHATHAM 151 the blood, he owed to the head of his house. He deter- mined to extricate his nephew from bondage, and to eli'eot a reconciliation between the Whig party and the throne, on term? honorable to both. In this mind he set off for Hayes, and was admitted to Pitt's sick room ; for Pitt would not leave his chamber, and would not communicate with any messenger of in- ferior dignity. And now began a long series of errors on the part of the illustrious statesman, errors which in- volved his country in difficulties and distresses more se- rious even than those from which his genius had formerly rescued her. His language was haughty, unreasonable, almost unintelligible. The only thing which could be discerned through a cloud of vague and not very gracious phrases, was that he would not at that moment take office. The truth, we believe, was this. Lord Temple, who was Pitt's evil genius, had just formed a new scheme of politics. Hatred of Bute and of the Princess had, it should seem, taken entire possession of Temple's soul. He had quarreled with his brother George, because George had been connected with Bute and the Princess. Now that George appeared to l)e the enemy of Bute and of the Princess, Temple was eager to bring about a general family reconciliation. The three brothers, as Temple, Grenville, and Pitt, were popularly called, might make a ministry, without leaning for aid either on Bute or on thn Whig connection. With such views. Temple used all his influence to dissuade Pitt from acceding to the propo- sitions of the Duke of Cumberland. Pitt was not con- vinced. But Temple had an influence over him such as no other person had ever possessed. They were very old friends, very near relations. If Pitt's talents and fame had been useful to Temple, Temple's purse had formerly, in times of great need, been useful to Pitt. They had never been parted in politics. Twice they had come into the cabinet, together; twic-e they bad left it together. Pitt could not l)ear to think of taking office without his chief ally. Yet he felt tbi.t he was doing wrong, that he was throwing away a great opportunity of serving his country. The obscure and unconciliatory style of tbr at the Turk's Head as the only match in conversa- tion for Dr. Johnson. He now became private secretary to Lord Rockingham, and was brought into Parliament by his patron's influence. These arrangements, indeed, were not made without some difficulty. The Duke of Xewcastle, who was always meddling and chattering, adjured the first lord of the treasury to be on his guard against this adventurer, whose real name was O'Bourke, and whom his grace knew to be a wild Irishman, a Jacoliite, a Papist, a concealed Jesuit. Lord Rockingham treated the calumny as it deserved ; and the Whig party was strengthened and adorned by the accession of Edmund Burke. The party, indeed, stood in need of accessions; for it sustained about this time an almost irreparable loss. The Duke of Cumberland had formed the government, and was its main support. His exalted rank and great name in some degree ])alanced the fame of Pitt. As mediator between the Whigs and the Court, he held a place which no other person could fill. The strength of his character supplied that which was the chief defect of the new ministry. Conway, in particular, who, with THE EARL OF CHATHAM 157 excellent intentions and respectable talents, was the most dependent and irresolute of human beings, drew from the counsels of that masculine mind a determination not his own. Before the meeting of Parliament the Duke suddenly died. His death was generally regarded as the signal of great troubles, and on this account, as well as from respect for his personal qualities, was greatly lamented. It was remarked that the moairn- ing in London was the most general ever known, and was both deeper and longer than the Gazette had pre- scribed. In the mean time, every mail from America brought alarming tidings. The crop which Grenville had sown his successors had now to reap. The colonies were in a state bordering on rebellion. The stamps were burned. The revenue officers were tarred and feathered. All traffic between the discontented provinces and the mother country was interrupted. The Exchange of London was in dismay. Half the firms of Bristol and Liverpool were threatened with bankruptcy. In Leeds, Manchester, Not- tingham, it was said that three artisans out of every ten had been turned adrift. Civil war seemed to be at hand ; and it could not be doubted that, if once the British nation were divided against itself, France and Spain would soon take part in the quarrel. Three courses wore open to the ministers. The first was to enforce the Stamp Act by the sword. This was the course on which the King, and Grenville, whom the King hated beyond all living men, were alike bent. The natures of both were arbitrary and .stui)l)()rn. They re- sembled each other so much that they could never be frienfls; but they resemlilcd each other also so much that they saw almost all important practical questions in the same point of view. Neither of them would l)ear to be governed l»y the other; liut they were perfectly agreed as to th(! best way of governing the people. Another course was that which Pitt recomiriended. He held that the British Parliament was not constitution- ally compjctent to pass a law for taxing ibc; colonies. He therefore considered the Staiiii) Act as a nullity, as a document of no more valiflify tlian Cliarles's writ of ship-money, or Jaiucs's proclamation dispensing with the 158 HISTORICAL ESSAYS penal laws. This doctrine seems to us, we must own, to be altogether untenable. Between these extreme courses lay a third way. The opinion of the most judicious and temperate statesman of those times was that the British constitution had set no limit whatever to the legislative power of the British King, Lords, and Commons, over the whole British Em- pire. Parliament, they held, was legally competent to tax America, as Parliament was legally competent to commit any other act of folly or wickedness, to confiscate the property of all the merchants in Lombard Street, or to attaint any man in the kingdom of high treason, with- out examining witnesses against him, or hearing him in his own defense. The most atrocious act of confiscation or of attainder is just as valid an act as the Toleration Act or the Habeas Corpus Act. But from acts of confisca- tion and acts of attainder lawgivers are bound, by every obligation of morality, systematically to refrain. In the same manner oiight the British legislature to refrain from taxing the American colonies. The Stamp Act was indcfcnsil)lc, not because it was beyond the constitutional competence of Parliament, but because it was unjust and impolitic, sterile of revenue, and fertile of discontents. These sound doctrines were adopted by Lord Rockingham and his colleagues, and were, during a long course of years, inculcated by Burke, in orations, some of which will last as long as the English language. The winter came, the Parliament met; and the state of the colonics instantly became the subject of fierce con- tention. Pitt, whose health had been somewhat restored by the waters of Bath, reappeared in the House of Com- mons, and. with ardent and pathetic eloquence, not only condemned the Stamp Act, but applauded the resistance of Massachusetts and Virginia, and vehemently main- tained, in defiance, we must say, of all reason and of all authority, that, according to the British constitution, the supreme legislative power does not include the power to tax. The language of Oronville, on the other hand, was such as Strafford might have used at the council table of Charles the First, when news came of the resist- ance to the liturgy at Ediiil)urgh. The colonists were traitors; those who excused them were little better. Frig- THE EARL OF CHATHAM 159 ates, mortars, bayonets, sabers, were the proper remedies for such distempers. The ministers occupied an intermediate position; they proposed to declare that the legislative authority of the British Parliament over the whole Empire was in all cases supreme; and they proposed, at the same time, to repeal the Stamp Act. To the former measure Pitt ob- jected ; but it was carried with scarcely a dissenting voice. The repeal of the Stamp Act Pitt strongly supported; but against the Government was arrayed a formidable assemblage of opponents. Grenville and the Bedfords were furious. Temple, who had now allied himself closely with his brother, and separated himself from Pitt, was no despicable enemy. This, however, was not the worst. The ministry was without its natural strength. It had a struggle, not only against its avowed enemies, but against the insidious hostility of the King, and of a set of persons who, about this time, began to be designated as the King's friends. The character of this faction has been drawn by Burke with even more than his usual force and vivacity. Those who know how strongly, through his whole life, his judg- ment was biassed by his passions, may not unnaturally suspect that he has left us rather a caricature than a likeness; and yet there is scarcely, in the whole portrait, a single touch of which the fidelity is not proved by facts of unquestionable autlienticity. The public goncrallj' regarded the King's friends as a body of which Bute was tlie directing soul. It was to no purpose that the Earl professed to have done with politics, that ho absented himself year after year from tlie levee and the drawing-room, that he went to the north, that he went to Rome. The notion that, in some inexplicable manner, he diftatcd all tlie measures of the court, was fixed in the minds, not only of the multitude, but of some who had good opf)ortunities of obtaining information, and who ought to have lieen superior to vulgar jircjiidices. Our own belief is that these suspicions were unfounded, and that he ceased to have any communication with the King on politi<-al matters some time before the dismissal of George Grenville. The supposition of Bute's inllucnco is, indeed, by no means necessary to explain the phe- IGO HISTORICAL ESSAYS noniona. The Kinp:, in 1765, was no longer the ignorant and inexperienced boy who had, in 1760, been managed by his mother and his Groom of the Stole. He had, dur- ing several years, observed the struggles of parties, and conferred daily on high questions of state with able and experienced politicians. His way of life had de- veloped his understanding and character. He was now no longer a puppet, but had very decided opinions both of men and things. Nothing could be more natural than that ho should have high notions of his own prerogatives, should be impatient of opposition, and should wish all public men to be detached from each other and dependent on himself alone; nor could anything be more natural than that, in the state in which the political world then was, he should find instruments fit for his purposes. Thus sprang into existence and into note a reptile species of politicians never before and never since known in our country. These men disclaimed all political ties, except those which bound them to the throne. They were willing to coalesce with any party, to abandon any party, to undermine any party, to assault any party, at a moment's notice. To them, all administrations and all oppositions were the same. They regarded Bute, Gren- ville, Rockingham, Pitt, without one sentiment either of predilection or of aversion. They were the King's friends. It is to be observed that this friendship implied no per- sonal intimacy. These people had never lived with their master, as Dodington at one time lived with his father, or as Sheridan afterward lived with his son. They never hunted with him in the morning, or played cards with him in the evening, never shared his mutton or walked with him among his turnips. Only one or two of them ever saw his face, except on public days. The whole band, however, always had early and accurate information as to his personal inclinations. None of these people were high in the administration. They were generally to be found in places of much emolument, little labor, and no responsibility; and these places they continued to occupy securely while the cabinet was six or seven times recon- structed. Their peculiar business was not to support the ministry against the opposition, but to support the King against the ministry. Whenever his Majesty was THE EARL OF CHATHAM 161 induced to grive a reluctant assent to the introduction of some bill which his constitutional advisers regarded as necessary, his friends in the House of Commons were sure to speak against it, to vote against it, to throw in its way every obstruction compatible with the forms of Parliament. If his Majesty found it necessary to admit into his closet a Secretary of State or a First Lord of the Treasury whom he disliked, his friends were sure to miss no opportunity of thwarting and humbling the obnoxious minister. In return for these services, the King covered them with his protection. It was to no purpose that his responsible servants complained to him that they were daily betrayed and impeded by men who were eating the bread of the government. He sometimes justified the offenders, sometimes excused them, some- times owned that they were to blame, but said that he must take time to consider whether he could part with them. He never would turn them out; and, while every- thing else in the state was constantly changing, these sycophants seemed to have a life estate in their offices. It was well known to the King's friends that, though his Majesty had consented to the repeal of the Stamp Act, he had consented with a very bad grace, and that though he had eagerly welcomed the Whigs, when, in his extreme need and at his earnest entreaty, they had under- taken to free him from an insupportable yoke, he had by no means got over his early ])r{jii(lices against his de- liverers. The ministers soon found that, while they were encountered in front by the whole force of a strong oppo- sition, their rear was assailed l)y a large body of those whom they had regarded as auxiliaries. Nevertheless, Lord Kockiiigliam and his adlicrcnts went on resolutely with th(; bill for repealing the Stamp Act. They had on tlieir side all the manufacturing and coin- mereial interests of the realm. In the (l('l)ates the gov- erimient was powerfully suitported. Two great orators and statesmen, belonging to two different generations, repeatedly j»nt ffirth all their jxiwcrs in defense of the bill. The House of Coininons heard Pitt for the last time, and Burke for the first time, and was in doubt to which of tlurn the palm f)f elorpieiiee should be assigned. It was indeed a splendid sunset ancen in full health and vigor. But the truth is that he had for some time been in an unnatural state of excitement. No suspieion of this sort had yet got abroad. His elo(|uence had never shone with more splendor than during the recent debates. But peoj)le afterward ejilled tf) niind many things which ought to have roused their ai)prehensi(»ns. His habits 166 HISTORICAL ESSAYS were gradually becoming' more and more eccentric. A horror of all loud sounds, such as is said to have been one of the many oddities of Wallenstein, grew upon him. Though the most ailectionate of fathers, he could not at this time bear to hear the voices of his own children, and laid out great sums at Hayes in buying up houses con- tiguous to his own, merely that he might have no neigh- bors to disturb him with their noise. He then sold Hayes, and took possession of a villa at Hampstead, where he again began to purchase houses to right and left. In expense, indeed, he vied, during this part of his life, with the wealthiest of the conquerors of Bengal and Tanjore. At Burton Pynscnt, he ordered a great extent of ground to be planted with cedars. Cedars enough for the purpose were not to be found in Somersetshire. They were there- fore collected in London, and sent down by land carriage. Relays of laborers were hired; and the work went on all night by torchlight. No man could be more abstemious than Pitt; yet the profusion of his kitchen was a wonder even to epicures. Several dinners were always dressing; for his appetite was capricious and fanciful; and at what- ever moment he felt inclined to eat, he expected a meal to be instantly on the table. Other circumstances might be mentioned, such as separately are of little moment, but such as, when taken together, and when viewed in con- nection with the strange events which followed, justify us in believing that his mind was already in a morbid state. Soon after the close of the session of Parliament, Lord Rockingham received his dismissal. He retired, accom- panied l)y a firm body of friends, whose consistency and uprightness enmity itself was forced to admit. None of them had asked or obtained any pension or any sinecure, either in possession or in reversion. Such disinterested- ness was then rare among politicians. Their chief, though not a man of brilliant talents, had won for himself an honorable fame, which he kept pure to the last. Ho had, in spite of difficulties which seemed almost insurmount- able, removed great abuses and averted a civil war. Six- teen years later, in a dark and terrible day, he was again called upon to save the state, brought to the very brink of ruin by the same perfidy and obstinacy which had em- THE EARL OF CHATHAM 167 barrassed, and at length overthrown, his first administra- tion. Pitt was planting in Somersetshire when he was sum- moned to court by a letter written by the royal hand. He instantly hastened to London. The irritability of his mind and body were increased by the rapidity with which he traveled; and when he reached his journey's end he was suffering from fever. Ill as he was, he saw the King at Richmond, and undertook to form an administration. Pitt was scarcely in the state in which a man should be who has to conduct delicate and arduous negotiations. In his letters to his wife, he complained that the con- ferences in which it was necessary for him to bear a part heated his blood and accelerated his pulse. From other sources of information we learn, that his language, even to those whose cooperation he wished to engage, was strangely peremptory and despotic. Some of his notes written iit tbis time have been preserved, and are in a style which Lewis the Fourteenth would have been too well bred to employ in addressing any French gentleman. In the attempt to dissolve all parties, Pitt met with some difficulties. Some Whigs, whom the court would gladly have detached from Lord Rockingham, rejected all offers. Tbe iJcdfords were perfectly willing to break with Grenville; but Pitt would not come up to their terms. Temple, whom Pitt at first meant to place at the head of the treasury, proved intractable. A cobbiess indeed had, during some months, been fast growing between the brothers-in-law, so loiitr and so closely allied in politics. Pitt was angry witb Temple for opposing tbe rejjcal of the Stamp Act. Temple was angry with Pitt for refusing to accede to tbat family league wliich was now the favorite plan at Stowe. At length tbe Earl proposed an equal partition of i)ower and patronage, and offered, on this co!idition, to give ujt bis brotber fleorge. Pitt thought tbe demand exorbitant, and jKisitively refused rompliance. A bitter (|n;irrel followed. Encli of tlic kins- men was true to bis eliaracfer. Temple's soul fest<>red with spite, and Pitt's swi-Ued into eonteinpt. Temple represented Pitt as the most odif)UH of hypocrites and traitors. Pitt held a different and jxrhaiis a more i)ro- voking ttjuc. Temple was a good sort of man enough, 168 HISTORICAL ESSAYS ■whose single title to distinction was, that he had a large garden, with a large piece of water, and a great many pavilions and summer-houses. To his fortunate connec- tion with a great orator and statesman he was indebted for an importance in the state which his own talents could never have gained for him. That importance had turned his head. He had begun to fancy that he could form administrations and govern empires. It was piteous to see a well-meaning man under such a delusion. In spite of all these difficulties, a ministry was made such as the King wished to see, a ministry in which all his Majesty's friends were comfortably accommodated, and which, with the exception of his Majesty's friends, contained no four persons who had ever in their lives been in the habit of acting together. Men who had never concurred in a single vote found themselves seated at the same board. The office of paymaster was divided between two persons who had never exchanged a word. Most of the chief posts were filled either by personal adherents of Pitt, or by members of the late ministry, who had been induced to remain in place after the dismissal of Lord Rockingham. To the former class belonged Pratt, now Lord Camden, who accepted the great seal, and Lord Shel- burne, who was made one of the Secretaries of Slate. To the latter class belonged the Duke of Grafton, who became First Lord of the Treasury, and Conway, who kept his old position both in the government and in the House of Commons. Charles Townshend, who had belonged to every party, and cared for none, was Chancellor of the Exchequer. Pitt himself was declared prime minister, hut refused to take any laborious office. He was created Earl of Chatham, and the privy seal was delivered to him. It is scarcely necessary to say, that the failure, the complete and disgraceful failure, of this arrangement, is not to be ascribed to any want of capacity in the persons whom we have named. None of them we^e deficient in abilities; and four of them, Pitt himself, Shell)urne, Camden, and Townshend, were men of high intellectual eminence. The fault was not in the materials, but in the principal on which the matorials were put together. Pitt had mixed up these conflicting elements, in the full confi- THE EARL OF CHATHAM 169 dence that he should be able to keep them all in perfect subordination to himself, and in perfect harmony with each other. We shall soon see how the experiment suc- ceeded. On the very day on which the new prime minister kissed hands, three-fourths of that popularity which he had long enjoyed without a rival, and to which he owed the greater part of his authority, departed from him. A violent outcry was raised, not against that part of his conduct which really deserved severe condemnation, but against a step in which we can see nothing to censure. His acceptance of a peerage produced a general burst of indignation. Yet surely no peerage had ever been better earnetl ; nor was there ever a statesman who more needed the repose of the Upper House. Pitt was now growing old. He was much older in constitution than in years. It was with imminent risk to his life that he had, on some impor- tant occasions, attended his duty in Parliament. During the session of 1764, he had not been able to take part in a single debate. It was impossible that he should go through the nightly labor of conducting the business of the govennnent in the ITousc of Commons. His wish to be transferred, under such circumstances, to a less busy and a less turbulent assembly, was natural and reasonable. The nation, however, overlooked all these considerations. Those who had most loved and honored the great Com- moner were loudest in invective against the new made Lord. London had hitherto been true to him throngli every vicissitude. When the citizens learned that be had V»een sent for from Somersetshire, that he had l)een closeted with the K'iiig at TJicbinond, and that lu; was to be first minister, they bad In-en in transports of joy. Preparations were made for a grand entertainment and for a general illuniination. The lainjis had actually been placed round the Monument, when the Ciazettc! announced that the object of all this enthusiasm was an Earl. In- stantly the feast was cf)unterinan(led. TIk^ lamps were taken down. Tlie newspapers raised the roar of obloijuy. Panifthlets. made up of calumny aiul scurrility, filled the shojis of all tlie booksellers; and of those pairij)blets. the most galling were written under the direction of the malignant Temple. It was now the fashion to compare 170 HISTORICAL ESSAYS the two Williams, William Pultoney and William Pitt. Both, it was said, had, by eloquence and simulated patriotism, acquired a great ascendancy in the House of Commons and in the country. Eoth had been intrusted with the office of reforming the government. Both had, when at the height of power and popularity, been seduced by the si)londor of the coronet. Both had been made earls, and both had at once become objects of aver- sion and scorn to the nation which a few hours before had regarded them with affection and veneration. The clamor against Pitt appears to have had a serious effect on the foreign relations of the country. His name had till now acted like a spell at Versailles and St. Ilde- fonso. English travelers on the Continent had r(>marked that nothing more was necessary to silence a whole room full of boasting FrcTichmen than to drop a hint of the probability that Mr. Pitt would return to power. In an instant there was deep silence; all shoulders rose, and all faces were lengthened. Now, vnihapjiily, every foreign court, in learning that he was recalled to office, learned also that he no longer possessed the hearts of his country- men. Ceasing to be loved at home, he ceased to be feared abroad. The name of Pitt had been a charmed name. Our envoys tried in vain to conjure with the name of Chntham. The difficulties which beset Chatham were daily in- creased by the despotic manner in which he treated all around him. Lord Rockingham had, at the time of the change of ministry, acted with great moderation, had expressed a hope that the new government would act on the principles of the late government, and had even interfered to prevent many of his friends from quitting office. Thus Saunders and Keppel, two naval commanders of great eminence, had been induced to remain at the Admiralty, where their services were much needed. The Duke of Portland was still Lord Chamberlain, and Lord Besl'oroutrh Postmaster. But within a quiu'ter of a year, Lord Chatham had so deeply affronted these men, that they all retired in disgust. In truth, his tone, submissive in the closet, was at this time insupportably tyrannical in the cabinet. His colleagues were merely his clerks for naval, financial, and diplomatic business. Conway, meek THE EARL OF CHATHAM 171 as he was, was on one occasion provoked into declaring that such hmguage as Lord Chatham's had never been heard west of Constantinople, and was with difficulty prevented by Horace Walpole from resigning, and rejoin- ing the standard of Lord Eockingham. The breach which had been made in the government by the defection of so many of the Rockinghams, Chat- ham hoped to supply by the help of the Bedfords. But with the Bedfords he could not deal as he had dealt witli other parties. It was to no purpose that he bade high for one or two members of the faction, in the hope of detaching them from the rest. They were to be had: but they were to be had only in the lot. There was indeed for a moment some wavering and some disputing among them. But at length the counsels of the shrewd and resolute Rigby prevailed. They determined to stand firmly together, and phiinly intimated to Chatham that he must take them all, or that he should get none of them. The event proved that they were wiser in their generation than any other connection in the state. In a few months they were able to dictate their own terms. The most important public measure of Lord Chatham's administration was his celebrated interference with the corn trade. The harvest had been bad; the price of food was high; and he tlioiight it necessary to take on himself the responsibility of laying .in embargo on the ("xjjorta- tion of grain. When Piirliaiiient met, tliis ])nieeeding was attaeked by tli<- ojiposition as unconstitutional, and defended V)y the,.ministers as indispensably necessary. At last an act was [)assed to indeiiuiify all wbo had been concerned in the embargo. The first words uttered by Chatham, in llie House of Lords, were in defense of his conduct on tliis occasion. He spoke with a calmness, sobriety, and dignity, well suited to the audience which he was addressing. A sub- serpient speech wliieb lie made on the sanu' siibject was less successful. He bade defiance to aristocrat ical con- nections, with a superciliousness to which the Peers were not ncfustnined, and with toiu's and ge-^tMres better suited to a large anrl stftrmy assembly than to the body f)f which he was now a member. A short altercation followed, and 172 HISTORICAL ESSAYS he was told very plainly that he should not be suffered to browbeat tbe old nobility of Enfjland. It gradually became clearer and clearer that he was in a distempered state of mind. His attention had been drawn to the territorial acquisitions of tbe East India Company, and he determined to bring the whole of that great subject before Parliament. He would not, however, confer on the subject with any of his colleagues. It was in vain that Conway, who was charged with the conduct of business in the House of Commons, and Charles Townshend, who was responsible for the direction of the finances, begged for some glimpse of light as to what was in contemplation. Chatham's answers were sullen and mysterious. He must decline any discussion with them; he did not want their assistance; he had fixed on a person to take charge of his measure in the House of Commons. This person was a member who was not connected with the government, and who neither had, nor deserved to have, the ear of the House, a noisy, purse-proud, illiterate demagogue, whose Cockney English and scraps of mispro- nounced Latin were the jest of the newspapers, Alderman Eeckford. It may W(>11 be supposed that those strange proceedings produced a ferment through tbe whole politi- cal world. The city was in commotion. The East India Company invoked the faith of charters. Eurke thundered against the ministers. The ministers looked at each other and knew not what to say. In the midst of the confusion, Lord Chatham proclaimed himself gouty, and retired to Bath. It was announced, after some time, that he was better, that he would shortly return, that he would soon put everything in order. A day was fixed for his arrival in London. But when he reached the Castle inn at Marl- borough, he stopped, shut himself up in his room, and remained there some weeks. Everybody who traveled that road was amazed by the number of his attendants. Footmen and grooms, dressed in his family livery, filled the whole inn, though one of tbe largest in England, and swarmed in the streets of the little town. The truth was that the invalid had insisted that, during his stay, all the waiters and stable-boys of the Castle should wear his livery. His colleagues were in despair. The Duke of Grafton THE EARL OF CHATHAM 173 proposed to go down to Marlborough in order to consult the oracle. But he was informed that Lord Chatham must decline all conversation on business. In the mean- time, all the parties which were out of office, Bedfords, Grenvilles, and Rockinghams, joined to oppose the dis- tracted government on the vote for the land tax. They were reenforced by almost all the county members, and had a considerable majority. This was the first time that a ministry had been beaten on an important division in the House of Commons since the fall of Sir Robert Walpole. The administration, thus furiously assailed from without, was torn by internal dissensions. It had been formed on no principle whatever. From the very first, nothing but Chatham's authority had prevented the hostile contingents which made up his raiiks from going to blows with each other. That authority was now with- drawn, and everything was in commotion. Conway, a lirave soldier, but in civil affairs the most timid and irresolute of men, afraid of disobliging the King, afraid of being abused in the newspapers, afraid of being thought factious if he went out, afraid of being thought interested if he stayed in, afraid of everything, and afraid of being known to be afraid of anything, was beaten backward and forward like a shuttlecock between Horace Walpole who wished to make him prime minister, and Lord -Tohn Cavendish who wished to draw him into opposition. Charles Townshend, a man of splendid talents, of lax principles, and of boundless vanity and presumption, would submit to no control. The full extent of his parts, of his ambition, and of his arrogance, had not yet been made manifest; for he had always quailed before the genius and the lofty character of Pitt. But now that Pitt bad quitted tlie House of Commons, and seemed to have abdicated the part of chief minister, Townshend broke loose from all restraint. Wliile tilings were in this state, Chatham at length returned to London. He might as well have remained at Marlliorou>,di. He would see nol)0(ly. He would give no opinion oti any public matter. Tlie Duke of (Jrafton begtre