Part 42

The great Whig party and the great following of Lord North being thus removed from office, it became a question where a ministry was to be sought. The only party remaining was the little section of Chatham's followers, headed by the young Pitt, and reinforced by a portion of the Tories, with whom they may now be considered as incorporated, although for several years Pitt's policy was decidedly Liberal. To this youth of twenty-four the King appealed for assistance, and, relying on his own genius, he had the audacity to accept the struggle, though conscious that he must be defeated on every division. There followed a scene unparalleled in parliamentary history. The Cabinet had to be drawn almost exclusively from the Upper House; Lord Thurlow became Chancellor, Earl Gower President of the Council, Duke of Rutland Privy Seal, Lord Carmarthen and Lord Sydney Secretaries of State, and Lord Howe First Lord of the Admiralty, and this, with Mr. Pitt himself, was the whole Cabinet. In the House of Commons he could rely only on Dundas and his cousin William Grenville. When the writ was moved for a new election for Appleby on Pitt's taking office, it was received with shouts of laughter; no pity or favour was extended to the new minister; Dundas could hardly get a hearing on ministerial business, motions of great importance were pressed on even though Pitt had not yet taken his seat, and so certain did Fox feel of restoration to office, that he wrote to a friend in Dublin that he would not dismiss one member of his household till after the 12th of January. On that day Pitt was to make his appearance as Prime Minister. An address had been delivered to the King praying against either an adjournment or dissolution, for this was the step which Fox's party chiefly feared. On a favourable reply to this address, short Christmas holidays had been allowed, and the House had to meet again on the 12th. In those few days Pitt had got ready an India Bill, but before he was allowed to produce it Fox had succeeded in carrying no less than five motions against the Government, one of them pointing to "unconstitutional abuse of his Majesty's sacred name." In spite of this Pitt produced his Bill, which was similar in character to the Bill he afterwards carried; it was lost by a majority of only twenty-one, which on its second reading was still further diminished to eight.

[Sidenote: Firmness and sagacity of Pitt.]

[Sidenote: Pitt's victory.]

[Sidenote: Dissolution of Parliament and defeat of Whigs. 1784.]

Things began to look a little more encouraging for the minister. He determined with great wisdom to give the Opposition rope, and urged them to constant violence by an obstinate refusal to say whether he meant to dissolve or not. The language of the Opposition had been so violent that the reaction was becoming strongly marked in the country. "It was a contest," said Dr. Johnson, "whether the nation should be ruled by the sceptre of George III. or by the tongue of Fox." All attempts at mediation failed, although many independent members attempted to effect it. Fox's hope was, that if Pitt continued to avoid dissolution the 25th of March would arrive without a new Parliament. On that day the Mutiny Bill expired, and he hoped by refusing to renew it to compel his rival to resign. But the tide had now fairly begun to turn; Pitt's bravery was exciting the sympathy of the people, while the unmeasured virulence of Fox and his party was constantly damaging them. Pitt, too, had won great admiration by refusing for himself, although his private means amounted to scarcely £300 a year, a rich sinecure called the Clerkship of the Pells. This, with a somewhat ironical pride, he had given to Colonel Barré in exchange for the pension which the Rockingham ministry had so scandalously given him. The threats that supplies should be stopped seemed to many moderate people factious and improper, and numerous addresses poured in from the Corporation of London and other towns. On the 8th of March Fox played what may be called his last card; he brought in a paper under the threatening title of "Representation to the King;" after many hours of debate it was passed by a majority of one only. It was plain that the victory of Pitt was secure and that the Opposition had ruined themselves. Accordingly, when on the next day the Mutiny Bill came on there was no opposition, and having by firmness and moderation fairly weathered the storm, Pitt on the 25th recommended the King to dissolve the Parliament. The elections made it evident that the feeling of the nation was entirely with Pitt; no less than 160 of Fox's friends lost their seats--"Fox's martyrs" they were jocosely called. Several great contests took place, the most notorious of which was that for Yorkshire, where Wilberforce was brought in triumphantly in opposition to the great territorial houses, and that for Westminster, where Fox himself stood against Lord Hood and his old colleague Wray, who had become a ministerialist. The poll was kept open forty days, amid scenes of indescribable excitement. For twenty-three days Fox was at the bottom of the poll, but at length the strenuous canvassing of his friends, added to the charms of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, and other lady politicians, succeeded in placing him second on the list. As more votes however were registered than there were voters, obviously some fraud had been committed, and a scrutiny was granted. Meanwhile, as the Whigs held illegally, no return was made, Westminster was unrepresented, and room had to be made for Fox in the close borough of Kirkwall. It was not till the following session that Pitt, who, with some want of liberality, upheld the conduct of the High Bailiff in refusing the return, was defeated in the House on the subject. The representatives took their seats, and Fox got £2000 damages from the Bailiff.

[Sidenote: Pressing measures.]

[Sidenote: Pitt's Budget.]

The great party struggle of the last year, which had terminated in the utter discomfiture of the Whigs and the establishment of the new Tory party under Pitt, had not left much time for the real requirements of the State. India, Ireland, the finances, parliamentary reform, were all matters which pressed for immediate attention. Firm in his parliamentary majority and in the support of the King, Pitt proceeded to handle them. The finances were naturally in a bad condition at the close of an unsuccessful war. The funds were standing only at 56 or 57, the unfunded debt was upwards of £12,000,000, and there was a considerable deficiency in the Civil List. One of the principal sources of the revenue was destroyed by systematic smuggling of tea. Men of otherwise respectable character and considerable capital were embarked in this trade. Large vessels brought their tea, and lay off at some distance, distributing their cargoes to small vessels, which landed them here and there on the coast. Regular receiving-houses were established and lines of carriers which brought the tea to the towns. It was estimated that the smuggled tea was at least as much as that which paid duty. Pitt lowered the duty both for this article and for spirits, the other great smuggled commodity, so as to withdraw the temptation from the smugglers. The deficit was made up by a house and window tax; this is known as the Commutation Tax. An Act called the Hovering Act was also passed, which extended the limits of the authority of the revenue officers to four leagues from the coast. Half the unfunded debt Pitt funded, and made up the deficit, which he considered a little below a million, by taxes on various commodities. These arrangements though they show no great novelty, were much applauded at the time.

[Sidenote: Pitt's India Bill. 1784.]

Having thus cleared the way for general legislation, Pitt proceeded to bring in his India Bill. It was very like the one which had been defeated the preceding year, and was probably chiefly the work of Dundas. The fate of Fox's Bills had shown the strength of the India House, while the necessity for some Government control was acknowledged by all parties. The present measure was therefore one of compromise. A new ministerial department was established which should exercise the whole political control of the Company; this was to be called the Board of Control. By it was laid the foundation of that system of double government which continued in force till 1858. All business was to be carried on in the name of the Company, which retained the whole patronage except the appointment of the commander-in-chief, and other higher functionaries, whose appointment was subject to the veto of the Crown; but the Board of Control absolutely dictated the political conduct of the Government. Thus the chartered rights of the Company were left untouched; the balance of influence was not upset by a sudden change of patronage; the Board of Control, being ministerial, passed in or out of office with the ministry, but India was secured against mercantile views of policy by its political management being withdrawn from the hands of a merchant company. It was certainly a less complete Bill than its predecessor, it could not be a permanent arrangement, but tided over the present difficulty, and was carried without serious opposition.

[Sidenote: Condition of Ireland.]

[Sidenote: Flood's democratic measure of reform.]

[Sidenote: Pitt's policy for Ireland.]

[Sidenote: Selfish commercial opposition.]

[Sidenote: Pitt recognizes the necessity for a union.]

Much more difficult was the settlement of Ireland. The rational and patriotic demands of the volunteers, which had led to the legislation of 1780 and 1782, had been satisfied by those measures, but had been followed, as is always the case in Ireland, by agitation of a more revolutionary character. The leadership of the movement had passed from Grattan to Flood, rather a demagogue than a statesman, and the volunteers, a national and patriotic body, gradually dwindled to nothing, and in their place arose a clamorous and revolutionary democracy. The cry put forward was for parliamentary reform, the urgent necessity for which was indeed obvious. In a Parliament of 300, 116 seats were held by nominees of no more than 25 proprietors. The Government commanded 186 votes, pledged to them in exchange for the possession or hope of offices or pensions, 12 members were regarded as honest supporters of the Government, the regular Opposition was about 82, 30 Whig nominees, and 52 members of the popular party. To this Parliament Flood introduced a sweeping measure of reform. A scene of wild uproar was the consequence, the Bill was thrown out by a large majority; no better success attended its reintroduction in a more moderate form. The mob rose in wild disorder, and acts of ferocious cruelty were perpetrated. The leader of this movement outside Parliament was Napper Tandy, an ironmonger, who did not scruple to intrigue with the Court of France. Some of the lower priests were also engaged on the popular side, but as Flood refused the franchise to the Catholics in his proposition, the main body held aloof from the movement. This state of disorder Pitt intended to improve by reforming the Parliament in a more practical and moderate manner and by commercial arrangements. All attempts at parliamentary reform had however to be abandoned; but the minister felt that before any vigorous measures could be adopted it was necessary to grant justice to the people. He determined therefore to complete the work of 1780, and to establish real commercial equality between England and Ireland. At the same time he strongly held that equality of privilege implied equality of burdens. In accordance with this view eleven resolutions were brought into the Irish Parliament and accepted without much opposition. By these the restrictions of trade, which had already been removed as far as regarded Europe and the West Indies, would be removed in like manner with regard to the rest of the world; and with regard to imports, England and Ireland would become one nation, so that goods landed in Ireland could be re-imported into England without further duty. In exchange for this, all the hereditary income of the Crown, which was derived chiefly from customs, beyond the sum of £656,000 was to be applied to the support of the Imperial navy. Thus the money paid would bear a direct proportion to the advantages gained by Ireland by the extension of her trade. Pitt, sure of the economical soundness of the principles on which this Bill was based, only courted full discussion. He underrated the selfishness of the commercial interest. On the resolutions being introduced to the English Parliament, the strongest opposition was raised by merchants and manufacturers, afraid of a fresh competitor; and Fox and Burke, the first of whom was confessedly ignorant of the laws of political economy, turned the opposition to their party purposes. The Bill had to be altered considerably, restrictions with regard to the Asiatic trade had to be continued, thus seriously diminishing the advantage granted to Ireland, while Pitt laid himself open to the charge of encroaching upon the newly-earned independence of that country by trying to establish the commercial superiority of England, since all this commercial legislation was to emanate from the English Parliament. The Whigs took immediate advantage of this error, and, unable to stop the Bill in the English Parliament, used all their eloquence to inflame the patriotic feeling of the Irish. The Bill in its changed form was therefore rejected in Dublin (August), and Pitt began to feel the necessity for that great measure which he completed eighteen years afterwards. If either true parliamentary reform was to be brought about or commercial equality to be established, not only legislative equality, but legislative union, it was plain, would be necessary.

[Sidenote: Failure of Pitt's Reform Bill.]

This was not the only defeat which the ministry suffered. It was no more successful in its efforts at parliamentary reform in England. In fact, the interest felt in the question had begun to flag; it had been raised to its utmost by the separation between the representatives of the people and the people they represented, which had been so obvious during the administration of Grenville, and by the long and disastrous triumph of royal influence under Lord North. But Pitt's success rested entirely upon the will of the constituencies after the late dissolution, and the people were on the whole satisfied with their representation. But with Pitt, as with his father, the reform of Parliament had always been a favourite object; he now produced a Bill by which he hoped to win all parties to his side, but its very timidity weakened its popularity. He proposed to disfranchise thirty-six rotten boroughs, and to give the seventy-two seats thus gained to the counties and to London and Westminster. Thus far he was true to his old plan, but afraid of the opposition of borough proprietors, he consented to recognize as a part of the Constitution their rights of proprietorship, and designed to set apart a fund of £1,000,000 to satisfy the claims of the possessors of the boroughs which he wished to destroy. Such as it was the Bill was rejected by a majority of seventy, and Pitt regarded the question henceforward as settled against him. It is to be observed that all these measures, whether successful or not, were such as we should now speak of as Liberal measures.

[Sidenote: His financial success.]

[Sidenote: Commercial treaty with France. Sept. 1786.]

The success of the Government in its financial schemes, on the other hand, was marked, although the arrangement which at this time excited most admiration has since been recognized as based upon an absurd fallacy. Alarmed at the great increase of the National Debt, and inspired with an honest wish to reduce it, Pitt produced his plan for a sinking fund. His taxes had been so successful, and the financial recovery of the nation at peace and under a firm Government had been such, that he found himself possessed of a surplus closely bordering on a million, and suggested that this million should annually be set aside and vested in commissioners to accumulate at compound interest. It was to be beyond the control of Government, and this fund with its accumulations was to be applied, as circumstances permitted, to the reduction of the debt. The principle is obviously sound as far as it goes, that is to say, what a nation saves it can clearly apply to the purpose of reducing its liabilities, but there the matter ends; there is and can be no peculiar and mysterious power in a sinking fund. But this was not seen by Pitt, or by those who approved of his plan, and when times of difficulty arose, the million went on year by year being religiously set aside, although not only one million, but many millions were yearly borrowed for the purpose of covering the current expenses of the year. Interest, and often much higher interest, was thus paid out on the one side in order that a less interest might be gained on the other. It was not till the year 1828 that this fallacy was finally exposed by Lord Grenville, who, strangely enough, had been the chairman of the committee who first recommended its adoption. It had however been virtually abandoned in 1807. Although he fell into this error, Pitt's financial views were generally broad; thus about this time he entered into a commercial treaty with France, by which, with some very few exceptions, prohibitory duties between the countries were repealed, a moderate tariff was established, and the famous Methuen Treaty with Portugal, which had almost excluded French wines, and changed the habits of the English nation, giving them a taste for the hot wines of the Peninsula, was abrogated. He also greatly simplified the custom duties, supplying their place in some instances with excise or customs levied inland, a most beneficial measure, but formerly so unpopular that it had almost proved fatal to the ministry of Walpole, the only great financial minister England had had during the century.

[Sidenote: Charges against Warren Hastings.]

[Sidenote: Pitt supports them.]

[Sidenote: Consequent impeachment. 1787.]

These measures, important as they were, excited little attention in comparison with the threatened impeachment of Warren Hastings. Though, as we have seen, censured, and almost recalled in 1781, the Governor-General had latterly retained his post unmolested, and came home in June 1785 on the natural expiration of his office. At home he was well received, but he had two vindictive enemies in the House of Commons, one, Edmund Burke, whose imagination had always been strongly drawn towards the majestic history of Hindostan, and whose hatred of oppression had been strongly fired by the accounts which had lately been received from India; the other, Philip Francis, the rancorous and defeated rival of the late Governor-General; and Hastings had scarcely arrived in England before Burke gave notice that he should call attention to his conduct. The feeling in England that Hastings had on the whole done a great work was so strong, that, although the ministry had shown him many marks of favour, it is possible that even Burke might have left him untouched had not his injudicious and wearisome agent, Major Scott, challenged inquiry. Burke accepted the challenge, and in April produced specific charges against him, based principally on his war with the Rohillas and on his conduct to Cheyte Singh and the Begums of Oude. Hastings, who was always unable to understand the feeling of the House of Commons, insisted on being personally heard at the bar, and wearied the House by reading a written document of enormous length, which occupied a day and a half in reading. On the first charge, however, with regard to the Rohilla war, a considerable majority was in his favour; it will be remembered that this belonged to the first period of his administration, and it was upon this that he had been already censured; but as Dundas, the original mover of the vote of censure, urged, with much show of right, the fault was an old one, and had been condoned by the subsequent appointment of Hastings as Governor-General. Hastings and his friends believed that his cause had gained the support of Government and was now secure. Great was their dismay when, upon the second charge with regard to Cheyte Singh, which was brought forward by Fox, Pitt rose and declared, that although he regarded Cheyte Singh as the vassal of the Bengal Empire, and liable to be called on for assistance, he could not but regard the infliction of a fine of £500,000 for the non-payment of £50,000 as ridiculously and shamefully exorbitant. On these grounds, he said, he should support the charge, all his friends voted with him, and Fox's resolution passed by a majority of forty. This entirely changed the aspect of affairs, but the lateness of the season (June 1786) rendered it necessary that the completion of the charges should be postponed till the next year. In the February of that year Sheridan, in a speech occupying five hours and forty minutes, produced the charge with regard to the Begums of Oude. So striking was this piece of oratory that it was deemed necessary to adjourn the House lest the excitement produced by it should prevent cool judgment of the matter. Again, and with the same result as before, Pitt both spoke and voted in favour of the charge. On these and other charges Burke, in May, founded a resolution of impeachment, and proceeding to the Upper House, impeached the late Governor-General, who was taken into custody and admitted to bail. The trial did not actually begin till February 1788.

[Sidenote: Conduct of the Prince of Wales.]