CHAPTER XXI.

But national calamity was now to lend irresistible force to his attacks. It had been known for some time that France was meditating an attack on Gibraltar or Minorca, and in the beginning of March it became certain that Minorca was to be the object.[323] During the first week of May the Government received the news that the French had actually landed on the island. War was formally and not prematurely declared on May 18. Six weeks earlier the ill-fated Byng had sailed with a fleet to relieve the fortress. The country waited for news with bated breath. The King declared that he could neither eat nor sleep. Saunders, afterwards to be Pitt's First Lord of the Admiralty, reassured his Sovereign by saying that they should screw his heart out if Byng were not at that moment (June 7) in the harbour of Mahon.[324] Then came the news that Byng, after an indecisive engagement with the French fleet, had sailed back to Gibraltar and left Minorca to its fate. Still the nation, though raging against Byng, hoped against hope, till on July 14 the news came that Fort St. Philip, the British fort, had surrendered after a gallant defence on June 28, and that Minorca was in the hands of the French. The long-compressed anxiety exploded in a terrible outburst of wrath against Byng. Addresses poured in from every part of England demanding vengeance upon him. The unhappy Admiral was brought back to Greenwich Hospital as a prisoner to await a court-martial. But, the nation had already turned its thumb downwards. Perhaps the best idea of the popular sentiment is conveyed by the fact that Byng's brother, who went to meet the Admiral, was stricken to death by the popular fury wherever he passed; so that he fell ill at the first sight of the prisoner, and died next day in convulsions. There was no chance of a fair trial for the unhappy man. To the merchants of London bringing one of the addresses for his exemplary punishment Newcastle, not sorry to have a scapegoat, had blurted out, 'Oh! indeed he shall be tried immediately: he shall be hanged directly.' And executed he was, after an agony of eight months, in spite of justice, in spite of Pitt, who had the fine courage to support him, in deference to the nation and the King who were bent on his death. Voltaire, who had tried with real humanity to save him, sardonically described the execution in Candide, 'Dans ce pays-ci il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les autres,' a phrase which he appears to have borrowed from the Knights of Malta.[325]

Something less, much less than Nelson, might have saved Minorca. The truth seems to be that Byng, who was personally brave, sailed from Gibraltar with the preconceived impression that Minorca was lost, and acted throughout under this conviction, without energy or resource. So far as his countrymen, or rather, their rulers, were concerned, they had long done their best to lose it. They had, in spite of constant appeals, starved and neglected it. But there was worse than this. On one side of the mouth of the harbour of Mahon is a site easily rendered impregnable, on the other a plain which nothing can secure. John Duke of Argyle had begun a fort on the first site, but Lord Cadogan out of hatred to him, it was said, destroyed it and built Fort St. Philip at a vast expense on the second. The thing is incredible to the traveller who sees the place. If the story be true (Horace Walpole is the authority), it is on the head of Cadogan and not of Byng that should be laid the loss of Minorca, a loss which can neither be forgotten nor forgiven.

This tragic incident only touches Pitt's life in so far as it precipitated the disgrace of Newcastle. The Duke was indeed getting deeper and deeper. In May he declared that no one blamed him, for every one knew that the sea was not his province, and Fox had replied that as to public censure, his information was exactly the reverse. In September he could scarcely conceal from himself that he was being mobbed and pelted in his coach, and that his coachman was urged by the shouting crowd to drive his Grace straight to the Tower. Ballads swarmed of which the burden was, 'To the block with Newcastle and to the yard-arm with Byng.' Even the docile allegiance of the House of Commons can scarcely have allayed the veteran's rising anxiety. 'This was the year of the worst administration that I have seen in England,' says Walpole, though he was the close friend of Fox, 'for now Newcastle's incapacity was allowed full play.' Fox indeed found that he was not admitted to real confidence or to the counsels of Newcastle and Hardwicke. He was therefore in a state of swelling discontent, ready to break away at the first opportunity. He declared that he had urged that a strong squadron should be sent for the relief of the fortress during the first week of March, but was overruled. The fall of Minorca and the storm of national fury which followed increased his anxiety to be out of this disastrous Ministry. He was, we suspect, already determined not to meet Parliament again as Newcastle's talking puppet, possibly his scapegoat.

The House had risen on May 27. Two days earlier occurred an event which was to remove one of the three intellects of the Government, Fox and Hardwicke, of course, being the other two. Ryder, the Chief Justice of the King's Bench, died, and Murray at once laid claim to the succession. This demand drove Newcastle to despair. He offered Murray exorbitant and increasing terms to remain, for he regarded Murray as his sole protector in the House of Commons against his doubtful friend, Fox, and his open enemy, Pitt. But offers of the Duchy of Lancaster for life with a pension of 2000_l._ a year, with permission to remain Attorney-General at a salary of 7000_l._ a year, and a reversion of one of the Golden Tellerships of the Exchequer for his nephew Stormont, left Murray unmoved. For months the game of temptation was played. At the beginning of October the Prime Minister had raised the proposed pension to 6000_l._ a year. Murray remained firm. He stipulated, indeed, for more than the Chief Justiceship; he demanded a peerage as well; he would not take the one without the other; and in no case would he remain Attorney-General. We can imagine Newcastle's tears and caresses; they were in vain. Vain, too, was his attempt to fob off his rebellious subordinate with the reluctance of the King. Murray, indeed, hinted that when he became a private member of the House of Commons he might go into Opposition. We may be sure, at any rate, that he had no intention of facing an angry nation and Parliament in defence of Newcastle and the loss of Minorca. This hint probably clinched the matter. Newcastle capitulated; though, said Fox, from 'wilful trifling,' he deferred the performance of his promise as long as possible.[326] It was not till the eve of the Duke's fall that, on November 8, Murray was sworn in as Chief Justice and created a Peer as Lord Mansfield.

[Sidenote: 1756.]

What glimpses are there meanwhile of Pitt? He had just got possession of Hayes, and was there in May, building and improving, as usual, but speaking brilliantly on the Militia Bill in the House, so brilliantly as to earn a patronising note of approval from Bute, beginning 'My worthy friend'; an indication that the bond between Pitt and the young Court was now close. Indeed, Pitt seems now to have been the principal adviser of that increasingly powerful connection.

Potter, whom Pitt had come to describe as 'one of the best friends I have in the world,' wrote to Pitt, ten days after Ryder's death, conveying the news from an inspired source that if Murray went on the bench Newcastle would invite Pitt to join the Government, for he could repair the loss in no other way. But he adds, shrewdly enough, that the Duke was evidently ignorant of his own strength, for if he had to rely on Lyttelton and Dupplin (then Joint Paymaster of the Forces) alone, though the debates would no doubt be shorter, he would not, such was the temper of the House, lose a single vote. He added that, in his judgment, the Opposition had not made themselves popular by their conduct, because of the fear of invasion. Hanover treaties and Hanover troops had become popular; opposition to them must be wrong 'when we are ready to be eat up by the French.'[327]

But these anticipations were premature, for the struggle with Murray lasted, as we have seen, from May till November. So that Pitt had leisure to squander on his improvements and to receive his eldest son John on John's entrance into the world. But his eye was vigilantly fixed on the distresses of the country. 'Quæ regio in terris nostri non plena laboris?' he writes to George Grenville (June 5, 1756). 'It is an inadequate and a selfish consolation, but it is a sensible one, to think that we share only in the common ruin, and not in the guilt of having left us exposed to the natural and necessary consequences of administration without ability or virtue.' Grenville, determined not to be undone, replies in a letter stuffed with Latin quotation. 'Distress,' rejoins Pitt (June 16, 1756), 'infinite distress seems to hem us in on all quarters. I am in most anxious impatience to have the affair in the Mediterranean cleared up. As yet nothing is clear but that the French are masters there, and that probably many an innocent and gallant man's honour and fortune is to be offered up as a scapegoat for the sins of the Administration.' In July he paid a visit at Stowe, and in August he was laid up at Hayes with 'a very awkward, uneasy, but not hurtful' malady.

He must have seen with poignant interest Frederick's fierce irruption into Saxony, but all seems absorbed in his anxiety for his wife and his overflowing delight at the birth of his son. This event occurred on October 10, at a moment when the ministerial crisis had become acute.

No one in fact was willing to face even an abject House of Commons with the loss of Minorca on his back. Newcastle was near the end of his tether. Murray had gone. Whether Chief Justice or not, he was determined to be out of the Ministry; and if disappointed of his just claim to the Bench he was not likely to face a storm on behalf of the Minister who had refused it. Murray had gone, Fox was going; for his chagrin was patent, and Newcastle 'treated him rather like an enemy whom he feared than as a minister whom he had chosen for his assistant.' He was no better used by the King. The Duke, moreover, was at war with the waxing power of Leicester House. With this Court indeed he managed to patch up a hollow peace at the expense of Fox; offending one Court and not appeasing the other. But that did not help him to an agent in the House of Commons.

And worse was still to come, disaster followed on disaster. To a nation freshly smarting with the fall of Minorca there came tidings of catastrophe from the East and the West. In June Calcutta had been captured by Surajah Dowlah, followed by the horrors of the Black Hole, which still linger in the proverbial dialect of this country. Then in August fell Oswego, the most important British fortress in North America. Situated on Lake Ontario it was a permanent menace to the French, for British command of that lake would mean the separation of Canada from Louisiana. Montcalm, a general of high merit, who has had the singular good fortune to leave a name consecrated by the common veneration of friend and foe, had arrived to take the command of the French forces in Canada. Two months after landing he marched on Oswego, and, investing it with a greatly superior force, soon compelled it to capitulate. Its garrison of 1400 men surrendered as prisoners of war.[328] A hundred pieces of artillery and great stores of ammunition fell into the hands of the French. The forts, three in number, and the vessels were burned. It was a real triumph for the French, and a proportionate disaster for their foes. 'Such a shocking affair has never found a place in English annals,' wrote one American officer. 'The loss is beyond account; but the dishonour done his Majesty's arms is infinitely greater.' 'Oswego,' wrote Horace Walpole, 'is of ten times more importance even than Minorca.'

Scarcely less consternation was caused in England, where the news arrived on September 30. People there were getting dazed with disaster, and the men who ruled became more and more abhorrent. Already, on September 2, Newcastle had written to the Chancellor that people were becoming outrageous in the North of England, and that a petition was being largely signed in Surrey demanding 'justice against persons however highly dignified or distinguished.' This, he adds drily, may mean you or me, or 'perhaps somebody more highly dignified and distinguished than either of us.'[329] Who could be found to bear such a burden of shame and ignominy, and affront the storm that threatened to burst at once in overwhelming popular fury?

Not Fox, undaunted though he might be. Like the condottiere that he was, he did not heed hard knocks provided the pay were good. But here he was defrauded of his deserts, of the promised confidence of the King and his Minister. For Newcastle had betrayed him to the last; the magpie cunning of that old caitiff paralysed every arm that might have defended him. When it came to the point he could not bring himself to part with his monopoly of patronage, and of power as he understood power. He was like a drowning miser with his treasure on him, who will not part with his gold to save his life. So the Duke preferred to sink with all his influence rather than take the chance of floating without it. First he set the King against Fox. The Duke had tried to appease Leicester House by getting the appointment of Groom of the Stole for Bute. The King, suspecting Bute's intimacy with the Princess, detested that fascinating courtier. So Newcastle, to divert from himself the King's wrath at having to make this nomination, told His Majesty that Fox made Bute's appointment a condition of his retaining the seals; and then without telling Fox that his name had thus been mentioned to the Sovereign, informed him that the King was exasperated against him.[330]

Then there arose the eternal question of patronage. Fox had been promised by the King himself that on becoming Secretary of State he should have the conduct of the House of Commons with all that that involved. But Newcastle could not bring himself to fulfil the royal pledges or his own. When the list of the Prince of Wales's household was published, Fox saw in it the names of eight or ten members of Parliament as to whom he had never been even consulted. Newcastle moreover, as Fox asserted, broke a solemn promise that Fox's nephew, Lord Digby, should be included. A still greater affront was that he told Fox that he destined a vacant seat at the Board of Trade for a person whom he was not at liberty to mention. More than this, he took occasion to remind Fox of a former offer to make way for Pitt if it were for the King's service, and Fox again readily agreed. All this took place on September 30.[331] Such an insulting and accumulated want of confidence between the leaders of the two Houses was not to be tolerated, and Fox wrote at once to Bubb that things were going ill. The final explosion was caused by the exclusion of Digby, which was notified to Fox on October 5. The King, said the Duke, refused this nomination peremptorily and bitterly, but had said that, if the Duke himself pressed it, he would yield to oblige the Duke. On receiving this letter, Fox wrote a furious letter to Stone, Newcastle's secretary. The draft of a letter commonly reveals much more of the writer's mind than the letter itself, and the draft of this is fortunately preserved.[332] 'I do not know,' wrote Fox, 'whether I am to imagine from hence that the negotiation with Mr. Pitt is far advanced, but I am told it is not begun. In these circumstances, dear Sir, I must beg you to stop it. I retract all good-humoured dealing. I may be turned out, and I suppose shall. But I will not be used like a dog without having given the least provocation (suppose I should say with the utmost merit to those who use me so) and be like that dog a spaniel. I do not consent that Mr. Pitt should have my place, and promise to be in good humour or even on any terms with those who give it him.'[333] Fox was in a blind fury, but sensibly expunged all this from the letter he sent. To Welbore Ellis, his confidant, he wrote: 'The King has carried his displeasure to me beyond common bounds, and I vow to God I don't guess the reason. The Duke of Newcastle, instead of growing better, has outdone himself, and show'd me the Prince's establishment on which eight members of the House of Commons are plac'd whose names he never mention'd to me, and he had the assurance to make a merit of shewing me the List after it was _fix'd_ with the King. He has been Fool enough to ask my consent, and to intend to offer my place to Mr. Pitt without (as I believe) trying whether or no he will accept it. This makes it necessary for me to take a step in which my view is to get out of court and never come into it again.... If you think it worth while to get up very early to-morrow morning you may be at Holland House before I go to Lady Yarmouth, to desire and humbly advise H.M. to conclude the Treaty with Mr. Pitt, promising my assistance in a subaltern employment, and shewing the impossibility of my appearing and my determination not to appear in the H. of Commons as Secy. of State.'[334] While he was writing this, Newcastle was despatching a note giving way as to Digby's nomination,[335] with much the same effect as a cup of cold water poured with the best intentions on a burning city.

Whether with or without the companionship of Ellis, Fox went straight to Lady Yarmouth. She was out. Newcastle had already sent her a note enclosing Fox's resignation, and assuring her that Fox was bringing it to her for transmission to the King.[336] When Fox found her, later in the day, and handed her his paper, she denied any idea of Pitt ever having been suggested to the King, but besought him to reconsider his determination. 'Monsieur Fox, vous êtes trop honnête homme pour quitter à présent. S'il y avait quatre ou cinq mois avant que le Parlement s'assemble; à la fin de la session vous ferez ce que vous voudrez, mais à présent de jeter tout en confusion! Regardez à la position des affaires. Non, je n'excuse pas le Duc de Newcastle; c'est dur, c'est pénible, mais quand vous aurez pensé un peu au Roi, à la patrie, vous continuerez cette session,' perhaps the only articulate utterance of Lady Yarmouth that we possess.[337] Failing in this, she begged at least that Granville might hand the resignation to the King instead of herself. Fox agreed to this.[338]

Fox's note to Newcastle was terse and sombre:

'My Lord, I return Your Grace many thanks for the letter which, not being at home, I did not receive till late last night, and I am much obliged to you for the contents of it.

'The step I am going to take is not only necessary but innocent. It shall be accompany'd with no complaint. It shall be follow'd by no resentment. I have no resentment. But it is not the less true that my situation is impracticable.'

To the King he sent a formal paper of grievance and resignation, which has already been printed and need not be repeated here. He took great pains over it, as the drafts testify. The substance of it was that he had been loyal to Newcastle, but that he had not received support in return, and so could not carry on the business of Government in the House of Commons as it should be carried on. But he would gladly serve the King outside the Cabinet. This meant that he would gladly exchange offices with Pitt. At the same time he told Cumberland and wrote to Devonshire that if Newcastle had been such a fool as to offer the seals to Pitt without knowing whether he would take them, he (Fox), to prevent the general confusion that would ensue, would continue for another session. No notice was taken of this offer.[339] It does not seem certain that it ever reached either Newcastle or the King.

Granville found the King prepared for the resignation, and very angry with Fox for deserting him. 'Would you advise me to take Pitt?' he asked. 'Well, Sir!' replied Granville, 'you must take somebody.' 'Ah! but,' said the monarch, pensively, 'I am sure Pitt will not do my business.' The business to which the Sovereign referred was, of course, electoral. He considered that he had in various ways shown Fox great favour, and that Fox had acted ill in throwing up his office when the meeting of Parliament was near at hand.

Newcastle received Fox's resignation at the Treasury. Though he was planning to discard Fox for Pitt, he was thunderstruck at finding that Fox had anticipated him. He hurried to Court, and found the King in good humour except with the resigning Secretary. His Majesty gave Newcastle the paper which he had received from Granville, having underlined the passage which had mainly offended him: 'for want of support, and think it impracticable for me to carry on His Majesty's affairs as they ought to be carried on;' and then recited, with the aid of Newcastle as prompter, all the favours shown to Fox. But the more urgent and practical question was not the ingratitude of Fox, but what was to be done now that he had gone. The King, with that shrewd and redeeming touch of humour which we constantly discern in him, said that a sensible courtier, Lord Hyde, had told him that there were but three things to do. The King recited them thus: 'to call in Pitt, to make up with my own family, and, my lord, I have forgot the third.' The third probably related to Newcastle himself, and may therefore have been difficult of repetition to the Duke. But without hesitation the King empowered Newcastle to approach Pitt, and to tell him that if he would take office he should have a good reception. Pitt was also to be offered the seals, but not at first, on the fatuous principle on which all Newcastle's negotiations were conducted; to hope against hope that the object he coveted could be got for much less than its value.

But then the King asked 'the great question ... which,' says Newcastle, 'I own I could not answer: what shall we do if Pitt will not come? Fox will then be worse.' Then the King, with still increasing acuteness, asked, 'Suppose Pitt will not serve with you?' 'Then, Sir, I must go.' And so it was to end. But Newcastle would not without a struggle renounce the deleterious habit of office. He summoned Hardwicke to town for the purpose of approaching Pitt. He hurried to Lady Yarmouth and took counsel with her. All agreed that the only resource was Pitt, and that Hardwicke alone could sound him. Pitt was at Hayes, but leaving immediately for Bath. Time was short, the crisis acute, so Newcastle wrote, 'don't boggle at it.'[340]

There was no boggling or hesitation on the part of the Chancellor: he hurried to London and saw Pitt on Tuesday, October 19. The interview lasted three hours and a half. When it was over, Hardwicke despatched a despairing note to Newcastle: 'I am just come from my conference, which lasted full 3-1/2 hours. His answer is an absolute final negative without any reserve for further deliberation. In short there never was a more unsuccessful negotiator.'[341] In a longer letter to his son Lord Royston, Hardwicke added but little more. On the main point Pitt was inexorable; he would have nothing to do with Newcastle. Hardwicke could not move him an inch. He was obdurate on 'men and measures.'[342] But 'men and measures' only meant Newcastle. Pitt had been repeatedly tricked by him; he had seen Fox repeatedly tricked by him when the meanest self-interest dictated honesty; he would not fall into the trap into which Fox had fallen; to join Newcastle now would be to be a willing dupe, and he was determined to govern if he was to govern, without this perpetual ambush at his side. Nor would he have any dealings with Fox. He thought, truly or untruly, that Fox had betrayed him, and he intended to try and do without treachery. He wished to enter on power clear of all suspicious connections, and indeed with little but the influence of his wife's family. So he resolved to see nothing even of Bute before meeting Hardwicke, and he summoned the Grenvilles to receive his report immediately after seeing Hardwicke.[343]

Pitt, however, having no access to the King and being anxious to communicate with him directly, made overtures elsewhere. On October 21, the palace was disturbed by an unwonted agitation. Pages and lackeys were seen in sudden perturbation calling to each other that Mr. Pitt had arrived to see my Lady Yarmouth. Lady Yarmouth's position was singular enough. She had once been the declared mistress of George the Second; 'My lady Yarmouth the comforter,' wrote a ribald wit.[344] She still lived under his roof, when it was her business to keep him amused, if possible, during the long dull evenings. But from being a favourite, she had developed into an institution. Her apartment, immediately below the King's, was little less than an office. There, it was said, peerages or bishoprics might sometimes be bought, and some patronage was perhaps facilitated or dispensed. On the other hand, Lord Walpole declared at an earlier period that she asked for nothing, and that one of her principal charms with the King was that she did not importune him for favours. At any rate, persons wanting anything did well to write to her. Thither, too, a circumstance of much significance, Ministers repaired before or after their audience with the King, to anticipate the royal disposition or to report the royal utterances. 'I went below stairs,' was the phrase. They took close counsel with the lady, she told them her impressions of the King's real views, and usually added some shrewd observations of her own. Her action seems to have been wholly beneficial; she appeased jealousies, conciliated animosities, administered common sense, spoke ill of nobody, and, so far as we can judge, was eminently good natured in the best sense of that tortured epithet. Perhaps her most useful function was that of acting as a conciliatory channel for those who had something to say to the King which they could not say themselves. Both Fox and Newcastle had at once hurried to her, as we have seen, when the crisis took place. And so Pitt now found it necessary to pay his first visit to her.

He had heard perhaps that the King had said, 'I am sure Pitt will not do my business,' and had come to give soothing insinuations. But he also entertained a well-founded doubt as to whether he had fair play with the King, and whether he could trust Newcastle and Hardwicke to represent him fairly to the Sovereign.[345] So he came to Lady Yarmouth as his only means of direct communication with the Closet, and stated his real terms, handing her a written list of the men he proposed for office, a list which still exists.[346] He would not serve with Newcastle, but the King might find in getting rid of Newcastle that Hanover had other unsuspected friends.[347] But he also 'sent,' says Fox, 'the terms of a madman to the King.' They do not seem very mad to us: Ireland for Temple, the Exchequer for Legge, the Paymastership for George Grenville, the Irish Secretaryship for James Grenville, the Treasury for Devonshire. Townshend was to be Treasurer of the Chambers, Dr. Hay a Lord of the Admiralty, and places were to be found for George Townshend, Erskine, Lord Pomfret, and Sir Richard Lyttelton. For his colleague in the Secretaryship of State he proposed, most marvellous of all, Sir Thomas Robinson! The overture, however, irritated the King, partly from the demands, partly because it showed that people thought that he was influenced by Lady Yarmouth. 'Mr Pitt,' he said,'shall not go to that channel any more. She does not meddle and shall not meddle.'[348] Nevertheless the hint dropped by Pitt was probably useful and fruitful. Pitt himself said afterwards that this interview put an end to the indecision of the King, who had remained sullen and passive.[349]

The next point to be noted is Pitt's second interview with Hardwicke. And though the minute of Hardwicke's conversation with Pitt on October 19 appears to be lost, we have his record[350] of this second meeting between them on October 24, which he read to the King on October 26, and which contains the main points at issue.

Hardwicke began by telling Pitt that he had sent for him at the King's command; that he had on October 20 faithfully narrated to the King all that had passed at the interview of October 19, and that the King had summoned him on October 23, the day previous to the present meeting, in order to send the following message--

'The King is of opinion that what has been suggested is not for his and the public service.'

Pitt thereupon bowed and said that His Majesty did him the greatest honour in condescending to return any answer to anything that came from him. He then repeated the message word for word, and desired Hardwicke to bear in mind that all that he _had suggested_ was by way of objection; that he had not suggested anything _affirmative_ as to measures of any kind. Hardwicke replied that he had repeated to the King exactly what had passed, and recapitulated the five heads under which Pitt had summed up the previous conversation.

'1. That it was impossible for him to serve with the Duke of Newcastle.

'2. That he thought enquiries into the past measures absolutely necessary, that he thought it his duty to take a considerable share in them, and could not lay himself under any obligation to depart from that.

'To this I said that the King was not against a fair and impartial enquiry.

'3. That he thought his duty to support a Militia Bill, and particularly that of the last session.

'I told him that the King and his ministers were not against _a_ Militia Bill.

'4. That the affair of the Hanoverian soldier[351] he thought of great importance; that what had been done ought to be examined, and, he thought, censured.

'5. That if he came into His Majesty's service, he thought it necessary, in order to serve him, and to support his affairs, to have such powers as belonged to his station, to be in the first concert and concoction of measures, and to be at liberty to propose to His Majesty himself anything that occurred to him for his service, originally, and without going through any other minister.'

Pitt, who was evidently disappointed, acknowledged the accuracy of Hardwicke's recital, and desired to know if the message from the King was _an answer to the whole_. Hardwicke replied that it was the King's answer in the King's own words,[352] and that he could not take on himself to explain it; but that he understood it as _an answer to everything that had been conveyed by Mr. Pitt to the King_.

To this Pitt rejoined with thanks for the King's condescension that he would say to Hardwicke, '_as from one private gentleman to another_,' that he would not come into the service, in the present circumstances of affairs, upon any other terms for the whole world.

'I then,' continues the Chancellor, 'said that undoubtedly He must judge for himself; But I would also say to Him, _as from Lord Hardwicke only to Mr. Pitt_--

'That, as He professed great Duty to the King & Zeal for his Service, & I dared to say had it; That as He had expressed an Inclination to come into his Majesty's service, in order _really_ to assist in the support of his Government;

'That as He was a Man of Abilities & knowledge of the World; That, as Men of Sense, who wish the End, must naturally wish the means; why would He at the same time make _the thing_ impracticable?

'To This He answered that he would say to me _in the same private manner_ That he was surprized that it should be thought possible for Him to come into an Employment to serve with the D. of Newcastle, under whose Administration the things he had so much blamed had happened, & against which the Sense of the Nation so strongly appeared; & I think he added,--which Administration could not possibly have lasted, if he had accepted.

'In answer to That I said some general things in the same sense with what I had mentioned on that head on Tuesday last.

'He then rose up & we parted with great personal Civility on both sides.'

Meanwhile Newcastle, proscribed by Pitt and spurned by Fox, knew not whither to turn. He broke out in a wail against them to the Chancellor, the keeper of his conscience even more than of the King's. 'My dearest Lord,' he writes (October 20, 1756), 'tho' a consciousness of my own innocence and an indifference as to my own situation may, and I hope in God will, support me against all the wickedness and ingratitude which I meet with, yet your Lordship cannot think that I am unmindful of or senseless to the great indignity put upon me by these two gentlemen.' Newcastle in the character of a Christian martyr, the prey of heathen raging furiously, has something humorous and incongruous about it, were the attitude less abject. But in a sentence or two he returns to a more familiar character. 'Allow me only to suggest to your Lordship the necessity of making the King see that the whole is a concert between Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox. The news and principles upon which they act are the same, viz., to make themselves necessary, and masters of the King ... that the only thing Mr. Pitt alledges against me is the _conduct of the war_.' ... 'Quit before the Birthday I must and will.' He goes on to consult the Chancellor as to whether he shall ask any favours for his relations.[353]

So the falling Minister in his straits tried to play upon the King's two strongest passions, fear of being dominated and fear for Hanover. How wise Pitt was to go straight to Lady Yarmouth! But Newcastle had tried other measures as well after Fox's resignation. The very day he received it he had hurried to his old enemy Granville, now comfortably ensconced in the Presidency of the Council, and offered to exchange offices with him, giving him his friend Fox as Chancellor of the Exchequer.[354] Granville, he remembered, had once been willing to face far greater hazards with Pulteney. But Granville was ten years older; he had, to use his own expression, put on his nightcap; and he laughed the suppliant Duke out of the room. 'I will be hanged a little before I take your place,' he said, not perhaps without some relish for his chief's terror and distress, 'rather than a little after.' But he added more gravely that '_we_ must determine either to give Mr. Fox what he wants, or to take in Mr. Pitt; who,' Newcastle adds piteously, 'will not come.'[355] Then Newcastle tried Egmont and Halifax. Egmont was willing to take the seals with a British peerage. But it was in the House of Commons that strength was wanted. No such strength was to be found without Pitt or Fox. Dupplin, one of the Paymasters, an able man of business and much in Newcastle's confidence, said broadly and truly, 'Fox and Pitt need only sit still and laugh, and we must walk out of the House!' And yet the House of Commons was almost unanimous in devotion to the Minister. Was there ever so strange a situation?

In view of this last fact Hardwicke urged Newcastle to hold on; and Lyttelton, to inspirit him, offered to accept any office. This well-intentioned proposal failed to animate the Duke, though it was gratefully recognised. There was nothing left but the rank and file; ardent supporters with nothing to support. The Government was doomed.

Instructions from counties and boroughs were coming up as in the days of the impeachment of Walpole. Addresses were presented to the Throne. The country was thoroughly roused. And its hopes and gaze were fixed solely on Pitt, a private member, untried in affairs, with scarce a follower in Parliament. He, at any rate, had not failed, a negative merit indeed, but one which he alone of the leading statesmen of the time could claim.

Newcastle was left alone with Hardwicke. Around them that desert had begun to form which portends the fall of a Ministry; though their faithful Commons still awaited their bidding in silence. And at last the old Duke realised that he must resign, but determined that Hardwicke should resign too, perhaps to make his own resignation regretted, perhaps because he would not leave behind him an asset of such value. 'My dearest, dearest Lord,' he wrote, 'you know how cruelly I am treated and indeed persecuted by all those who now surround the King.' Hardwicke's friendship, he said, was now his only comfort, Hardwicke's resignation would be his honour, glory, and security. 'But, my dearest Lord, it would hurt me extremely if yours should be long delayed.' And indeed, Hardwicke, to the regret of all, consented to leave the woolsack and follow his friend. Newcastle was shrewd enough to know that under the existing conditions in Parliament he could scarcely fail soon to return to office. But Hardwicke did not return.

[Sidenote: Oct. 28, 1756.]

When the King was sure that Newcastle was really going, he sent for Fox and bade him try if Pitt would join him. 'The Duke of Newcastle whom you hate will retire,' said the Sovereign; 'try your hand and see what you can do with Pitt.'[356] Next day Fox went to the Prince's levee at Saville House, and engaged Pitt in close and animated conversation for some twenty minutes. 'Mr. Pitt exceeding grave, Mr. Fox very warm. They did not seem to part amicably.'[357] Of this talk a famous fragment survives, characteristic of political language in those days. 'Are you going to Stowe?' asked Fox. 'I ask because I believe you will have a message of consequence from people of consequence.' 'You surprise me,' answered Pitt, 'are you to be of the number?' 'I don't know,' said Fox, taken aback. 'One likes to say things to a man of sense,' rejoined Pitt, 'and to men of your great sense, rather than to others. And yet it is difficult even to you.' Fox caught his hint at once. 'What! You mean that you will not act with me as Minister.' 'I do,' replied Pitt. But a moment after he felt that he had been too abrupt, and expressed a courteous hope that Fox would take an active part, which his own health would not permit him to do.[358]

Was Pitt right in refusing the concurrence of Fox? On that question we must allow him to be the best judge, as it is obvious that he did not act in heat or passion, and that we cannot know the situation as he