224

PITT'S" BROAD-BOTTOM" GOVERNMENT.

or none;" Lord Scarborough and Mr. Dowdeswell were so offended by the imperiousness of his tone that they declined to take office. His vast popularity, his brilliant successes, and his consciousness of superior powers had fostered in him an imprudent arrogance, which a judgment weakened by disease failed to control.

The Ministry at length was complete. It has been extravagantly represented as the most extraordinary composite the world had ever seen. But, as a matter of fact, it consisted of some of the best men of the old Government reinforced by Pitt's friends and followers. The Duke of Grafton was placed at the head of the Treasury; the Marquis of Granby at the head of the Army. Lord Camden was made Chancellor; Lord Shelburne and General Conway Secretaries of State. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was Charles Townshend. Pitt, the chief Minister, took the privy seal, and, at the same time, parted with his popularity by removing to the Upper House as Earl of Chatham; though why this natural step should have excited so much odium it is difficult to understand.* Pitt, in his 60th year, and broken down in constitution, was unequal to the laborious duties of the House of Commons. But the nation had loved and trusted him as the Great Commoner, whose genius had awed senates and struck

1

* The French Minister, the Duc de Choiseul wrote to Guerchy, the French Ambassador at London:· Nous ne pouvons comprendre ici quel a été le dessein de My Lord Chatham en quittant la Chambre des Communes. Il nous paroissoit que toute sa force consistoit dans sa continuation dans cette Chambre, et il pourroit bien se trouver comme Sampson après qu'on lui eût coupé les cheveux."

A PIECE OF MOSAIC.

225

terror into King's councils. When he assumed a coronet and stood forward as the chosen of the Crown, a sudden and most unreasonable revulsion of feeling took place. He was compared to Pulteney, who, in like manner, had betrayed the people for the sake of an Earldom. The shops were filled with caricatures, and the press teemed with invectives and calumnies.

The Chatham administration was strong in debating power, and rich in practical ability. No Cabinet could be formed with men of greater intellectual eminence than Pitt, Camden, Shelburne, Townshend. And there was good reason to suppose that its somewhat heterogeneous materials might be fused into an harmonious whole by the dominant genius of its chief. Yet there can be no doubt that it was, from the outset, distasteful to the country. It was felt that Chatham's selection of men had been made on no definite principle. As Burke with elaborate exaggeration describes it, "He had put together a piece of joinery so crossly indented and whimsically dove-tailed; a cabinet so variously inlaid ; such a piece of diversified mosaic; such a tesselated pavement without cement; here a bit of black stone, and there a bit of white; patriots and courtiers; King's friends and Republicans; Whigs and Tories; treacherous friends and open enemies; that it was indeed a very curious show; but utterly unsafe to touch and unsure to stand on. assorted at the same

The colleagues whom he had board stared at each other and were obliged to askSir, your name ?-Sir, you have the advantage of me,Mr. Such-a-one-I beg a thousand pardons. I venture to say it did so happen that persons had a single office 15

VOL. I.

226 INTERNAL DIFFICULTIES OF THE CABINET.

divided between them who had never spoken to each other in their lives." The motley character of the Ministry, however, might have proved no insurmountable difficulty, and its chief might have retrieved his influence over the country, had he preserved any of his old discretion, or shown a disposition to confide in the colleagues he had chosen. But his dictatorial tone was not less offensive to them than to the people. In a few months he had grievously offended and driven from office four members of the Rockingham Government who had been induced to retain their posts, and whose services were undeniably valuable: Admirals Saunders and Keppel at the Admiralty, the Duke of Portland as Lord Chamberlain, and the Earl of Bessborough as Postmaster. His dictatorship was strongly satirised by a correspondent in the 'Public Advertiser,' who assumed the nom de plume of Whittington.'* He says:

"The author's spite [referring to the well-known 'Short Account of a late Short Administration] against the Right Hon. William, Earl of Chatham, in the county of Kent, Viscount Pynsent, in the county of Somerset, appears, when he says, "they (the late ministers) were removed by a plan settled by that nobleman." How little expressive of his operation is the word settled! when we know full well, that, when only a great commoner, he refused to be responsible for any measures which he did not absolutely guide. The accountant, therefore, should have said dictated by the Earl of Chatham, as more suitable to his character, and

*This was either Edmund Burke, or his brother Richard.

ATTACK UPON CHATHAM.

227

to real facts, as is confirmed by the inquiry just published, as 'tis said by his quondam friend Earl Temple.

"Those two cronies, it seems, quarrelled about dictation; and the very man who a few years ago was glad to play Bowman to the great commoner at a city feast, stooping and rising for half an hour together, like the Chelsea water-works, on this occasion stood straight as a maypole, and refused bowing either to him, or for him, in the front of the stage, while he sat skulking in a side-box.

"On the whole it is next to scandalum magnatum to allege that the Earl of Chatham did anything less than dictate the late changes. He has, once more, deigned to take the reins of Government in his own hand, and will, no doubt, drive with his wonted speed, and raise a deal of dust around him. His horses are all matched to his mind; but as some of them are young and skittish, it is said he has adopted the new contrivance lately exhibited by Sir Francis Delaval on Westminster Bridge; whenever they begin to snort, and toss up their heads, he touches the spring, throws them loose, and away they go, leaving his Lordship safe and snug, and as much at ease as if he sat upon a wool-pack."

The first important measure of the Chatham Ministry was designed to meet the distress caused by an excessive scarcity of provisions. A proclamation was issued prohibiting the exportation of grain and the use of wheat for the purpose of distillation. This proceeding, when Parliament met, was violently attacked as unconstitutional, and defended by the Government as absolutely

228

THE EAST INDIA COMPANY.

necessary.

Ultimately all concerned in the embargo were protected by an act of indemnity. Chatham's first words in the House of Peers were uttered on this occasion, and were marked by much calmness and dignity. In a subsequent speech his imperious temper reasserted itself; and he addressed the Peers with a vehemence to which they were unaccustomed, and a superciliousness which they resented. Shortly afterwards, he resolved on bringing before Parliament the subject of the increasing territorial acquisitions of the East India Company (1767). But instead of confiding his intentions to his colleagues,† to Townshend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or General Conway, the leader of the Commons, he selected as his mouthpiece the vulgar and illiterate demagogue, Aldermam Beckford, whose name has descended to posterity on the strength of an insolent speech to his King which he did not deliver. The motion submitted, for examining into the state of the East India Company, was carried by 129 to 76; but it united against the Ministry all the Company's friends. The excitement was general; but the Minister who had provoked it, who was once so ready to ride upon the whirlwind and direct the storm, suddenly withdrew to Bath, where he occupied himself in endeavours to engage the support of the Bedfords and the Newcastles. After awhile the world heard that he was

* Camden, the Chancellor, incautiously turmed it "at most a forty days' tyranny."

He made his views known to Lord Shelburne, however, and accepted the latter's suggestions. The two statesmen desired to establish a firmer Parliamentary control over the Company, but were opposed by Charles Townshend.