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 2000l. a year, with permission to remain Attorney-General at a salary of 7000l. 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 6000l. 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.

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 3½ 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.

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 youOct. 28, 1756. 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 did. To us now, viewing the poverty of his following and the useful abilities of Fox, it would seem that he made a palpable mistake. Fox would have taken the second place; as a matter of fact he was content to subside into the gilded subordination of the Paymastership. His talents as a debater were second only to Pitt's with the possible exception of Charles Townshend's; but Townshend was only a shooting star, and did not, like Fox, represent the important influence of Cumberland. Fox would have fought stolidly for the side he espoused; he had a leaning to Pitt, and shared Pitt's detestation of Newcastle, who was the common enemy. But Pitt evidently had determined that he must sever himself entirely from Newcastle and Newcastle's Minister in the House of Commons. On both these rested the taint of corruption and national disaster. He must, if he was to keep the confidence of the country, cut himself clear from these personalities and their traditions. He could estimate the weight of odium which rested upon them, which we cannot. He had all the facts of the case before him, which we have not. He knew, what we do not know for certain but cannot doubt, that Leicester House made the exclusion of Fox or of Cumberland in any form a condition of cordial support. He realised the weakness of his own parliamentary position, he well understood the value of Fox's co-operation, but he also knew the temper of the nation, and so we cannot doubt that he came to the right decision.

In any case Fox was not to blame. He offered, and we think cordially offered, to co-operate with Pitt, and, indeed, serve under Pitt. Public spirit perhaps was not his main motive. He did not, he confessed, feel equal to the principal place. He had written in July: 'Though I see how fatally things are going, as I don't know how to mend them, I am not unreasonable enough to wish for what I could not conduct.'[359] And things were much worse now. Moreover, he saw, as others saw, that it was only the combination of himself with Pitt that could keep out Newcastle. But in public affairs the best and fairest course is not to analyse motives. He made the offer, he made it sincerely, and must have the credit of it.

But Pitt was inflexible. Those who had made him feel the weight of their proscription should feel the weight of his. Fox would have liked to be Paymaster. In that subordinate but opulent post he would have been content to give support. But Pitt would have none of him. He refused him this slight favour on the mysterious ground that it 'would be too like Mr. Pelham in 1742.'[360] He would not touch Fox or Newcastle.

The day after Fox's conversation with Pitt at the levee, the King sent for Devonshire, and bade him form a Ministry. This Duke was now Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and Fox's closest friend. The King probably hoped in this way to bring about the union between Pitt and Fox, which almost every one desired, save Pitt himself. Pitt himself had nominated Devonshire, but without consulting him, in the interviews with Hardwicke. Devonshire had written to Fox in approval of the resignation as soon as he had heard of it. Five days afterwards he wrote again: 'If my friendship or assistance can be of any use you can command me,' and went on to say, 'Nothing has hurt Mr. Pitt so much as his having shown the world that in order to gratify his resentment and satisfy his ambition he did not value the confusion or distress that he might throw this country into. This I own has in some degree altered the good opinion I had of him.'[361] Devonshire therefore did not seem a propitious Prime Minister for Pitt. But dukes counted for much in those days. No one can read the history of those times without seeing the vast importance attributed to forgotten princes like Marlborough, Bedford, and Devonshire.

Fox soon quarrelled with Devonshire. He considered that Devonshire had abandoned him. The Duke had been his confidential friend, and had left him to help Pitt, and act as Pitt's figurehead. At first he affected to approve. But his wrath only smouldered. On one of the eternal questions of patronage it broke out. Fox wrote to him a note of real dignity and pathos. 'The Duke of Bedford has just now told me that Mr. John Pitt is to kiss hands to-morrow for Mr. Phillipson's place;' (promised, according to Fox, to his friend Hamilton). 'Consider, my Lord, everything that has pass'd, and do not drive me from you. I neither mean to do you harm, nor can do you harm if you think. But Your Grace's own reflections will not please you when you have done so.'[362] Devonshire was a weak man, but he was unconscious of blame and was deeply hurt. Political friendships, when paths diverge, are more difficult to maintain than men themselves realise at the moment of separation.

Devonshire was now sent to Pitt in the country,[363] but found that his terms were such as the King could not be brought to accept. He positively declined association with Fox in any shape, but deigned to apologise to the Duke for having nominated him without previous consultation. It was necessary, he said, to place some great lord there to whom the Whigs would look up, and his partiality had made him presume to suggest his Grace.[364]

Then the King, refusing Pitt's terms, and aware that he had been misinformed as to Fox's language about Bute, sent for Fox and offered him the government. 'I was never dishonest, rash, or mad enough for half an hour to think of undertaking it,' says Fox.[365] And again, 'I am not capable of it,' and goes on to give the reason. 'Richelieu, were he alive, could not guide the councils of a nation, if (which would be my case) he could not from November to April have above two hours in the four-and-twenty to think of anything but the House of Commons.'[366] If that were Fox's need in 1756, it is difficult to imagine the kind of physical and intellectual combination that he would have thought adequate to the stress of affairs in the twentieth century. But in spite of Fox's private opinion thus expressed, his friend Walpole records that he offered at the worst to take the Treasury and go to the Tower if it would save his Sovereign from having 'his head shaved.' 'Ah!' replied the King with his usual shrewdness, 'if you go to the Tower I shall not be long behind you.'[367]

Then the distracted monarch, at the instigation of Fox, tried the fatal expedient of an Assembly of Notables, and summoned all the leading nobles and commoners who were at hand to meet at Devonshire House.[368] But this meeting never took place, for Devonshire postponed or got rid of it. It was to have recommended that Devonshire should have the Treasury, Fox the Exchequer, and Legge be content with a peerage. Pitt himself was to have the seals, with carte blanche for his other friends and dependents. Temple was to be First Lord of the Admiralty.[369]

Fox declares that Devonshire put an end to this plan by positively refusing the Treasury.[370] Holdernesse sent word to Newcastle that les Renardins (the followers of Fox) were less sanguine.[371] And indeed, on November 4, the day after that fixed for the assembly, Devonshire went in to the King and came out from his audience having accepted the Treasury. Bubb says that he stipulated for Fox as Chancellor of the Exchequer.[372] This is at least doubtful. 'This question,' Fox afterwards wrote, 'I beg may be asked: whether at the time his Grace did take it with Legge I was not pressing him strongly to another thing, viz., to offer to take it with me. I pressed this even to ill-humour at his own house with Grenville at night. He refused absolutely, and the next morning what he would not take with me he took with Legge.'[373] This would seem conclusive, were it not that Bubb evidently had his information from Fox at the time; but politicians are prone to illusions on the subject of office. In any case, Devonshire left the Closet First Lord of the Treasury with Legge as Chancellor of the Exchequer; the man with whom two days before he had refused under any circumstances to serve,[374] and whom the King had absolutely refused to take. Fox and Bedford were in the anteroom as he came out, and were thunderstruck. Bedford broke into passionate expostulation; Fox scented an intrigue. However, the deed was done.[375]

Fox says that Devonshire offered him, and he refused, the Pay Office.[376] This is difficult to believe, and does not accord with his other statements that he had offered to serve in a subordinate capacity and been refused. Moreover, it was the office for which he always hankered, with its vast profits and safe obscurity, as compared with the Spartan frugality and dangerous prominence of the Secretaryship of State.[377]

As to the intrigue, Fox's instinct did not deceive him. The fact was that Horace Walpole, having heard of the scheme of the Notables, saw at once that it must put an end to the new arrangement, as it was one that Pitt could not accept. Walpole feared no doubt that, in case of failure, Newcastle, the object of his special detestation, might return to office. So he sent his cousin Conway to alarm the Duke of Devonshire, who consequently suppressed the meeting, and who went himself, as we have seen, to the King to accept office.[378] Horace might well pique himself on his powers of intrigue or duplicity, for a week before he had spontaneously written to Fox to say that he heard that the King and Lady Yarmouth were persuaded that Fox would not take the Treasury, but he hoped they were wrong.[379]

The new First Lord of the Treasury may have resisted having Legge as his Chancellor of the Exchequer, but was easily overborne. What is more difficult to understand is the King's nominating Legge, whom he detested. It was a rude shock for Fox, who had planned the meeting of Notables and framed the scheme it was to advise. Henceforth he controlled himself no more, and became the sleepless enemy of the new administration, which can be no matter of surprise. Pitt had made his total exclusion as absolute a condition as that of Newcastle, and Fox after his warm offers of co-operation and assistance could not but be bitterly mortified. He believed, perhaps justly, that the proscription laid on him proceeded from Leicester House.[380] Henceforth during the short life of the new government he plotted and planned against it, inspiring 'The Test,' a new paper under an old designation, with venomous articles, and ready to form alternative administrations at a moment's notice.[381]

One great difficulty, the King's repugnance to Legge, had been surmounted one does not know how; but there were still minor obstacles. The whole arrangement was odious to the Sovereign: he could not bear even to turn the first page of Devonshire's appointments. Pitt, who was to succeed Newcastle in the Southern department, wished to exchange this for the Northern. The King objected, for the Northern department included Hanover, and Pitt eventually yielded. The new Secretary, as we have seen, wished for Sir Thomas Robinson, his old butt, as a colleague, on the singular ground that he knew nothing of the office he was undertaking, and required Sir Thomas's guidance.[382] Pitt had compared Robinson to a jack-boot; but personal opinions vary according to points of view; Sir Thomas might be contemptible as a leader, but useful as a dry-nurse. Holdernesse however remained. Then over every petty office, coffererships, masterships of the Wardrobe, keeperships of the jewels, treasurerships of the Household, there was snarling and struggling as of dogs over bones. Bedford was secured as Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, mainly, it would appear, through the agency of Fox, who wished to secure as many ministerial posts as possible for his friends, and who was in hopes that the Duke would traverse Pitt. Bedford cared little for office; perhaps not much for Fox. His political passions were inspired by his personal hatreds, of Newcastle now, as later of Pitt.[383] But Fox, aided by the Duchess's ambition, prevailed. Amid these changes one provokes a smile; Bubb was as usual dismissed.

But the greatest and most grotesque disability lay with Pitt himself. After all his struggles to be in the position of forming a Ministry, he had no Ministry to produce. He could not fill a fraction of the offices. His personal followers, all told, hardly exceeded a dozen. When he had provided for the Grenvilles, Potter, and Legge, he had scarcely any one to name. So this Ministry was doomed from the beginning. Pamphleteers could not fail to observe Pitt's predicament. One lampoon, in the form of a royal degree, 'Given at our imperial seat at Hayes,' and countersigned 'John Thistle,' (a premature allusion to Bute), sets forth: 'We will that you give lucrative employments to all Our Brethren, uncles, cousins, relations and namesakes.'[384] Outside this category Pitt's subordinates were mostly the friends of Newcastle or Fox, and so his secret enemies, or waiters upon Providence who were not sufficiently sure of his stability to call themselves his friends. Holdernesse, Pitt's colleague in the Secretaryship of State, and Barrington, Secretary for War, kept Newcastle fully informed of all that went on in the administration and of all that they knew. Holdernesse also sent abstracts of the despatches that came from abroad.[385] So that Pitt was betrayed from the first. Ministries formed by one man seldom last long under another. But Ministries which pass between two declared enemies have not from the beginning any chance of life. This one was stillborn.

Pitt himself lay ill with the gout at Hayes; so he had to leave his affairs to be managed by a little clique in London, of which Temple of course was the chief, and which was in close communion with Leicester House. For every day Leicester House waxed and Kensington Palace waned in importance, as the King advanced in years. Nothing in the history of those days is more difficult to trace and yet nothing is more significant than this invisible Court of the Heir-Apparent, which was felt rather than seen, but towards which courtiers kept one anxious eye during their dutiful attendance on the King. All felt that the centre of power was shifting thither, and the uneasiness of those who wished to be well with both Courts was manifest and irrepressible. The constant anxiety of Fox to be Paymaster was largely due to his desire to be sheltered from the hatred of the young Court in the reign that seemed imminent. All this could not but increase the jealousy and irritability of the old Sovereign, at a time when he was undergoing a new Ministry most repulsive to him. Distasteful as it was in almost every respect, what was perhaps most abhorrent was the consciousness that it was imposed upon him by his daughter-in-law and her favourite, that it rested on their support, and was indeed the Ministry of George III. rather than of George II.

Bute was the object of the King's chief detestation, a righteous aversion if his suspicions were well founded; and Bute was now undisguisedly prominent in the negotiations for the new Government. The King treated Temple and his friends so ill at the levee, that the injured nobleman went to Devonshire to say that he feared he could not proceed a step further in the negotiations. On this mission he was accompanied by Bute, for the purpose, apparently, of making the world realise that Leicester House and all its influence were behind Pitt. And Bute availed himself of this opportunity to make use of 'expressions so transcendently obliging to us,' writes Temple, 'and so decisive of the determined purposes of Leicester House towards us in the present or any future day, that your lively imagination cannot suggest to you a wish beyond them.' By Temple, too, he sent word to Pitt that he could not advise, that he left all to Pitt, determined to support and approve whatever Pitt decided.[386] This was the one element of strength to the new Government, besides Pitt himself. And yet, so elusive was this mysterious Court, that in September the town had been ringing with the coolness of Pitt's reception at Leicester House, more especially by Bute.[387] The fact is that there had evidently been a coldness, but that the fall of Newcastle had brought the two together again.[388]

After Devonshire had kissed hands on November 4 there were however few difficulties. Temple's cold reception at Court, on the very day of Newcastle's resignation, which had made him declare with his usual arrogance to Devonshire that all was over, was only a passing incident, due to the fact that the King could not abide the very sight of Temple. Pitt no doubt counselled moderation from Hayes, not desiring to lose the fruit of so many years for a slight to his relative. And so, a week after Temple's fiery declaration to Devonshire, the new Board of Admiralty was gazetted with Temple at its head. Three days before, the Board of Treasury had been declared with Devonshire and Legge as its chiefs. One Grenville was included in this. For George Grenville and Potter treasurerships and paymasterships were found. There were indeed but few traces of Pitt's small connection in the Government. He, still an invalid, received his seals a little later. He had also to change hisDec. 4, 1756. seat. He could not condescend to be re-elected for Newcastle's borough of Aldborough; indeed, he had held it too long. Nor indeed would Newcastle nominate him.[389] So now he accepted an olive branch from Lyttelton, who shared the control of Okehampton with the Duke of Bedford, and generously named his old friend and recent foe.[390] It may have been that Pitt was desirous of cutting the last link with Newcastle before entering upon office, and had deferred receiving the seals till he was independent. Be that as it may, he was only to hold them four months. During most of that time he was ill, during all of it he was surrounded by conspiracies, and he was soon intrigued out of office, though he never actually vacated it. But his short term had taught him one priceless lesson; that genius and public spirit were not enough, that a practical and even sordid leaven was required, and that if he would not do the necessary work of political adjustment himself, he must find somebody to do it for him, or give up all idea of being a powerful Minister.

It has been thought well to narrate at length the circumstances of the final breakdown of the King's veto on Pitt's accession to office and the struggle which preceded it; partly because some of the documents are new, partly because it is a curious picture of character and intrigue, partly because it is the fifth and culminating act of this long drama.