with the Opposition of Fox and North. CHAP. VI. Commons, headed by such men as Fox, Burke, North, and Sheridan. The Parliamentary battle was suspended till after the Christmas holidays, but was then renewed with the utmost violence. Without waiting till the new Ministers had taken the oaths and their seats after re-election, Fox insisted on bringing forward a motion for a committee on the state of the nation; nor would he give Pitt's struggle way to the Minister, when the latter declared that he was charged with a message from the Crown. The great fear of the Opposition was, that Parliament would be dissolved; and as Pitt refused to enter into any positive engagement on this point, several resolutions were moved and carried against him. Regardless of these defeats, he brought forward his own plan for regulating the affairs of India (14th Jan., 1784), and was defeated on the second reading by a majority of 222 against 274. This small majority, however, gave him great encouragement, and to all Fox's demands for an answer on the dissolution, supported as they were by the menaces and entreaties of his followers, Pitt condescended no reply, meeting all attacks with passive resistance. A contest of resolutions now followed, all of them intended to compel the King to dismiss his Ministers, and recall the Coalition. In the midst of the conflict, a party of independent members attempted to bring about a union between the leading members of the late Government and those of the present; but as Pitt steadily refused to accede to its preliminary condition, that he should resign, the movement came to nothing. At length the Lords took part in the conflict, and adopted resolutions by large majorities, censuring the proceedings of the Commons, as tending to restrict the right of the Crown in the appointment of its Ministers. Manifestations of public opinion also began to take place. The Common Council of London resolved to present Pitt with the freedom of the City; the Grocers' Company invited him to a banquet, at which, Wilkes, the City Chamberlain, addressed him in complimentary language; the streets were illuminated, and his carriage was drawn home by the people. While the young Prime Minister was thus fêted and complimented, his great opponent was thrust out of a public meeting in Westminster, the city He is sup. ported by the King and the people. which he represented in Parliament; and throughout the country the municipal corporations sent up addresses in support of the new Government, and against the shameless factions which had laid aside their long animosities, for the purpose of uniting to coerce their Sovereign, and deprive him of his just rights. The Opposition nevertheless proceeded unchecked in their in their career; 1784 Opposition and they began to threaten the stoppage of supplies. This violent menace, however, alarmed the more moderate, and the numbers of the Opposition gradually diminished. On the 20th of February, an Address to the Crown similar to the resolutions and motions which had been daily recorded for weeks past, and all of them praying for the dismissal of the Ministers, was carried by 29; and a similar Address, on the 1st of March The was carried by 12. The King's answers to all these daily loses addresses were exactly in the same tone. He did not ground and think proper to dismiss his Ministers; he believed they beaten. had the confidence of the country, and the Ministers would not resign. At length on the 8th of March, an elaborate Remonstrance or Representation, drawn up by Burke, and moved by Fox, was carried by a majority of only one. The battle then terminated; the supplies were voted, and the Parliament was dissolved (25th March, 1784).* * Massey's George the Third, III., 84-96. is finally PERIOD OF GEORGE THE THIRD.-1760 to 1820. CHAPTER VII.—THE TWO ADMINISTRATIONS OF WILLIAM PITT.-1784 to 1805. SECTION I.-BEFORE THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 1.-PITT'S FINANCIAL MEASURES. First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer. Lord Chancellor. President of the Council. Secretaries of State Total defeat of the Rt. Hon. Hy. Dundas, Foreign-Lord Sydney, till 1789. 1791, who was then War and Colonies-Rt. Hon. Hy. Dundas, from 1794 only. First Lord of the Admiralty..........Lord Howe. 1. The King recovers his Power under Pitt's Administration.— The firmness with which Pitt had withstood the great Coalition majority gave time for public opinion to ripen in his favour, and when Parliament was dissolved, his popularity was at its height. His enemies were everywhere defeated, at the hustings; he himself was returned at the head of the poll for Cambridge; his friend Wilberforce, the son of a Hull merchant, carried the Whigs in the county of York against two Whig candidates of large fortune and high connections; Fox, though personally popular, had the greatest difficulty in regaining his seat at Westminster; and when the elections were over, the Coalition had lost one hundred and sixty members. For the first time in the course of seventy years, the Whigs were in a minority in the House of Commons, and the young Minister, whose appointment a few months before, had been greeted with shouts of derision, found himself in a position so triumphant that he could scarcely reckon his majorities. General Election of 1788. 1784 How Pitt was drawn his Whig principles. This unexampled success, however, of the now all-powerful Minister, contributed also to the triumph of the King, who had overcome and ruined a party which he hated, and had, in the possession of a strong Government, and a Minister in whom he confided, re-established the ascendancy of the Crown, which, for the next fifty years, prevailed over every other power in the State. Such results, brought about by the enthusiastic loyalty of the people, tended to exalt still higher the King's views of his prerogative; but his Minister had a will even stronger than his own, and while therefore he trusted that Minister and approved of his policy, he yielded to his superior intellect. Yet these royal predilections were not without influence on Pitt's conduct; away from and reared as he had been in the Whig school, he soon deserted the principles, as he was severed from the connections, of that party. Raised to power by royal favour, and maintained therein by prerogative, he naturally inclined towards prerogative and Toryism. His contests with Fox and the Whigs still further cemented his connection with the Court, and although his policy was wise and liberal until the French Revolution, his rule after that great outbreak became arbitrary and opposed to public liberty. Both King and Minister then laboured strenuously together for the repression of democratic movements at home and the support of monarchy abroad, paying little respect to the constitutional liberties of the people. Their joint rule, in fact, became absolute; opposition in Parliament was an idle form, and if beyond its walls the voice of complaint was raised, the arm of the law was strong and swift to silence it.* disciple of 2. Pitt's first Budget.-Pitt's chief supporters were the trading classes, and his first efforts as Prime Minister were directed to questions of commerce and finance, in which lay his great strength. While still an under-graduate at Cambridge he Pitt, a studied Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations," which was Adam published in 1776; and from that time forward adopted Smith. its principles, and now made them the groundwork of his policy. The rapid growth of manufactures by the inventions of Arkwright, Hargreaves and Crompton, in the cotton trade; the improvements of Wedgewood in pottery, and the application of steam as a new mechanical force, had given such an impetus to industry, and so largely augmented English wealth, that the knowledge of finance and its effects upon commercial progress, became essential May's Constitutional History, I., 86-90. Read Goldwin Smith's two lectures ("Three English Statesmen ") on these two distinct portions of Pitt's political life. F F His plans for reducing expenditure and increas ing income. CHAP. VII. to a great minister. Pitt therefore applied himself with ardour to these questions, and the measures which he adopted are among his greatest triumphs. When he entered office, public credit was at its lowest ebb; the American war had left a floating debt of fourteen millions; Exchequer Bills were at 20 discount; Consols at 56; and the Customs were so laid on, that the smuggling trade in tea was double the lawful trade in amount. The pupil of Adam Smith soon set all this right. By applying the principle which he was the first to grasp that reduction of duties will increase revenue by increasing consumption -he transferred the gains of the smugglers to the national exchequer, and thus rendered his trade unprofitable. He did away at the same time with a number of places in the Customs and Excise, and thereby not only reduced the national expense, but also stanched some of the sources of corruption. And in order to bring income to a level with expenditure he boldly imposed increased taxation, in which the rich were made to contribute to the revenue in respect of horses, licences to kill game, gold and silver plate, and the general public on account of candles, bricks, paper, higher rates of postage, and increased window duties. 3. Pitt's India Bill.-A bill to relieve the East India Company of its financial embarrassments preceded the India Bill which Pitt introduced after his budget. This measure substantially deprived the Company of its political power, but was not open to the same objections as that which the late Govern ment had constructed. It preserved in appearance, the political and commercial powers of the Directors; the Government of India was still to be administered in the name of the Company; and the Directors were left to dispose of all civil and military appointments except those of the commanderin-chief, and the higher functionaries, whose offices were to be filled subject to the approval of the Crown. But the Directors were now to be superintended by a Board of Control formed of members of the Privy Council. As the President of this new ministerial department was virtually a new Indian Secretary, responsible like his fellow ministers for his conduct to Parliament, the administration of India became a part of the general system of the English Government, and as such continued until the great Eastern dependency was erected into an Empire, under the direct control of the British Sovereign, as Empress of India. The partition of power between the Crown and the Company, which was the main feature of this Bill, afforded the Opposition an abundant theme for censure; but the Bill passed the Commons by a majority of 271 against 60; while in the Lords there was neither an amendment nor a division. The Session closed on 20th August. * See Greene's Short History, 768. + Goldwin Smith's "Three English Statesmen." Massey, III., 1 11-112. 139. |