QUESTIONABLE CONDUCT OF PITT.

further, desired that it might be dropped. He immediately announced his intention of supporting the new Ministry, and his expectation that his friends would follow his example.

Pitt's conduct throughout this transaction is open to grave observation. His readiness in March to make the most ample concession to the King's prejudice, or infirmity, upon a point to which, in February, he attached paramount importance, is not explained by any disclosures which have yet seen the light. Nothing had happened in this short interval to justify so great a change in Mr. Pitt's conduct. The King's illness was a circumstance wholly irrelevant. In February, when the King was well, Mr. Pitt announced his deliberate determination to resign, unless he was permitted to bring forward the Catholic question, with His Majesty's 'full concurrence, and with the whole weight of Government.' He did resign, in consequence of this permission having been withheld; his successor was named; and the new Cabinet was in the course of formation, when the King fell ill. But, in three weeks the King was well again-as well, at least, so far as his mind was affected, as he had been in February, or, at any time since 1789. Yet Mr. Pitt was now ready to give up absolutely, and for ever, the Catholic question; and proposed to annul arrangements which had been made in

Letter to the King, 31st January.

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572

1801

PITT'S TERGIVERSATION.

Ch. 41. consequence of his own act, and with his entire approval. The grave considerations which, at this juncture, would have caused a prudent and patriotic Minister to pause before he stirred a question calculated to endanger the stability of his Government still existed, but had not become more urgent. On the other hand, nothing had happened to diminish the force of the Catholic claims. What was Pitt's position with regard to the Catholic question? It has already been shown, on undisputed proof, that, in the autumn of 1799, the Irish Minister was authorised to 'solicit every support the Catholics could afford, to the great measure of the Legislative Union; that the Cabinet was favourable to these pretensions; and, that, if no assurance was distinctly given them, in the event of the Union being accomplished, of these objects being submitted with the countenance of the Government to the United Parliament,' it was only from the consideration, that a positive pledge might offend the Protestants, that a positive pledge was withheld.g Yet Mr. Pitt seems to have been of opinion, that this engagement, of which he had received the full benefit, was satisfied, so far as he was concerned, by the formal resignation of his office when the King refused to sanction the promised measure; and that he was at liberty to resume office the next day, with or without his colleagues, and upon a positive pledge, to renounce the policy which he Lord Castlereagh's letter to Mr. Pitt, 1st January, 1800.

ABOUT THE CATHOLIC CLAIMS.

had, only a few short weeks before, declared to
his Sovereign, to be dictated by his unalterable
If such conduct as this is

sense of public duty.'
to be justified, on the ground that Mr. Pitt was
under no express compact with the Catholics, I
know not what species of engagement is binding
upon public men. A minister cannot make a
contract like a broker; and his performance
should be judged with candour and liberality. But
when he seeks to avail himself of a colourable pre-
text, to get rid of an obligation, of which all the
benefit has been received, and the burden only
remains, it is difficult to understand how his con-
duct can be reconciled with morality and good
faith. Had Pitt adhered to his resignation, he
might, at some future period, have resumed office
unembarrassed by the Catholic question. He had
not undertaken to bring forward the question at
any particular time. The Catholics were not
impatient. Relying on the sincerity of their
powerful friend, to whose word they had given
implicit confidence, they left it to him to choose
the opportunity, the means, and even the terms,
of their emancipation. If it had been found in
1804, that the difficulty which had disappointed
their hopes in 1801, was still in existence, and
undiminished; that the attempt to advance their
claims at that time, would cause a Regency, if not
a demise of the Crown; that the country had

Letter to the King, February 3rd.-Earl STANHOPE's Life of
Pitt, App. xxx.

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Ch. 41.

1801

Addington
Premier.

PITT'S RESIGNATION ACCEPTED.

become decidedly adverse to them; in a word, that no minister, however powerful, could hope to urge the question forward with a chance of success; the Catholics were not so perverse as to expect that their friends should stay out, and that their enemies should be kept in, by a useless perseverance in an untimely policy. Whatever might have been the prospects of the Catholic Question in 1801, if the King had not interposed an obstacle, it is certain that it could not have been carried in 1804; and, therefore, Pitt might have returned to office in that year, absolved from the engagement which had attached to his former Administration. But, to break up a Government in February, because Catholic Emancipation was indispensable, and to offer to reconstruct it in March, on the principle of Catholic exclusion, was to trifle with the King, to trifle with public men, and to trifle with a great question.

Addington, then, having declined to be made a Minister one day and to be unmade the next at the caprice of Mr. Pitt, it only remained that the new arrangements should be formally completed. On the 14th of March, a council was held, at which Mr. Pitt resigned the seals of office, and they were delivered by his Majesty to Mr. Addington, who thus became First Lord of the Treasury, and Chancellor of the Exchequer. Lord Hawkesbury succeeded Lord Grenville at the Foreign Office. Lord Hobart was appointed to the War Department in the room of Windham. Lord Lewisham

DOWNFALL OF LOUGHBOROUGH.

replaced Dundas at the India Board, Earl St. Vincent succeeded Earl Spencer at the Admiralty. The Duke of Portland, Lord Chatham, and Lord Westmorland remained in office. Lord Eldon was Chancellor. Loughborough's fate is remarkable enough to point a moral. The last thing which this deep politician could have anticipated as the result of his own intrigues, was his own exclusion from office. He thought he had certainly made the King his friend for life by betraying the counsels of his colleagues, and by making himself the tool of a prejudice which he despised alike for its honesty and its folly. When he found that he was not consulted in the new arrangements, he had the assurance to write to the King, urging him to continue Pitt in office, and to rely upon the generosity of Mr. Pitt's mind.' When the Regency was imminent, Loughborough hurried off to Fox, with whom he had long ceased to have any but casual communication. In any event, therefore, he had made provision for his own safety. The manner of his dismissal was mortifying in the extreme. Addington informed him, that the arrangements which he proposed to make with reference to the legal appointments rendered it necessary that his lordship should give up the Great Seal. To be dismissed by Addington was humiliation enough. But to be told that his services were not required in a Cabinet which contained no man of half his ability, was a significant intimation that, in the opinion of the respect

575

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