 Section 6 of Charles James Fox by Henry Offley Wakeman. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Pamela Nagami. Chapter 3. The Fall of Lord North. Part 2. So it was with the American War. Had Parliament truly represented the educated opinion of the country, it is doubtful whether the great name and influence of Lord Chatham would not finally have predominated over the sense of outraged dignity and of legal right, and have in the end saved the country from war at all. It is certain that after the failure of the policy of coercion had become patent to all, and the alteration of public opinion in the country had made itself felt, it would have been perfectly impossible for the King and Lord North to have pursued their destructive course. As long as the ministerial majority was safe, Burke might reclaim, and Fox might demonstrate, and associations all over the country might meet and protest, but what cared the ministers? Parliament was the authoritative voice of the country, and Parliament was with them. Lord North was never tired of asserting that the war was the war of Parliament and not of himself, that he had Parliamentary authority for all that he had done, a useless boast indeed to those who knew the secrets of the Treasury, and that a Parliamentary majority followed his nod as certainly as the thunder followed that of Zeus. But there comes a point when even the most servile majority of an unrepresentative Parliament finds the strain of party allegiance too severe, and that point was reached when the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown became known in November 1781. Oh God, it is all over, cried Lord North, wringing his hands when he heard it. It was not the loss of office that broke down his accustomed imperturbability. Those who accused Lord North of a mere desire to stick to his place, as Fox did more than once, in the heat of debate, much misjudged him. Again and again he hadn't treated to be allowed to retire. Again and again he had weakly consented to go on. For years he had foreseen the catastrophe which had now come, but like most indolent men he had hoped against hope. The brave struggle at sea against the combined fleets of France and Spain had cheered him. The good news sent home by Clinton and Cornwallis at the beginning of the year had enabled him to deaden his conscience with the thought that after all some brilliant victory might yet atone for the disgrace of the past. When the blow came it came with all the force of a surprise and for the moment crushed him. In the general consternation there was one brave heart which never faltered, one iron will which never flagged, one keen mind which at once began to scheme how the disaster might be retrieved. It is impossible not to admire the granite steadfastness of the King. Had it been exercised in a better cause, how posterity would have delighted to recall the simple phrases with which he nailed his colors to the mast. Lord North's account that the address was carried this morning by a considerable majority is very pleasing to me as it shows the house retains that spirit for which this nation has always been renowned and which alone can preserve it in its difficulties. That some principal members have wavered in their sentiments as to the measures to be pursued does not surprise me. Many men choose rather to despond on difficulties than to see how to get out of them. With the assistance of Parliament I do not doubt if measures are well connected a good end may yet be made to this war, but if we despond certain ruin ensues. The nation, true to the King's wish, did not despond, but it was determined no longer to tolerate the ministers who had led it so far along the path of destruction. George III struggled on bravely, fighting gamely to the end, but he only postponed and could not avert the catastrophe. In January 1782 Lord George Germain was sacrificed. On February 7th a vote of censure moved by Fox upon Lord Sandwich was negative by a majority of only 22. On the 22nd General Conway lost the motion in favor of putting an end to the war by only one vote. On the 27th the motion was renewed in the form of a resolution and carried by a majority of nineteen. Still the King would not give his consent to Lord North's resignation. Rather than commit himself to the opposition he seriously thought of abdicating his crown and retiring to Hanover. I am resolved, he writes on March 17th, not to throw myself into the hands of opposition at all events, and shall certainly, if things go on as they seem to lead, know what my conscience as well as honor dictates as the only way left for me. Indeed, if it had not been for his large family and the character of the Prince of Wales, already too well known, it is far from improbable that he would have carried this idea into execution and retired from a government of which he was no longer master. By the 20th, however, even George III saw that the game could not be kept up any longer. He gave permission to Lord North to announce his resignation and parted with him with the characteristic words, Remember, my Lord, it is you who desert me, not I who desert you. Of those who contributed most in Parliament to discredit the American policy of the King, undoubtedly the most prominent by far were Shelburne, Burke and Fox. Each of them represents not only a different section of the Whig Party, but a different type of political capacity. Shelburne showed the greatest cleverness. Burke, the strongest grasp of political principle. Fox, the most practical ability. Shelburne, after some vicissitudes, had attached himself closely to Chatham, and after the death of Chatham was looked upon as the leader of his section of the Whig Party. Up to the end he effected to believe that peace with the colonies was possible without acknowledging their independence, and partly because of this view, and partly because of his deferential manners which contrasted favorably with Chatham's affectation and Rockingham's bluntness, he was more acceptable to the King than any other of the opposition leaders. He did not speak often in the House of Lords, and when he did speak, preferred subjects which required the exposition and application of political principles rather than vigorous attacks upon opponents. On all financial subjects he was an acknowledged authority, was a student of Adam Smith, and not only a firm believer in free trade, but one of the first statesmen who wished to put his principles into practice. An Irish landlord himself, he strongly supported the Irish nationalist movement of 1782, and would willingly have seen trenchant reforms carried out in Irish administration in both church and state. In religion his conduct was more dictated by prejudice than by conviction. Like so many men of the 18th century he sat very loosely to doctrine, valued religion more as a useful moral force than as having any positive merits of its own, was a great friend of the financier and congregationalist minister Dr. Price and entrusted to him the education of his children. In morality he was far above the level of most of his contemporaries, and it is recorded of him as a strange and startling fact that he was not a game-ster. Vigorous in mind, laborious in method, and well disciplined in life, Shelburne seemed to have the world before him, yet never was a man of his ability who was a greater political failure. The one fault with him, as with Charles Fox, was a moral one, but of a very different sort. The studied elaboration of his phrases, the unctuous courtesy of his manner, the affected deference of his address, betrayed instead of concealing the utter insincerity of his heart. His conscience twisted like an eel, it eluded all pursuit, it could not be grasped. His nickname among the satirists was Malagrida, the name of a well-known Portuguese Jesuit. My Lord, said Goldsmith to him one day reflectively, I always wondered why they called you Malagrida, he was a good man. There was no one who was engaged for long in business with Shelburne who did not believe that he had been betrayed by him. Henry Fox, Gratton, Charles Fox openly accused him of double dealing. Pitt served him most loyally in 1783, but significantly left him out of his ministry in 1784 when he was sorely in need of talent. There was a total want of English straightforwardness about him, a complete absence of bonomy and simplicity. The antithesis of Charles Fox, his character suffered from over-elaboration and too much thought and was wanting in the healthier instincts of frank, reckless boyhood which made the others so easy to condemn and so easy to forgive. Edmund Burke will ever remain the most familiar figure and the greatest problem among the statesmen of the eighteenth century. The thin gaunt frame, the keen eager face with its sharp-pointed nose and large rimmed spectacles, are as well known to all from the pages of Gilray as is the heavy, swarthy, farmer-like figure of Fox. He had read more and he had thought more on political subjects before he entered Parliament than his colleagues had done when they ended their political life. He was a philosopher first and a politician afterwards yet his philosophy was never purely academic. He insisted always on bringing his general statements to some practical conclusion. He loved to lay down great and abiding political principles and to move on in stately order to their application but never did he forget, like so many philosophers, to come to the application eventually. Gifted with a brilliant imagination and a tenacious memory, consumed by an enthusiasm which was at times quite oppressive in its heat, his oratory, when he was at his best, was simply irresistible. He carried his hearers away like Demosthenes by the richness and the power of his declamation. Criticism was disarmed and was content simply to listen and to admire the grandeur of his mind. When he was at his worst, his speeches were but the ravings of a madman. Horace Walpole said, most justly of him, of all the politicians of talent that I ever knew, Burke has the least political art. When he was on his legs, he knew nothing except his subject. He did not shine as a debater. He could not endure interruptions. He never knew when the house was getting tired until it began to show its dissatisfaction in a way which made him irritable. Jealous, sensitive, excitable, unreasonable, he was the worst of friends as well as the worst of enemies. No one did more to keep apart the friends of Rockingham and of Chatham. Deeply grateful to Rockingham personally, and with a much higher opinion of his intellect than most of his contemporaries, he looked upon the Rockingham party as the sole inheritors of Orthodox Whig principles and insisted that Chatham could only be received into the fold on the footing of a convert. It was largely owing to Burke that Rockingham took up a similar attitude with regard to the king, and refused in 1778 to agree to terms with Lord North, by which a large section of the opposition were to be included in the ministry, unless it was distinctly understood that they were to be paramount. Against this decision, Fox protested with all his might, urging that the only way to assert influence was to obtain office as long as it could be done without sacrifice of principle. But Rockingham continued obstinate, and the negotiations came to an end. Burke, however, if responsible for keeping Fox out of office in 1778, made ample amends by his attacks on the ministry in the following years. His great speeches on American taxation in 1774, and on conciliation with America in 1775, had already marked him out as the one statesman of the day who saw the necessity of annunciating a policy for the future regulation of the relations of England and her colonies before it was too late. His speech on economical reform in 1780 directed public attention to the plague spot of the existing parliamentary system. Temperate, says Horace Walpole, moderate, and sprinkled with wit and humor, it had such an universal effect upon the whole house that it was thought he could that day have carried any point he had proposed. Publicity was the only remedy for abuse so gross as that which attended the pension and patronage system of the court. When the bright light of Burke's inquiry was thrown upon it, no one but Lord George Gordon was found bold enough to support it. Yet there, after all, was the secret of all that was bad in the court influence. Take away from Lord North the privilege of giving away sinecures, granting pensions, and rewarding votes with gratifications, and his power was gone. It was all very well to declaim, as Fox did against his mismanagement, his negligence, his incapacity, to denounce his subserviency, to demonstrate the absolute certainty of disaster under his leadership, but attacks such as these made no impression upon his majority. That was not the way to deal with the parliamentary magician. Oh ye mistook, ye should have snatched his wand and bound him fast. Without his rod reversed and backward mutter of deceivering power, we cannot free the lady that sits here in stony fetters fixed and motionless. Until the wand of parliamentary corruption was seized and reversed, it was impossible to free the independent expression of parliamentary opinion from its chains. If to Burke appertain the chief work of constructing a policy for his party, upon Fox naturally fell the burden of conducting the daily parliamentary battle. His unfailing spirits, his universal popularity, his iron nerves, his unrivaled power as a debater, all marked him out as the real leader of the opposition in the House of Commons. It was during the American War that he learned to perfect the gifts of quick retort, ready wit, clear statement, and dashing attack, which made him the first of parliamentary gladiators. It is characteristic of him that he was at his best while Burke was at his worst in reply. In reading the fragments of his speeches on the American War which have come down to us, we are struck by a sameness of argument and of method. The attack is always telling and brilliant, but it is conducted again and again in exactly the same fashion. The heavy cavalry are sent charging up the hill again and again, and again and again they recoil baffled from the solid squares of the government voters. Of parliamentary tactics, there is no trace. No attempt to take advantage of jealousies and personal interests. No effort to sow dissension between cliques and to win over individuals. Again and again, the government stragglers are called back to their allegiance by a direct challenge upon their whole position. In many ways, Fox was singularly well fitted to play the part of a clever parliamentary manager. Though he acted with the rocking and wigs, he was never considered as one of them. He won his way in the house by his own unaided exertions, by the sheer ascendancy of his talent. He owed nothing to position or property. He had willfully thrown away whatever advantage he might have reaped from connection. Lord John Cavendish expressed this very clearly in a conversation with Barré in 1780. Our body has property and etc., but we have not those powers that enable men to take the lead in public assemblies. You see what has been the case of C. Fox. We must naturally give way to such men. He started, therefore, free from the traditions of the old-wig families. To him, the parliamentary struggle was a fair stand-up fight with Lord North. There was no sense of grievance as there was with rocking him, it having been ousted from a legitimate monopoly. He was quite ready to get back to office on any reasonable terms. It was not necessary first to appease his pride by acknowledging usurpation. His gambling and racing interests, too, brought him into friendly and even affectionate relations with many of the staunchest supporters of the government. Lord Carlisle was among the dearest of his friends. Lord March, Lord Darby, and the Duke of Ancaster were frequently the companions of his dissipation, and he was even attracted to the court bully Rigby by a common attachment to port wine. Had he used as unrivaled social popularity for political ends, with a reasonable exercise of tact, he might easily have detached section after section from the government phalanx. But nothing really was further from his nature than a policy like this. He was too open, too honorable, and if the truth must be told, too careless. There was nothing of the schemer about him, nothing even of the strategist or of the tactician. Finesse, management, plan were all hateful to him. To lead a forlorn hope, to head a brilliant charge, this was his delight, and in this was his strength. He wrote forth to redress the wrongs of America in the spirit of a night errant. He embraced the doctrines of the rites of man with as little of inquiry and as much of sentiment as a hero of chivalry took up the cause of an oppressed princess. He would win his way to office by outshining all competitors as an esquire of chivalry would win the golden spurs of knighthood by gallant deeds of arms. But these years were by no means wasted by him. Besides becoming a master of parliamentary debate in the House of Commons, he was learning patience in the school of adversity, and in the world he was winning popularity and influence. This was the time when pecuniary difficulties were pressing hardest upon him, when his losses at play, if not in themselves so large as formerly, were more difficult to meet. He was obliged to sell the estate at King's Gate left him by his father and to mortgage the sinecure office of Clerk of the Pells in Ireland, which Lord Holland had contrived to secure for him. He then had to live upon what he could get from his friends, or pick up at Newmarket or at Almax. There was no one from whom he did not borrow. He owed money even to the chairman and to the waiters at Brooks. Often he was reduced to the last shilling. After a particularly bad night at Brooks, when Fox had lost everything, Bullclerk went to see him in the morning expecting to find him in the last stage of despair. The Rooway was sitting tranquilly in his armchair reading Herodotus. What would you have a man do? he said with a smile, who has lost his last shilling. In 1776 Lord Carlisle writes to George Selwyn. Charles Fox left us this morning. He has been excellent company in good spirits and not the worst for having levanted every soul at Newmarket after having lost everything he could raise upon Staffordale's bond. In 1779 he writes again. Charles tells me he has not now nor has had for some time one guinea, and is happier on that account. The Macaul table flourishes. So great were his difficulties that in 1777 he actually applied the Lord North for his interest for an appointment on the Council of India, which Lord North very handsomely promised on the next vacancy, probably reflecting that the payment of a few thousand pounds a year to keep Fox away from Parliament would be a cheap bargain for the government. In 1778 if Horace Walpole is to be believed he lent himself to the infamous scheme of the two folies, by which Parliament was asked to set aside by statute their father's will in order that their racing and gambling debts might be paid out of the property which he had left away from them. In 1781 an execution was actually levied in his house and all his goods sold up. Walpole happened to be passing at the time, and Fox with his usual nonchalance came out and talked to him about the marriage act then before Parliament as if nothing was happening. But while he was sinking lower and lower in the slough of debt he was rapidly becoming the idol of the people of London. The deference paid to his opinion by the associations which were formed in 1779 and 1780 to promote agitation against the government policy, the enthusiasm with which he was accepted as a candidate and triumphantly returned for Westminster in 1780. The association which was formed to guard his life against threatened attacks by some of the noted dualists of the day show that he had acquired an influence over the people and a place in their hearts similar to that enjoyed by Wilkes in the first years of the reign. He must often have thought as he listened to the plaudits of the populace of that scene at Westminster in March 1771 when he was with difficulty rescued from the infuriated mob who had escorted Lord Mayor Crosby to the House of Commons and who cursed him and his father as their prey was torn from their grasp. When Lord North resigned, Fox was in some measure the foremost man in England. He was the greatest debater in the House of Commons, the most beloved champion of the people. It remained to be seen whether the talents which had raised him so high in opposition would bear the fierce test of office at such a critical time. End of Section 6. Section 7 of Charles James Fox by Henry Offley Wakeman. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Pamela Nogami. Chapter 4 The Ministry of 1782, Part 1. From the first time that Lord North had entreated his indulgent tyrant, the King, to relieve him from the responsibilities which he felt were too great for him, George III had had but one stereotyped answer. I will not put myself into the hands of the Rockingham Wigs, who are the enemies both of my person and of the Constitution as I understand it. Any other arrangement I am perfectly willing to accept, but that particular arrangement is out of the question, and any action on your part which must lead to it I shall consider not merely desertion but treachery. Even at the beginning of 1782, after the disaster of Yorktown, when all Europe was combined with America in arms against him, the King could not bring himself to acknowledge that he would have to bow his head to the yoke. On January 21 he wrote to Lord North, On one material point I shall ever coincide with Lord G. Germain, that is, against the separation from America, and that I shall never lose an opportunity of declaring that no consideration shall ever make me in the smallest degree, an instrument to a measure that I am confident would annihilate the rank in which this empire stands among the European states, and would render my situation in this country below continuing an object to me. True to this conviction, even when the long deferred blow fell, and Lord North's ministry was no more, the King refused to send for Lord Rockingham. He still flattered himself that he might get together a ministry from among the followers of Chatham and of Lord North, which would be able to restore peace without granting independence, and Shelburne was the politician whom he fixed upon to aid him in this scheme. In making choice of Shelburne, George III showed that cleverness in dealing with individuals which did so much to relieve the mediocrity of his commonplace character. Ambition ruled Supreme and Shelburne's breast. It was no light compliment to choose him out from among the rival politicians of the time as the legitimate inheritor of Chatham's power as well as of Chatham's policy, the one man who was fit to become the trusted arbiter between the crown and the nation, and like a second Aeneas to save the King and the Constitution from amid the ruins of a falling state. Besides, Shelburne had lately taken pains to let it be known that he was against the separation of America from England, and that he did not wish the King of England to be a mere king of the Marathas with a Peshwa to hold the reins of government. Shelburne, however, was too clever to fall into the trap. A ministry which had against it the influence of the Rockingham connection and the talents of Charles Fox and would not receive the hearty support of Lord North's failings of placement was fordoomed to failure. The pair was not yet ripe. He saw clearly enough that his best chance of permanent success lay in becoming the successor, not the supplanter of Rockingham. On the day, obviously not far distant when the Whig families would have to choose a new leader, the choice must lie between himself and Charles Fox, and between those two could they hesitate for a moment? On his side were talents, certainly eminent, possibly equal, aristocratic connection, royal favor, and an unblemished private character, none of which Charles Fox could claim. Clearly then his game was to wait. He respectfully declined to act without Rockingham. You can do without me, he said to him, with commendable frankness, but I cannot do without you. To satisfy the king's scruple about dealing personally with Rockingham, the negotiations passed through his hands. Before Rockingham consented to take office, he procured a distinct pledge from the king that he would not put a veto upon American independence if the ministers recommended it, and on the 27th of March the triumph of the opposition was completed by the formation of a ministry, mainly representative of the old Whig families, pledged to a policy of economical reform and of peace with America on the basis of the acknowledgment of independence. Fox received the reward of his services by being appointed foreign secretary, and Lord Shelburne took charge of the home and colonial department. When Rockingham himself went to the treasury, Lord John Cavendish became Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord Keppel, First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Camden, President of the Council. Burke was made paymaster of the forces and shared an undersecretary to his friend Fox. At the king's special request, Thurlow was allowed to remain as Chancellor. The new ministry had by no means an easy task before them. They had to pass a scheme of economical reform which was certain to arouse the hostility of many of the most powerful interests in Parliament. They had to restore tranquility to Ireland, and they had to negotiate a peace which could not fail to be humiliating and might prove to be disastrous. But their misfortunes did not end there. In all their policy they were certain of the undisguised hostility of the king, and in the cabinet itself of the indirect opposition of the Chancellor, and before many days were passed it was equally evident that even the Whig majority was not agreed among themselves. When Fox met Lord Shelburne shortly after the ministry was formed he said, I see the administration is to consist of two parts, the one belonging to the king and the other to the public. He understated the case. There were in reality three distinct parties among the Whigs themselves. Shelburne from the first was playing an ambitious game. He wished to gain such a decided ascendancy in the cabinet before rocking him's death that he might easily succeed to the chief place. With that object he had manipulated as far as he could the cabinet offices when the administration was being formed, and could depend almost with certainty on the support of Lord Camden, the Duke of Grafton, and Dunning, lately raised to the peerage with the title of Lord Ashburton, while the vote of Lord Thurlow, which of course was at the king's disposal, was more likely to be with him than with his opponents. On the other hand, Fox, though he commanded no vote except perhaps that of the Duke of Richmond, was known to be by far the most influential minister in the House of Commons and was the idol of the people. He represented, as men could not but feel, a type of Whig principles which if more aggressive or determined, was certainly much more effective than that of the Whig families. At the close of the American War and to some extent in the Wilkes case, the people had been called in to express their opinions and to exercise their influence upon politics. Unrepresented they might be, but if they were allowed to meet at public meetings, pass resolutions and put pressure upon statesmen, they would not remain unrepresented very long. Already schemes of parliamentary reform were in the air. In all probability this very ministry would have to take up the subject if they survived the perils of the American peace. Fox was felt on all sides to be the minister of the future, the representative of the Whig-ism of the future, and of the opinions and wishes of the populace of the present, and he accordingly spoke in the cabinet with much greater effect than the number of votes at his command would warrant. Between these two opposing sections came the main body of the old Whigs of the Rockingham Connection, men who were as totally opposed to organic change or popular government as the King himself, who had been brought up to look on office as the natural monopoly of their family connection, who resented their exclusion from it as they would resent their exclusion from part of their family property. They had espoused the cause of American independence, not from any abstract love of liberty, but because the policy of coercion was identified with the Tory cuckoo who had seized upon their nest. They were led always as much by personal as by political considerations and hated Shelburne's personality as much as they disliked Fox's principles. Composed as they were of these different and discordant sections, the cabinet no sooner met than it divided into the parties of Shelburne and of Fox, while Rockingham, Conway, and Cavendish tried to hold the balance between them, and Thurlow artfully fomented the dissensions. Fox at once saw the game which Shelburne was playing and determined to do his best to prevent its success. His distrust of the Jesuit of Barkley Square was ingrained and hereditary. Twenty years before, when Shelburne was quite a young man and had attached himself to the rising fortunes of Butte, Lord Holland had strong reason to suspect that he had been betrayed by him, and Charles Fox, with his chivalrous attachment to his father, was not the man to forget, nor, as the wrong was not his own, to forgive. They now found themselves the two most prominent men in a cabinet whose chief was moribund, and the rivalry between them soon became too keen to preserve even the semblance of unity. Few administrations have done so much in a short time as did the rocking and ministry during the three months of its existence, and it so happened that the lions' share of the work fell to Fox. Upon his appointment to office his friends noticed a change in habits and manner of life, as complete as that ascribed to Henry the Fifth on his accession to the throne. He is said never to have touched a card during either of his three short terms of office. He hardly ever appeared at Brooks. He was most attentive and zealous in the duties of his department, and put completely aside his reckless manner of speaking. So great was his consideration for what was due to the crown, that even George the Third became somewhat reconciled to him. Horace Walpole is always rather a partial witness where Fox is concerned, but on this theme he almost rises into eloquence. The former, Fox, displayed such facility in comprehending and executing all business as charmed all who approached him. No formal affectation delayed any service or screen ignorance. He seized at once the important points of every affair, and every affair was then reduced within a small compass not to save himself trouble, for he had once gave himself up to the duties of his office. His good humor, frankness and sincerity pleased and yet inspired a respect which he took no other pains to attract. The foreign ministers were in admiration of him. They had found few who understood affairs or who attended to them, and no man who understood French so well or could explain himself in so few words. The difference must have been indeed great between mediocrities like Suffolk and Weymouth, or men of indecision and indolence like Lord North, and a man of first rateability and keen energy such as was Fox when he attained cabinet office for the first time. Since Carteret there had not been a foreign minister of England so well fitted by his attainments and genius to play a leading part in continental politics. The ministry kissed hands on their appointment on the 27th of March. On April 8th Parliament reassembled and Fox was immediately called upon to deal with the complicated affairs of Ireland. England's necessity in those days of tyranny was ever Ireland's opportunity, and the closing years of the American War had seen grow up in Ireland a strong and united force of public opinion in favour of legislative freedom, which it was impossible for England to resist. Led by Gratton and supported by the organisation of the volunteers under Charlemont, the Irish nation demanded freedom and self-government. Legislative subjection, apart from legislative union, had ever been the policy of England. By Poyning's law, the declaratory act of George I, and the Permanent Mutiny Act, Irish law, Irish administration of justice, and the Irish army were all made subject to the control of the English ministers. The repeal of these measures, the grant of self-government to Ireland, which without impairing the authority of the Crown, should take away the control of the English Council and the House of Lords, was being ardently pressed upon the ministers as the only alternative to complete independence. On the day of the meeting of Parliament, April 8th, a debate on Irish affairs was introduced by Mr. Eden, the secretary to Lord Carlisle, who had come to England to tender his own and his chief's resignation. Thinking that the Lord Lieutenant had been unhansomely treated by the present ministry, he determined to embarrass them as much as he could by suddenly demanding as the only security for peace that the whole of the Irish demand should be at once granted. Fox replied with great skill, pointing out the factious nature of the proposal and promising that Irish affairs should receive the prompt attention of the ministry. On May 17th, he redeemed his promise and brought in a bill for the repeal of the declaratory act of George I, which he advocated on the general ground of the injustice of legislating for those who were not represented. At the same time, a motion was proposed which authorized the Crown to make such administrative changes as would carry out the policy of self-government adopted by the Irish Parliament. Thus, by the combined action of the two legislatures, Ireland received the legislative freedom which he was demanding. It is interesting to notice that Lord Loughborough was the only member of either House of Parliament who voted against the most revolutionary proposal which had been brought before Parliament since the revolution of 1688. The Duke of Portland, who succeeded Lord Carlisle as a Lord Lieutenant, though strongly disliking the alteration, was convinced that it was absolutely necessary. The powers legislative and jurisdictive, he wrote, claimed by England are becoming impracticable. If the Irish demands were now refused, there would be an end of all government. A few days before, the ministers had redeemed their second great pledge. On May 5th, Burke brought in his scheme of economical reform which was to diminish and render harmless for the future the corrupt influence of the Crown. Here the ice over which the zealous reformer had to glide was of a much more treacherous description. Shelburne and Thurlow, without actually opposing the scheme, managed in the interests of the King to cut it down in the cabinet, and Burke soon found that he could not carry out to the full the program of his famous speech of 1780. Nevertheless, the measure, though not perhaps complete, was an exceedingly valuable one. It destroyed a large number of useless posts and affected a saving to the country of 72,000 pounds a year. But beside this, it told the knell of systematized parliamentary corruption. It was the first time that parliament had really set itself to put its house in order and to make an honest attempt to cure the evil. Its passing is no doubt rather the proof than the cause of the improvement which is noticeable after the American War. That improvement was due to more than one cause. The higher standard of private morality which marked the last decade of the century and the greater publicity of political life through the increased importance of the press had no doubt their share in diminishing corruption. But the cause which had most effect was the return of Mr. Pitt to power in 1784 by so unmistakable a majority. It destroyed corruption by taking away the reasons for it, since it was sheer waste to shower gifts and pensions on those who were certain in any case to vote on the right side. Still, Burke's bill marks the beginning of a new era of purity and it emanated from a ministry who were more free from corruption than any ministry which England had yet seen during the century. On the question of parliamentary reform the ministry was much divided. Rockingham and Burke were for leaving things alone, thinking that as it was impossible to redress all anomalies it was safest not to attempt to redress any. The Duke of Richmond on the contrary was in favor of annual parliaments, manhoods, suffrage, and equal electoral districts. On the 7th of May, Pitt, who during the two years in which he had sat in parliament, had been rapidly growing in reputation, brought in a motion for a committee to consider the reform of the representation, and Fox supported him on the double ground that the county members had always proved themselves much more independent and character than the representatives of the boroughs, and that it was for the welfare of the nation that all interests which had any stake in the country should be represented in parliament. The motion was lost by a small majority of only 20 in a fairly full house, and the reformers were never again so near victory until 1832. End of Section 7. Section 8 of Charles James Fox by Henry Offley Wakeman. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Pamela Nagami. Chapter 4 The Ministry of 1782 Part 2. During these weeks when the ministry was so successful in parliament their internal dissensions were growing worse and worse. The greater ability Fox showed in the House of Commons, the greater the jealousy Shelburne displayed in private, and the more numerous the intrigues which he undertook. The more active was Shelburne in the cabinet, the more did he arouse the suspicions of Fox. On the 12th of April before the ministry had been three weeks in office, Fox had already sniffed the coming storm. We had a cabinet this morning, he writes to Fitzpatrick, in which in my opinion there were more symptoms of what we had always apprehended than had ever hitherto appeared. The subject was Burke's bill, or rather the message introductory to it. Nothing was concluded, but in Lord Chancellor there was so marked an opposition and in your brother-in-law so much inclination to help the Chancellor that we got into something very like warm debate. On the 15th he writes again, We have had another very teasing and wrangling cabinet. Lord Chancellor, as you may imagine, dislikes it, that is, Burke's bill. Lord Shelburne seems more bothered about it than anything else, does not understand it, but in conjunction with Lord Ashburne throws difficulties in its way. On the 28th he adds, With respect to affairs here, they are really in such a state as is very difficult to describe. I feel them to be worse than they were, and yet I do not know what particular circumstances to state as to the cause of this feeling. Shelburne shows himself more and more every day, is ridiculously jealous of my encroaching upon his department, and wishes very much to encroach upon mine. He hardly liked my having a letter from Gratton or my having written one to Charlemont. He affects the minister more and more every day, and is, I believe, perfectly confident that the King intends to make him so. By the 11th of May the uneasy feeling had grown. Fox was much disheartened at the scanty attendance at the house, and hurt at a personal attack made on him by Dundas. Looking to the future, he saw in the coalition of Shelburne and Pitt a danger of losing the latter. A later letter from Mr. Hare, one of Fox's most attached friends, mentions the suspicion that Dundas' attack was systematical and concocted not a hundred miles from Barkley Square. When mutual suspicion and distrust were so rife, it did not require much to produce a serious quarrel, and in the course of the peace negotiations at Paris the necessary materials for a very grave misunderstanding were not long in making their appearance. Seldom had English Foreign Minister a more thankless and difficult job before him than had Fox. When he assumed the seals of office, England was at war with France, Spain, and Holland in addition to her revolted colonies in America. The northern powers under the leadership of Russia, though not at war, were in a condition of decided hostility under the provisions of the armed neutrality, since their doctrine of free ships, free goods, was directed against the English claim to seize enemy's goods carried in neutral bottoms. The maritime nations of Europe had in fact taken advantage of England's difficulties to rid themselves of a superiority which they detested all the more because they could not under ordinary circumstances dispute it. It was generally thought on the continent that the year 1782 must see the fall of England's upstart greatness and reduce her again to the condition of a second rate power from which the genius of Malbura and Chatham had so recently raised her. Degrasse, having driven the English fleet off the American waters in the preceding year, was endeavoring at the head of the combined French and Spanish fleets to complete his success by the capture of Jamaica and the rest of the English West Indies. Crayon, flushed with his victory at Menorca, was preparing to rest the rock fortress of Jebralter from the grip of the Islander and to restore it again to its legitimate owners. With America and the Mediterranean emancipated from English domination, the Seven Years' War would indeed be fitly avenged. The Star of the English Empire would set and the way once more be opened for the supremacy of the House of Bourbon in Europe. Such were the visions which floated before the eyes of Virgen, the foreign minister of France. Such were the dreams which it was Fox's business to prove to be illusions. With characteristic energy and clear-sightedness he had once fixed upon his plan and set himself to carry it out. His main object was to isolate the House of Bourbon and hold it up before the eyes of Europe once more as the real disturbing element among the nations of the continent, the real enemy of all peaceful progress. He saw that the chief difficulties in the way of peace must come from France, for France had not merely objects to gain but losses to revenge. He was not afraid to face the possibility of having to continue the war with France and Spain. England, shattered and exhausted as she was, had yet plucky enough left, he thought, to hold her own against the House of Bourbon, though she could not stand up against the world. If she could detach Holland and America from the French alliance by giving to them what they wanted, if she could exchange the suspicious hostility of the North for friendly alliance by surrendering the right of search, he would then be able to treat with France on equal terms. The design was essentially a good one. England had nothing to gain by insisting on the right of search. If she forced the question to a decision she would most certainly be beaten, while if she gracefully yielded now it was more than probable that her very opponents would be forelong claimed to exercise it for their own protection. She must stoop if she wanted to conquer. To a generation which remembered the diplomacy of Kaunitz and Madame de Pompadour, the specter of French aggression was ever formidable. It is quite possible that had Fox been complete master of the cabinet, a brilliant diplomatic success might have conspired with the victories of Rodney and Elliot to throw a halo of glory around the last days of the Ministry of Rockingham. But it was not to be. Frederick the Great, to whom Fox addressed a long letter in the hope of inducing him to act as mediator in favour of England, was too old and too unforgiving to mix himself up with European politics on behalf of a power which had treated him so badly twenty years before. Holland refused to enter into any negotiations apart from her allies. The Empress, Catherine II, coupled her offers of alliance with conditions which the king and the majority of the cabinet were not prepared to accept. Though apparently Fox and Sir James Harris, the ambassador at St. Petersburg, thought them reasonable. But the most serious difficulties with which Fox had to contend came from within, not from without. By the division of work among the two secretaries of state, all matters which related to the colonies were under the control of Shelburne, while those relating to foreign governments belonged to the Department of Fox. Consequently, it became exceedingly important to these two ministers whether independence was to be granted to the American colonies by the crown of its own accord or should be reserved in order to form part of the General Treaty of Peace. According to Fox's plan, independence was to be offered at once, fully and freely to the Americans. They would thus gain at a blow all that they wanted. Their jealousy of French and Spanish interests in America would at once assert itself, and England would have no difficulty in bringing them over to her side in the negotiations with France. Such was Fox's scheme. But unfortunately, directly America became independent, she ceased to be in any way subject to Shelburne's management, and the negotiations for peace would pass wholly out of his control into the hands of Fox. Such a thing was not to be endured for a moment. It would give his rival to great an advantage. Shelburne at once threw his whole weight into the opposite scale. He urged with great effect that to give independence at once was to throw away the trump card. It was the chief concession which England would be required to make, the only one which he was prepared to make, and to make it at once, before she was not even asked, was willfully to deprive herself of her best weapon. The king in the cabinet adopted Shelburne's view. Fox's scheme for the isolation of France failed, and a double negotiation for peace was set on foot. Shelburne and Franklin took charge of the Treaty with America, Fox and Monsieur de Verguyen, that with France and Spain and Holland. An arrangement of this sort could hardly have succeeded had the two secretaries been the firmest of friends. Since they were rivals and enemies, it was for doomed to failure. Fox chose as his accredited envoy to the French court, Mr. Thomas Grenville, the younger brother of Lord Temple, a man of some ability but young and inexperienced. He reached Paris on the 8th of May, and on the 23rd the Privy Council authorized him to propose the independence of America in the first instance, to the belligerent powers as a basis of peace. Long, however, before Grenville was informal communication with the representatives of the Allied powers, Shelburne's envoy had been in confidential communication with Franklin. On the 22nd of March, two days after the resignation of Lord North, Franklin, who was the agent of the American Congress at Paris, wrote to Lord Shelburne as a personal friend, expressing his desire for peace. On the 6th of April, Shelburne, in his capacity of Colonial Secretary, sent a Scotch merchant resident in London named Oswald over to Paris to consult with Franklin on the subject. Oswald was described in the letter of recommendation which Shelburne sent as a practical man and conversant in those negotiations which are most interesting to mankind. In reality he was much more. He was not only a capable man of business but a sound and intelligent disciple of Adam Smith. Unfortunately he was completely unversed in diplomacy and too simple-minded and straightforward to be a match for the astute American. Franklin, naturally enough, was delighted with him, introduced him to Vergen, wrote to Shelburne saying that he desired no other channel of communication, and even broached in conversation with Oswald an idea which had been long in his mind, that it would serve greatly to lay a strong foundation of friendship between England and the United States, if England, of her own accord, was to surrender Canada. Oswald seemed struck with the idea, promised to talk the matter over with Shelburne and borrowed the paper which had served as a basis of Franklin's conversation in order to show it to Shelburne when he got home. Care, however, was taken to place on record a note to the effect that the paper was strictly private, containing merely conversation matter between Mr. O and Mr. F. On his return to London Oswald had at once shown the document to Shelburne, who thought it important enough to retain it for a day, and he showed it certainly to Ashburne and probably to the King. He made no reference to it whatever to the rest of his colleagues and never hinted at its existence to Fox, who was engaged with him in the negotiations for peace. On the 23rd of April Oswald was formally authorized to return to Paris as the duly accredited agent of the English government to conclude a treaty with America on the basis of independence. On the 4th of May he found himself once more with Franklin, to whom he returned the paper, saying that it seemed to have made an impression on Lord Shelburne, and that he, Oswald, believed the matter might be settled to the satisfaction of America, but he did not wish it mentioned at the beginning of the negotiations. On the 8th of May Grenville arrived in Paris and negotiations began in real earnest. Oswald seems to have done his best not to interfere with Grenville and even returned to England for a few weeks to be out of the way, and Shelburne himself and his dispatches to him insisted upon the necessity of showing a united front to the enemy, yet the existence of a double negotiation could not but cause disagreements. On the 18th of May came the glorious news of the destruction of the French fleet under de Grasse by Rodney, but much of the value which it might have had in inducing the French to accept reasonable terms was neutralized by the naive confession of Oswald to Franklin, that peace was absolutely necessary to England, her enemies might do what they pleased with her, they had the ball at their feet and it was hoped they would show their magnanimity. Fox had from the first suspected Shelburne of playing a double game, and Shelburne on his part suspected Fox of intending to oust him from any share whatever in the treaty by claiming that the decision of May 23rd was in fact a recognition of the independence of the States, by virtue of which they had ceased to be, even in name, colonies of Great Britain. Vergen knew perfectly well the state of affairs in the English cabinet, and was by no means anxious to expedite matters with Grenville, as he saw in Shelburne the future minister and the king's friend. Naturally enough nothing could persuade the French courtiers that the presence of two agents did not imply the existence of two authorities and two policies, and Lafayette gave mortal offense to Grenville by laughingly telling him that he had just left Lord Shelburne's ambassador at Passy. Just when the minds of Fox and Grenville were thus highly inflamed against Shelburne, an evil chance put the latter in possession of the secret of the Canada paper. In a conversation between Oswald and Grenville, the former, thinking that Grenville had already partially heard about the matter from Franklin, told him the whole story, and added that Lord Shelburne had proposed that he, Oswald, should have a separate commission to treat with the American commissioners. Here at once to Grenville's mind was the full confirmation of his worst surmises. Shelburne was proved out of the mouth of his own agent to have been carrying on a separate negotiation behind the backs of the cabinet, and secretly to have been maneuvering to supplant the accredited representative of England by his own servant, while outwardly he was urging the closest possible union between the two. In indignant haste he wrote to acquaint Fox of the discovery he had made, and Fox took a blacker view of Shelburne's conduct than even Grenville had done. The Canada paper was new to him, and to all the cabinet too, except Ashburne. Shelburne stood convicted of concealing a most important dispatch from his colleagues as well as carrying on a separate negotiation behind their backs. It was treachery, of which Malagrida alone among English statesmen was capable. Worthy of the man who had betrayed Lord Holland years ago. In hot anger he hurried off to Rockingham, the Duke of Richmond, and Lord John Cavendish, and showed them Grenville's letter. They agreed that the thing wore an ugly look, and that cabinet must be consulted. It was clear after this that Shelburne and Fox could no longer remain in the same cabinet and be jointly entrusted with the peace negotiations. The question between them really resolved itself into one of confidence as to which of the two should have the conduct of the treaty. Three meetings of the cabinet were held in quick succession, and at the final meeting of the 30th of June, Fox proposed that independence should be granted to America, irrespective of a treaty for peace, and maintained that the cabinet had already practically decided that question by their minute of the 23rd of May. This raised in the simplest form a question of confidence between the two statesmen, for Shelburne had constantly asserted that the decision of the 23rd of May was only conditional, and that independence ought not to be granted unless accompanied by a satisfactory treaty. The cabinet voted on it as a purely party question. Rockingham's absence deprived Fox of a powerful supporter, and Conway, that innocent man as Shelburne called him, who had a casting vote in the cabinet but never knew it, shouted with the largest crowd. Fox, defeated and despairing, only refrained from resigning there and then because he would not embitter Rockingham's last moments upon earth. Fox had been but three months and a few days in office, but in that time he had more than justified the opinions which his friends had already formed of him. He had proved himself by far the ablest English statesman of his time. In Parliament his ascendancy was unchallenged, and he had shown that he could excel just as certainly in the difficult art of ministerial defense as he had formerly in that of dashing attack. His leadership of the House of Commons, short as it was, had been marked with courtesy intact, and his treatment of the Irish question in particular had been noticeable for his judgment no less than for his boldness. In his conduct of foreign affairs he was hampered by dissensions within the cabinet and humiliation without. Yet although his own European scheme was of failure, and his endeavour to obtain peace incomplete, he certainly succeeded in raising the reputation of England among foreign nations. In his dealings with his own colleagues he showed more of the headstrong self-willed spirit with which men had been accustomed to credit him. Shelburne's conduct no doubt was insincere and irritating to the last degree. He was playing a game from the first, a game intensely hateful to Fox, and was playing it with success. The elaborate protestations of sincerity which distinguished his public utterances must have been doubly trying to one who saw through them so plainly. Clear-minded himself, and transparent in his honesty, Fox hated hypocrisy, and Shelburne was not merely a hypocrite but a successful hypocrite. The want of political management which afterwards wrecked so much of Fox's life was conspicuous at every stage of the quarrel. He rushed into the lists with Shelburne in the first blaze of his indignation at finding himself outwitted, and so played into the hands of his adversary. The evidence he possessed, though convincing enough to a mind already from other circumstances inclined to condemn, was not of a nature to bear out before the cabinet the charge of duplicity of conduct which he himself believed. Nothing was ever alleged against Shelburne which could not be explained by errors in judgment and undue reticence, wanting no doubt in frankness but hardly treacherous or double-dealing. The popular estimate of the quarrel found expression in one of Gilray's earliest and best cartoons. Fox was depicted as the Miltonic Satan, standing on a roulette table with his pockets turned in sight out, scowling at the rising sun of Shelburne's glory as he poured forth his hate in the well-known lines. To thee I call, but with no friendly voice and add thy name, Shelburne, to tell thee how I hate thy beams that bring to my remembrance from what state I fell. Fox had to rest a case which was essentially personal on grounds which were essentially political. He had to induce the cabinet deliberately to accept the bolder and more dangerous policy, and he had to do this deprived of the aid of the only man of real weight who was on his side. What wonder, therefore, if the battle fought under such circumstances ended in a defeat and the country was deprived of the services of her ablest son just when she was most in need of them. End of Section 8. Section 9 of Charles James Fox by Henry Offly Wakeman. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Pamela Nagami. Chapter 5, The Coalition, Part 1 On the 30th of June, 1782, the cabinet decided for Shelburne against Fox. On the first of July, Rockingham died, and on the second, Shelburne accepted from the king the task of forming a ministry. The next three days were spent in negotiations as plausible as they were hollow. Fox was necessarily in a great difficulty. His charges against Shelburne were not such as could be published abroad to his colleagues, much less to the world. A conviction of a man's insincerity is usually formed from numberless small incidents, all pointing in the same direction, not from one or two clear and strong cases of deception which can be made the subject of a public accusation. In order to state his whole case against Shelburne, Fox must have detailed at length all the secret history of the Rockingham cabinet and of the Paris negotiations. Something would have doubtless been gained if he had been in a position to enter the lists himself for the premiership and boldly claim that the gravity of the situation demanded the ablest man at the head. But this was not possible. At every crisis of his life, his sullied character stood up in judgment against him and drove him back from the portals of fame. How could the spendthrift, the libertine, and the gamester, so recently a convert to Whig principles, presume to be the successor of the blameless Rockingham, to lead the great houses of Bentink and of Cavendish? The Whig families were nothing if not respectable. To be led by a ruined man of fashion and a political adventurer was a degradation not to be thought of for a moment. Yet there was no other candidate of even moderate attainments for the office. If Fox was hopelessly handicapped by his want of character and position, his colleagues were even more impossible for want of ability. The Duke of Grafton had already been proved to be a failure and his character was no better than that of Fox. Lord John Cavendish was respectable enough, but narrow and prigish and temper. The Duke of Richmond had lately plunged too deep into speculative politics. The party had therefore to give up all thoughts of getting a man to lead it, and had to content itself with a figurehead. The Duke of Portland was rich, respectable, and thoroughly safe. He seemed to divide parties least, and he was accordingly chosen as the person whom the purely Whig section of the cabinet wished to see at the head of affairs. It was unfortunate, as Horace Walpole bitterly said, that the party could at such a crisis produce nothing better than a succession of mutes. It is the hereditary curse of narrow aristocratic cliques to suppress independent ability and to deify the commonplace. Portland, though his Irish enemies might sneer at him as a fit block to hang Whigs on, was at any rate a worthy successor to Stan Hope and to Pelham, to Newcastle to Devonshire and to Rockingham. It is characteristic of the great Whig families who ruled England in the 18th century that with the exception of Walpole they never assimilated to themselves and utilized for their country one man of really independent talent. Townsend, Carteret, Pultney, Pitt, Henry Fox, Shelburne, all of them had one by one either to break with the great families or to conquer them. It is a sufficient condemnation of any political party to record that with the two ablest men in England in its ranks at a crisis of the country's history so grave and so foreboding it should have been bound by its own principles to pass over a Fox and a Burke and to accept a Portland as its leader and representative. Shelburne was not the man to let slip any advantage over his antagonist which dexterous management could give him. He had once posed before the country as the successor of Chatham trying to free the king in the country from the domination of a faction. To the king he appeared as the champion of his right to choose his own ministers and his defender against the phalanx of the hated wig oligarchy who wished to reduce him to a non-entity. Absolutely secure of his own position at court he could afford to make the fairest of promises to Fox and handsomely offer him the leadership of the House of Commons for Fox he knew would not serve under him in any circumstances. When the offer was refused and the Duke of Portland chosen as the candidate of the discontented section of the wigs it was easy for Shelburne to represent the whole affair as merely an audacious attempt of a few politicians to dictate to the king and not content with their fair share of power to insist on absorbing the whole administration. Never was statesman put by the course of events and the skill of his opponents into a more thoroughly false position than was Fox throughout the whole affair. In reality he was the one man who had a clear and well considered policy for dealing with the American and foreign difficulties of England as a whole. He appeared to be pursuing the narrowest interests of a party clique wholly apart from the general welfare. In reality he had quarreled with Shelburne because he had found that he was deceiving his colleagues and was convinced that he would as a minister prove another Lord North. He appeared to have resigned in a pet because the cabinet disagreed with him on a point of detail in the negotiations and because he could not force on the councils of the king a respectable non entity far inferior to Shelburne and ability and experience. In reality his motives were dictated purely by what he believed to be the public interest. He appeared to be breaking up his party in the middle of foreign war simply to satisfy his own personal antipathies. Conway, Keppel and the Duke of Richmond took this view. They trusted Shelburne rather than Fox. Temple, Thomas Grenville's brother thought the same. Fox had undone himself he said. Sir Gilbert Elliott and Adam Smith on the other hand considered that he could have done nothing else. Sheridan put the same view in an epigram. Those who go are right for there is really no other question but whether having lost their power they ought to stay and lose their characters. Fox himself summed up the situation in a letter to Thomas Grenville which shows how deeply he felt his position. I assure you that the thing which has given me most concern is the sort of scrape I have drawn you into but I think I may depend upon your way of thinking for forgiving me, though to say one can depend upon any man is a bold word after what is passed within these few days. I am sure on the other hand that you may depend upon my eternal gratitude to you for what you have undergone on my account and that you will always have the greatest share in my friendship and affection. I do not think you will think these less valuable than you used to do. I have done right, I am sure I have. The Duke of Richmond thinks very much otherwise and will do wrong. I cannot help it. I am sure my staying would have been a means of deceiving the public and betraying my party and these things are not to be done for the sake of any supposed temporary good. I feel that my situation in the country, my power, my popularity, my consequence, nay my character are all risked but I have done right and therefore in the end it must turn out to be wise. If this fail me the pillared firmament is rottenness and earth's base built on stubble. These are brave and heartfelt words but many years were to elapse before their fulfillment. Most politicians looked at Fox's conduct as wanting and judgment if not in principle. The world in general judging only from the outside thought itself seeking and unpatriotic. The king whose dislike had been partially molified by the magic of Fox's personality returned at once to all his old hostility. Only Lord John Cavendish, Burke and the Solicitor General Lee left office with Portland and Fox and the gap was more than supplied by the entrance of William Pitt into the cabinet as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Fortune seemed to smile on Shelburne. He had played boldly and unscrupulously for the stake and had won it. The battle had been hard and at one time doubtful but in the end Victory had declared for him all along the line. His rival was not only beaten but discredited. Secure of the support of the king, strengthened by the accession of Pitt, assisted by all the prestige that a successful party fight gives, Shelburne might well look forward to a long and unclouded tenure of political power. His administration lasted not quite seven months and for more than half that time Parliament was in recess. Pro-rogued, soon after the change of ministry it did not meet again till December. During that time the negotiations for peace had dragged slowly along and much had happened to show how correct Fox's original estimate of the state of affairs had been. The opponents of Lord North had certainly been visited by a gleam of fortune sunshine which had but rarely visited that unlucky statesman. One of the first acts of the rocking of ministry had been to supersede with the discourtesy which almost amounted to insult Admiral Rodney, who was in command of the West Indian fleet and who had made himself particularly obnoxious to the wigs by his conduct at the capture of St. Eustatia in 1781. But fortunately for them, before the dispatch arrived, Rodney had entirely destroyed the Allied fleets under Degrasse and captured the French Admiral. You have conquered, said Lord North, in the house, but with the arms of Philip. On the 13th of September in the same year the combined attack by the French and Spanish forces upon the Rock of Gibraltar, which had been so long preparing, was delivered. Huge floating batteries carrying no less than two hundred and twelve guns, especially constructed by the French engineer Dacquon for this work, poured a storm of shot and shell upon the devoted fortress at a distance of only nine hundred yards. In the bay behind them were moored the whole Mediterranean fleets of France and Spain, while from the shore the attack was watched by a land army of forty thousand men and assisted by the fire of land batteries of nearly 186 guns. Never was planned so elaborate in its preparation and so terrible in its attack. For nine hours the fortress was subjected to a terrific converging fire from over four hundred guns, while it only had ninety-six guns with which to reply. But in the afternoon it became slowly visible to the band of heroic defenders that their red hot shot was finding its way through the armor of the floating batteries. One by one they began to show signs of distress. Flames rushed from their holds, a swarm of boats shot out from the fleet to try and tow them out of fire, but they were scattered by the red hot balls like autumn gnats by a hail storm, and the huge monsters were left to their fate. During the night the flames burnt brighter and dull explosions from time to time told the defenders that their enemies were one by one disappearing beneath the waters. When morning broke there was not one of them left. The English flag yet waved unharmed over the stubborn fortress rock, and one more story of heroic daring was added to the annals of the English race. These two great victories showed that Fox had good reason for thinking that even in her exhausted state England was more than a match for France and Spain. The course of the negotiations with America soon showed that his hopes for gaining the American agents to the side of England against the interests of France and Spain were by no means chimerical. It was soon agreed that Canada should remain British and that the 13 states should become independent, but much time was spent over the boundary lines. By the Quebec Act of 1774 the frontiers of Canada were made to stretch as far south as the Ohio. While between the western frontier of Georgia and the Mississippi lay a large district almost uninhabited except by Indians over which the Spaniards claimed a vague suzerainty. France conscious that she had led Spain into the war by the promise of recovering Gibraltar which she could not fulfill was most anxious to confine the United States to the Alleghenes in order to keep all the uninhabited Indian country free for Spanish colonization. Shelburne fully alive to the advantage of sowing dissensions between America and France and not being able to look forward a hundred years to the time when the territory then so thinly populated should become the great trade center of the west voluntarily offered to surrender to the states all English claims on the country between the Great Lakes and the Ohio and to endeavor to obtain for them from their allies the Mississippi as their western boundary. It was all important to the Americans to get room for free expansion to the west. Day by day as the negotiations proceeded community of interest brought the English and American envoys closer together. Day by day the breach between the Spaniards and the Americans grew wider and wider until at last by a bold repudiation of the express orders of congress the Americans signed the preliminaries of peace with the English on the 2nd of December 1782 before the continental powers were prepared to agree. Finding their hand thus forced by the Americans France and her allies had to give way and on the 20th of January 1783 a general peace was at last signed by which the only substantial gains achieved by France were the acquisition of Tobago Senegal and Goree and the security of her right of fishing off Newfoundland while Spain had to be satisfied by the two floridas and Menorca America on the contrary had gained all that she wished for and more than she had a right to ask all claim for compensation on behalf of the loyalists was abandoned the complete independence of the 13 United States the extension of the western frontier to the Mississippi and of her northern frontier to the Great Lakes put into her hands the keys of North America from that moment it became certain that if she was only able to retain her unity her supremacy over the whole continent was only a matter of time Shelburne looked upon the Treaty of Versailles as the triumph of his diplomatic skill he had good reason for the boast when the negotiations first began nothing could have been more pitiable than the condition of England Oswald Shelburne's own envoy told Franklin that the ball was at his feet when the Treaty of 1763 was mentioned to Vergen as a basis of negotiation he scouted the suggestion and intimated that it was now the turn of France and she would make the most of her opportunity yet when the treaty was made England parted with little that was valuable and she succeeded in retaining intact Gibraltar and her East Indian possessions there were two sections of politicians however to whom the treaty not unnaturally appeared in a very different light to Lord North and his followers who had taken up arms to establish the authority of England over her colonies the wide extension of American frontier seemed criminally generous and the desertion of the loyalists criminally treacherous with Fox besides the feeling of dissatisfaction there was a sense of injustice Shelburne had plowed with his heifer and could not even then avoid a catastrophe he had won the terms which he had obtained by playing off the Americans against the French and yet he was the man who had in the Rockingham cabinet nine months ago thwarted the very same plan because it was suggested by Fox had it then been adopted there would have been no necessity for the lavish grants of Indian territory no cause for the shameful desertion of England's allies and so it happened that in the turn of fortune's wheel Fox and Lord North found themselves leading a common opposition and drawn toward each other by a common hatred just when Fox and Lord North were being attracted to one another the ministry of Shelburne was breaking up Lord Camden had never intended to serve for more than three months and Keppel only stayed on as long as the war lasted by the beginning of 1783 more dangerous dissidents than these had declared themselves and in the case of each one the conduct of the first minister was the real cause of discord the Duke of Richmond refused to attend the council because of Shelburne's assumption of too much power the Duke of Grafton resigned the privy seal complaining of his systematic withholding of confidence Lord Carlisle resigned the office of Lord Steward throughout the ministerial ranks there reigned the same profound distrust and suspicion on all sides was heard justification of Fox's conduct in the previous summer even Pitt who alone held his tongue and remained scrupulously loyal to Shelburne throughout said afterwards that whatever sins he might have committed as a minister he had atoned for them all in advance by serving under Lord Shelburne for a year when parties were in this state of utter disintegration it was natural that a desire should manifest itself for a coalition strong enough both in personal ability and political influence to put an end to these spectral ministries which flitted past like figures on a kaleidoscope the establishment of a strong and lasting administration on a sound basis of as the phrase then ran on a broad bottom was the necessity of the hour several schemes of coalitions were in the air through the mediation of Dundas and Adam overtures were made by Shelburne to Lord North to admit some of his friends to office in return for a full and unconditional support Lord North it was understood probably at Pitt's demand was not to claim office for himself on the failure of this scheme Shelburne sent Pitt to Fox to see on what terms he could weadle back the earring sheep into the fold but Fox absolutely refused to hear of any scheme which involved the continued preeminence of Shelburne it is impossible for me said Fox frankly to belong to any administration of which Lord Shelburne is the head meanwhile some of the younger members in the house had conceived the idea that of all the coalitions possible one between Lord North and Fox offered the best opportunities of lasting success the first to suggest the scheme was Lord Loughborough but the principal movers in it were Lord John Townsend and George North Lord North's son and they were soon afterwards joined by Mr. Eden and Richard Fitzpatrick the bosom friend and confidant of Fox some difficulty was experienced with Lord North's followers and apparently little progress had been made beyond a number of private conversations up to the 12th of February 1783 on that day Dundas who was very earnest to bring about the coalition between Lord North and Shelburne went to see Adam Lord North's most trusted friend and in the course of a long conversation told him with the object of making him see the necessity of an immediate junction with Shelburne that Shelburne had made up his mind to resign if he was left alone which would undoubtedly result in a coalition between pit and Fox and the exclusion of Lord North from power for the rest of his life the threat had a very different result to that which Dundas expected Lord North and his friends fully recognized the importance of preventing a coalition between Fox and pit but determined to use the negotiations already in existence for an alliance with Fox to affect the purpose Eden and George North were able by dangling the sword of Damocles over their heads to persuade the rank and file of Lord North's party Burke who had embraced the idea with his wanted enthusiasm though less than his wanted wisdom undertook to answer for the rocking of wigs on the 14th of February everything was prepared Fox and Lord North met at the house of George North and arranged terms of alliance Lord North agreed that the system of government by departments should be abolished and the direct power of the king over the administration checked Fox acknowledged that economical reform had gone far enough and both consented that parliamentary reform should be an open question upon these terms all former animosity was laid aside an amendment to the address on the piece was drawn up by Lord North which Lord John Cavendish was to move and Fox support and if as was expected the division list showed a majority for them they were to form a combined administration based on mutual good will and confidence end of section nine section ten of Charles James Fox by Henry Othley Wakeman this Librobux recording is in the public domain recording by Pamela Nagami chapter five the coalition part two such is the secret history of the famous coalition perhaps the best known of all the 18 ministries of George III the plot if plot it was was completely successful ministers found themselves in a minority of 17 on a motion of censure on the piece and on the 24th of February Shelburne resigned for five weeks England was without a government the king strained every nerve to avoid accepting the coalition he appealed to Pitt to Lord Gower to Lord North apart from Fox to Fox apart from the Duke of Portland to Pitt again to Lord Temple and even to Thomas Pitt who was quite undistinguished as a statesman but it was no use on the 2nd of April he bowed to the inevitable but with as ill a grace as he could when Charles Fox came to kiss hands wrote Lord Townsend George III turned back his ears and eyes just like the horse had asked least when the tailor he had determined to throw was getting on him the Duke of Portland succeeded Shelburne at the treasury Lord North and Fox became the secretaries of state Lord John Cavendish returned to the Exchequer Keppel to the Admiralty and Burke to the Paymastership the followers of Lord North such as Loughborough Carlisle Stormont etc were rewarded with lower offices few combinations in the history of political parties have been received by historians and posterity with more unqualified condemnation than the coalition of 1783 it has been denounced as monstrous and unnatural it has been ascribed to the influence of the worst passions which degrade human nature petty spite greed of power revenge and avarice such are the parents whose fell union ushered forth into the world this child born in bitterness and nurtured in convulsion and even the methods adopted to bring about its ruin have been condoned on the principle that vermin are out of the protection of the law and yet it may well be questioned whether a great deal of this righteous indignation is not as is too often the case in history merely the penalty of failure the advantages which england arrived from its overthrow are written large on the page of history she obtained a strong and stable government more truly representative of the real wishes of Englishmen than any government since the days of Walpole she obtained a minister who both in his virtues and his failings was essentially the minister whom england delighted to honor she found a fit object for her deepest loyalty in a king now for the first time in thorough sympathy with his ministry and with what was best in the nation the opposition weakened and discredited seemed day by day to be losing character and to become more and more entangled and subversive and sentimental theories which were above all things on English by an easy transition the blunders of the wig opposition were seen to spring from the crimes of the wig ministry and to the shameful principles of the coalition were ascribed in logical sequence the doctrines of tom pain the drinking bouts of charadin and the crimes of the prince of wales it is not too much to say that this atrocious character attributed to the coalition is an afterthought there is no evidence to show that at the time it struck politicians in general as being especially heinous it is true that severe remarks were made about it in the house of commons when it first took practical shape in the debate of the 17th of February severe remarks would of course always be made by opponents on any combination which seemed formidable fox answered them with excellent temper and a good deal of common sense i come to take notice of the most heinous charge of all i am accused of having formed a junction with the noble person whose principles i have been in the habit of opposing for the last seven years of my life i see no reason for calling such a meeting an unnatural junction it is neither wise nor noble to keep up animosity ties forever it is neither just nor candid to keep up animosity when the cause of it is no more it is not in my nature to bear malice or live in ill will i'm a key ti semper terni in i'm a key ti placabiles i disdain to keep alive in my bosom the eminities which i may bear to a man when the cause of those eminities is no more when a man ceases to be what he was when the opinions which made him obnoxious are changed he then is no more my enemy but my friend the american war was the cause of the enmity between the noble lord and myself the american war and the american question is at an end the noble lord has profited from fatal experience when that system was maintained nothing could be more asunder than the noble lord and myself but it is now no more and it is therefore wise and candid to put an end also to the ill will the animosity the rancor and the feuds which it occasioned and again a few days later it is only from the coalition of parties for the honest purpose of opposing measures so destructive to the interests of the country that the spirit of constitutional power can ever be restored to its former vigor it becomes men to forget private resentments when the cause of the nation calls so immediately for public unanimity it is only a coalition that can restore the shattered system of administration to its proper tone of vigorous exertion by this means we shall regain the lost confidence of the people and it is only that confidence that can give effect to the springs of government these arguments had their due effect both in the house and outside there seems to have been during the first few months of the coalition government no attempt either in parliament or in the country to stigmatize it as an unprincipled thing outside ordinary political morality the opposition to it on the score of its strange and unnatural character died quickly away even among the partisans of shellburn and the king soon remained the only man in great position who continued to hold that view of it and if we come to look closely into it it must necessarily have been so some coalition was certain there was nothing now the american war was over in the political opinions of fox and north at that time to make a coalition between them more unnatural than one between shellburn and north there was not nearly so much difference of opinion as existed between fox and shellburn yet an agreement between those statesmen would have seemed natural enough to everyone and had been approved of by the king besides fox and north were not the only two people concerned their supporters were not mere machines who turned their coats at their bidding no one has ever dared even to murmur a charge of one of principle against the political career of the duke of portland or of lord john cavendish their honor is above reproach they had just given proof of it by insisting on retiring from the cabinet with fox rather than serve under a statesman whom they distrusted though unlike fox they had had no personal quarrel with shellburn against keppel the case would be even stronger for keppel had been personally wronged by north's ministry yet keppel was willing to forget the past it is impossible seriously to maintain that 120 tories and 90 wigs agreed to prostitute their political honor for the greed of place at the bidding of two unprincipled leaders the real charge against fox is not that he coalesced with north but that he coalesced with north after having for so many years accused him of conduct almost criminal it is not the coalition that is unnatural and unprincipled but fox who is unprincipled for joining the coalition the dilemma shapes itself this way when fox accused north of public perfidy and unexampled treachery when in 1779 he denounced the idea of union with him as abominable scandalous and disgraceful an alliance with disgrace and ruin with the worst enemies of england he either believed what he said or he did not if he did it was clearly unprincipled conduct on his part to join an alliance which he himself admitted to be scandalous if he did not he was equally guilty and stirring up public passion by attacks on men which he did not believe to be true to some extent undoubtedly the dilemma holds in the days when men spoke to the house of commons and not to the nation outside the temptation was very great to use strong and unqualified language everyone did it himself and everyone expected it and others it was a pity to lose a rhetorical effect by precision of language when everyone understood what was said in a pic wiki in sense fox with his impetuous temperament his brilliant imagination and rapid utterance was no more likely to check the rush of his eloquence by an anxiety not to exaggerate than a jockey at a close finish would refuse to use his spurs for fear of punishing his horse he was perpetually in exaggeration and to that extent must bear the blame of want of principle men who now sit down and read his fiery invective in cold blood naturally wonder how he could ever forget or north condone men who were present and saw the sunny boisterous temperament lash itself into quick anger and be carried away in a whirlwind of ungovernable rage could easily understand how soon the impression would pass from his placable heart with the cause which produced it and warm-hearted friendship resume her reign as the genial sun bursts out after a summer storm if the coalition was not dishonorable and disgraceful to the two chief parties concerned it certainly was not disadvantageous to the nation the arguments of fox on that point were unanswerable during 23 years there had been no less than 10 different administrations the old wig phalanx had been so hopelessly disintegrated that it was quite impossible to find a leader who could command a solid majority the tories broken as they were by the american war would no longer rally to the discredited standard of north shellburn had become in a year so unpopular with all parties that his retirement was the only absolutely certain in english politics a strong government was essential to england's welfare and the coalition between fox and north afforded the best chance of establishing a strong government and to the wig party the coalition promised to be no less advantageous than to the nation a few staunch wigs like the duke of richman stood apart he had put his name he said to too many protests against north to feel comfortable in his company a few of the older race of wigs who had once followed chatham like the duke of graffton and lord camden refused to join but the younger men and the able men followed fox from a party point of view they were undoubtedly right the party might be called a coalition party the policy might to some extent be a coalition policy but the ministry was a wig ministry pure and simple lord north was the only cabinet minister not a wig much might be said from the tori side of the policy of coalescing with the wigs on terms which surrendered everything and received nothing deliverance from a worst coalition was but a cold comfort to a tori who was called upon by party obligations to vote steadily to keep the wigs in office fox certainly was not liable to the charge of having made a bad bargain for his party men's minds went naturally back a few years and remembered how at a great crisis of the country's history a coalition ministry which had been formed under circumstances by no means unlike the present had raised england to a height of fame greater than she had ever experienced before they fondly hoped that history would repeat itself if chatham could fairly boast that he had borrowed new castles majority in 1757 in order to govern the country with even greater justice could fox boast in 1783 that he had borrowed north's majority to establish the ascendancy of the wigs yet the coalition ministry was a fatal political blunder and wrecked the fortunes of the wig party there was one element left out of the calculation and that vitiated the whole no ferry left unasked to a wedding banquet ever revenged herself more speedily and more fatally than did george the third on the coalition politicians who hadn't neglected him many circumstances combined to make the king implacable the shuffling of the political cards behind his back and without his knowledge or consent was peculiarly distasteful to him he saw himself treated as if he were already king of the marathas he had resented the way in which portland was put forward in 1782 and now portland was being actually forced on him against his will he hated fox and looked upon him as an enemy to his throne and chief among the corruptors of his sons morals and politics but the cruelest stroke of all was the stab which lord north gave him from behind et tu boute lord north had been his chosen servant his friend more than his minister on whom he had lavished all the tenderness and thoughtfulness of which his nature was capable and now lord north was in the ranks of his enemies and aspiring to be Peshawar over him often had george the third been obliged to accept a minister who was personally distasteful to him he always fought to the last against him but when he had given way he treated him fairly and openly he looked upon the coalition ministers in a totally different light they were a set of political sharpers who were not fit to be treated as gentlemen he never attempted to conceal his opinion of them at his levees he would scarcely speak to them in his first letter to shellburn after the vote condemning the piece he lamented that it was his lot to reign in the most profligate age to lord temple he called it the most unprincipled coalition the annals of this or any other nation can equal and spoke of his own attitude toward this new cabinet in most unmistakable terms a ministry which I have avowedly attempted to avoid by calling on every other description of men cannot be supposed to have either my favor or my confidence and as such I shall most certainly refuse any honors they may ask for I trust the eyes of the nation may soon be opened as my sorrow may prove fatal to my health if I remain long in this thralldom I trust you will be steady in your attachment to me and ready to join other honest men in watching the conduct of this unnatural combination and I hope many months will not elapse before the grenvils the pits and other men of abilities and character will relieve me from a situation which nothing could have compelled me to submit to but the supposition that no other means remained of preventing the public finances from being materially effected it is abundantly evident from this letter that the king regarded his ministers not merely with dislike but with rancorous hostility he never intended to deal fairly with them he looked on their existence as a tyranny to which he only submitted under press of bankruptcy which he would throw off directly he had the opportunity this was a factor in the political problem which the ministers had never taken into consideration they were prepared to fight openly with shellburn or with pit they were prepared to endure uncomplainingly the aversion of the king but to have to defend themselves day by day an hour by hour against the secret intrigues and underhand plots of their nominal master was to plunge them into a contest in which sooner or later they were bound to receive a fall nothing said fox himself of the coalition but success can justify it unfortunately for him the attitude of the king made success impossible end of section 10