pously and abusively against the petitioner, and had thrown the House into a laughter on the topics of bribery and corruption. Pitt, who was in the gallery, started and came down with impetuosity, and with all his former fire, said, 'He had asked what occasioned such an uproar; lamented to hear a laugh on such a subject as bribery! Did we try within the House to diminish our own dignity, when such attacks were made upon it from without? that it was almost lost! that it wanted support! that it had long been vanishing! scarce possible to recover it! that he hoped the Speaker would extend a saving hand to raise it, he only could restore it, yet scarce he! He called on all to assist, or else we should only sit to register the arbitrary edicts of one too powerful a subject!' This thunderbolt thrown in a sky so long serene, confounded the audience. Murray crouched silent and terrified. Legge scarce rose to say with great humility, 'that he had been raised solely by the Whigs, and if he fell sooner or later, he should pride himself in nothing but in being a Whig.'"* It was impossible that this could go on. The Duke of Newcastle felt it to be so; after an interval he again applied to Fox, obtained his active support, and then, as a reward, offered the seals, without humiliating conditions. Such was the homage paid to the constitution. George the Second often said * Mem. by Lord Orford. 1756. that as a German prince he would not have made Newcastle even his Chamberlain. But if as a German prince he had made Newcastle not only Chamberlain but Prime Minister, no House of Commons would have obliged him to seek for great abilities in his Secretary of State. We have Fox ought in prudence, even if not tied by any positive engagement, to have required the admission of Pitt into the Cabinet at the same time with himself. Instead of doing this, he offered the privy seal to the Duke of Bedford. seen that the Duke of Bedford declined place for himself, but accepted it for his friends. Sandwich and Rigby obtained offices lucrative rather than honourable. Lord Gower, lately Lord Trentham, was made Privy Seal. The Duke of Newcastle, to provide for Sir Thomas Robinson, and others of his friends who retired, burthened the country to the extent of nine thousand pounds a year.* But stormy times were approaching, and arrangements which excluded Pitt from an office of power, were ill suited to the wants of a country which was about to meet France and Austria combined in a war of prodigious exertion. In October 1756, Fox, disgusted by the treatment he received from the Duke of Newcastle, tendered his resignation to the King. The King was angry, but sought in vain for help. The office of Chief Justice was vacant, and Murray declared that he would accept no other. Pitt alone could supply the *Lord Orford. vacancy made by the resignation of Fox. But he 1756. It was at this time that the Duke of Bedford accepted the office of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, which the Duke of Devonshire quitted for the Treasury. This combination was not made to be lasting. Mr. Pitt, with all his great qualities, was ill fitted to influence the votes of the House of Commons. It was not only that he could not stoop to dishonest arts; he did not possess, or would not exert, the honest qualities of conciliation and forbearance. Hence in the course of his long life, though he often captivated the nation, he never led a political party, nor was he ever the efficient head of a ministry. His only connections were with a part of his own family; for even the "cousins" did not permanently act with him: at one time he was opposed to Lyttleton, at another to George Grenville, and for a considerable period a breach with Lord Temple broke off another intimate connexion. When he came to form a ministry himself, he produced that curious mixture of which Mr. Burke says, "He made an administration so chequered and speckled; he put together a piece of joinery so crossly indented and whimsically dovetailed; a 1756. cabinet so variously inlaid; such a piece of diversified mosaic; such a tesselated pavement without cement; here a bit of black stone, and there a bit of white; patriots and courtiers; King's friends and republicans; whigs and tories; treacherous friends and open enemies; that it was indeed a very curious show, but utterly unsafe to touch, and unsure to stand on.' This strange jumble of parties was no accident, but was the natural result of his character. He had no party attachments, and no fixed principles. He cared as little for the employment of Hanover troops, and the engagements of subsidiary treaties, as he cared for the Walpole connection, or the sostyled patriots: he was ready to be for or against any measure, or any man, as his temper and judgement inclined him at the moment. What he really possessed, and what others wanted, was a high sense of personal honour and national independence-a resolute heart in council, and a powerful understanding for great emergencies. These qualities fitted him exactly for a colleague of Newcastle, who had the qualities which Pitt wanted a knowledge of the characters of public men, and a sense of the necessity of a party standard to which they could rally. After a long interval of suspense, the interests of the nation prevailed; the Duke of Newcastle became First Lord of the Treasury, and Mr. Pitt Secretary of State, and, according to the phrase of Horace Walpole, all Burke's Speech on American Taxation. the men who had been declaring for months that they never would join united in forming an administration. "The Duke of Newcastle lent me his majority to carry on the Government," said Mr. Pitt some years afterwards. Mr. Pitt made war, Mr. Pitt subsidized Prussia, Mr. Pitt sent forth glorious expeditions, Mr. Pitt conquered Canada: the Duke of Newcastle gave away places, and filled the Whig boroughs with sure dependents. In this administration Mr. Fox consented to act as Paymaster of the Forces, out of the Cabinet. The world has imputed this submission to a love of place for the sake of emolument. The best defence to be made for him is contained in his own letters in this collection; and had not the office of Paymaster been so exceedingly lucrative, we might believe that he was content to forego his projects of ambition solely to obtain quiet at home, and oppose to our foreign enemies an united government. Be this as it may, the coalition of parties in June, 1757, was most fortunate for this country. 1756. MR. RIGBY TO THE DUKE OF BEDFORD. An express arrived yesterday from Gibraltar, a Captain O'Hara, one of Lord Tyrawley's sons; and the intelligence he has brought has occasioned the sitting at this instant of perhaps one of the wisest councils in the world; he has indeed intimi |