FROM the year 1757 to the death of George II., William Pitt was Prime Minister of England. By the predominance of his genius he had composed all intestine feuds, and carried her power and fame to their farthest limits. Canada, after Wolfe's victory, had fallen, and the great colonial fabric which France had been for more than a century building, was at a single blow destroyed. The American Colonies were thus relieved from a dangerous neighboring enemy, and one superintending authority was extended over the continent of North America. And so it was throughout the world. France was everywhere humbled, and Great Britain everywhere triumphant. "George II.," said Burke, in one of his oration-like pamphlets, "carried the glory, the power, the commerce of England, to a height unknown even to this renowned nation, in the times of its greatest prosperity; and he left his succession resting on the true and only foundations of all natural and all regal greatnessaffection at home, reputation abroad, trust in allies, terror in rival nations."

Every one is apt to shrink from that theory of history which attributes great effects to the power of a single man; but it is vain to question that, in the case of Mr. Pitt, individual power, the character of one man, had its direct and controlling influence. It was personal influence that made him prime minister, contrary to the wishes of the king, who disliked him with a truly king-like antipathy to popular favorites. In spite of the prejudices and cabals of a set of courtiers and courtier-like statesmen, with whom he had no sympathy, he had been forced, or rather forced himself, into power. Being there, the same power of individual-will showed itself, in absolute, almost tyrannical control at home, both in the cabinet and out of it--both over his colleagues and his nominal master, and in the conduct of a war which involved every power in Europe, and agitated every quarter of the globe. He was emphatically a war-min

ister; for, as is very apparent, when he mingled afterwards in peaceful councils, (his health, to be sure, enfeebled,) his success was by no means so illustrious. But as a war-minister, his merit was brilliant indeed. Into every branch of the public service he seemed to infuse his own fierce spirit; and just so long as the military men of Great Britain felt the impulse which his vigor gave them, they triumphed over every enemy that opposed them. There is, in the biography of Lord Keppel, a very curious correspondence of General Field-Marshal Hodgson and Lord Albemarle, in which the peculiar vigor of the British minister is most happily hit off. In a letter written just before the expedition against Belle Isle, of which he was to take command, General Hodgson says: "After my interview with the king, I waited on Mr. Pitt by appointment. The element was calm and serene -not a dimple on the surface but what was occasioned by a smile. Wondered I would go this afternoon-why not stay till to-morrow? Recommended me not to stay for trifles if the wind was fair, or confine myself to forms; and promised to support me in all stretches of power whatever, and against whomsoever. Told me that perhaps the money might not be ready when we were to sail, but not to mind that, but go without it. I assured him that I would, and said, were things to be bought, they might be taken. He kissed me, and did not doubt of my success."

There is, too, a beautiful passage in a letter of Horace Walpole, who had no personal affection for the minister:

"The single eloquence of Mr. Pitt can, like an annihilated star, shine many months after it has set. I can tell you it has conquered Martinico. If you will not believe it, read the Gazette-read Monckton's letter. There is more martial spirit in it than in half of Thucydides, and in all the Grand Cyrus. Do you think Demosthenes or Themistocles ever raised the Greek stocks two per cent. in four-and-twenty hours? I shall burn all

my Greek and Latin books; they are the history of a little people. The Romans never conquered the world till they had conquered three parts of it, and were three hundred years about it; we subdue the world in three campaigns, and a globe, let me tell you, as big again as it was in their days."*

Nor was, as we have said, Mr, Pitt's power more strongly illustrated in his foreign than in his domestic policy, or rather in his political relations at home. He was master in the cabinet, and the intrigues which had been actively perplexing the government since the termination of Mr. Pelham's, if not of Sir Robert Walpole's administration, were forced to rest by his single predominance. On the 14th January, 1760, Lord Barrington thus describes this state of things: If I were to give you an account of the past and present state of things here since I wrote last, I should compose a volume. For the present it may suffice that I assure you of the union, cordiality and good-will which reign at present among the king's servants. It (fortunately for them, our master and the public) is such that there never was more at any period of our time. I could not have said this three months ago, but I can safely assert it now; and I think there is every appearance that the same happy temper will continue. I verily believe that the Duke of Newcastle and his brother (Mr. Pelham) did not more cordially wish each other to continue in their respective stations, than the Duke of Newcastle and Mr. Pitt do now; and there are less disputes and coldness by a great deal than there used to be between the two brothers. This union, great and extraordinary as it may seem, is nothing in comparison with that of the Parliament and the nation; and seem to have one mind and one object. What is most astonishing, the object in which the whole people is united is wise and good. Do not, however, imagine that this proceeds from any improvement made by our countrymen in either wisdom or virtue; for it arises solely from this: no man who can raise any sort of disturbance, finds it either convenient or agreeable to be out of humor at this time. These are happy conjunctures, and I hope and believe the proper use will be made of them."

How different was the condition of things when the influence of Mr. Pitt's unimpaired vigor was removed, cannot be better shown than from the following extract, having reference to the ministry of 1769, but which is applicable to each portion of that interval of impotent intrigue and perplexity, beginning with Mr. Pitt's resignation in 1761, and ending with Lord North's premiership, in 1770: "An opinion has too long prevailed, that all ministers are alike, and that the measures proposed by all will have the same tendency. Many think the form of gov. ernment not worth contending for, and very little attachment is discoverable, in the body of our people, to our excellent constitution; no reverence for the customs or opinions of our ancestors, no attachment but to private interest, nor any zeal but for selfish gratification. While party distinctions of Whig and Tory, High-Church and Low-Church, Court and Country, subsisted, the nation was divided, and each side held an opinion for which they would have hazarded everything; for both acted upon principle. If there were some who sought to alter the constitution, there were many others who would have spilt their blood to preserve it from violation. If divine hereditary right had its partisans, there were multitudes to stand up for the superior sanctity of a title founded upon an act of Parliament, and the consent of a free people. But the abolition of party names seems to have destroyed all public principles among the people; and the frequent changes of ministers, having exposed all sets of men to the public odium, and broke all bands of compact and association, has left the people but few objects for their confidence. The power of the crown was, indeed, never more visibly extensive over the great men of the nation; but then the great men have lost their influence over the lower order of the people. Even Parliament has lost much of its reverence with the subjects of the realm, and the voice of the multitude is set up against the sense of the Legislature. An impoverished and heavily burdened public; a declining trade and decreasing specie; a people luxurious and licentious, impatient of rule and despising all authority; government relaxed in every sinew, and a corrupt, selfish

spirit pervading the whole; the state destitute of alliances, and without respect from foreign nations."*

Between the dates of these two extracts Mr. Pitt had retired from the minis

try, which, as a Commoner, and through a war, he had conducted with such ability, and, becoming an earl, had sunk into the insignificance of a sinecure department in an administration which he wanted either the inclination or from infirmity of health or temper-the ability to regulate or control. It is necessary that the leading incidents of this interval should be intelligibly narrated.

On the 14th January, 1760, (and so it continued till the accession of George III., in October of the same year,) everything in and out of the cabinet was "union, cordiality and good-will." "When you have changed," says Walpole, in a private letter written less than a fortnight after the king's death, the cipher from George II. to George III., and have shifted a few lords and grooms of the bed-chamber, you are master of the history of the new reign, which is, indeed, but a lease of the old one."

Things were very soon destined to change, and a combination of domestic intrigue and foreign diplomatic controversies led to Mr. Pitt's final retirement from administration.

On the accession of George III., the Earl of Bute, though possessed of great influence, personally, with the royal family, held no responsible office under government. It is now well ascertained that he was not merely discontented with this state of things, but had early determined, not only to have a place in the administration, but to rid himself of the overshadowing influence of Mr. Pitt. The evidence that this was so may be briefly stated. Among the meanest and most contemptible of intriguers, was Bubb Dodington, who, in 1761, was by Lord Bute created as a reward for services presently to be stated-Lord Melcombe. He was the friend, the confidant and the tool of Lord Bute. In his Diary of November

22d, 1760, less than a month after the death of George II., are the following entries:

"Nov. 22d. Lord Bute desired to see

me at my own house, at Pall Mall. He staid two hours with me; we had serious and confidential talk; he gave me repeated assurances of his most generous friendship, and fresh instances of the king's benignity, by his majesty's order. Nov. 29th. Lord Bute came to me by appointment, and staid a great while. I pressed him to take the Secretary's office, and provide otherwise for Lord Holdernesse. He hesitated for some time, and then said, if that was the only difficulty it could easily be removed; for Lord Holdernesse was ready, at his desire, to quarrel with his fellow-ministers (on account of the slights and ill-usage which he daily experienced) and go to the king and throw up, in seeming anger; and then he (Bute) might come in without seeming to displace anybody. I own the expedient did not please me.

"Dec. 20. Lord Bute called on me; and we had much talk about setting up a paper, and about the Houses, in case of resignations.

"21st. Mr. Glover was with me, and was full of admiration of Lord Bute.

He

applauded his conduct, and the king's saying, they would beat everything; but a little time must be given for the madness of popularity to cool.'"

On the 2d of January, 1761, is a passage of similar import, in which Lord Bute tells Dodington that the ministry were meditating a peace with France. "If such," replied Dodington, "should be their scheme, it will be irresistible; there was but one way to defeat the use they proposed to make of it, which was, to put himself at the head of it in a great office of business, and to take the lead." [See also Diary, 16th January.]

Of these intrigues, or at least of the evidence of them, the prime minister did and could know little or nothing, and may, not unreasonably, have relied on the professions of confidence and regard which the king and Lord Bute were habitually making. In this way only can

we account for his apparently contented acquiescence in the first movement which was made, in March, when Lord Holdernesse retired on a pension, Lord Bute taking his place, and Lord Barrington was made Chancellor of the Exchequer in the room of Mr. Legge. If we may judge from the new Chancellor's own testimony, this change could have brought no strength to the tottering ministry: "The same strange fortune which made me Secretary at War, five years ago, has made me Chancellor of the Exchequer; it may perhaps at last make me Pope. I think I am equally fit to be at the head of the Church as of the Exchequer."-[3 Chatham, 99.]

It is due to truth here to pause, and say that the apparent connivance of Pitt, in this arrangement, never has been explained. His private correspondence is silent. The change in Lord Holdernesse's department is less material than that in the Exchequer. Lord Holdernesse, if we are to believe Dodington's hearsay testimony, was party to the pending conspiracy. But with Mr. Legge, the case was widely different. He was the friend of Mr. Pitt; and one of two conclusions is inevitable either that the change was made with his free consent, and by concert between Lord Bute and himself, as an adverse movement to others of his colleagues; or that, being unable to resist the current of personal and royal favor, he was unwilling, for a friend's sake, to attempt to thwart it. The evidence on the one side is, that Mr. Pitt's panegyrists assumed this ground of very inadequate justification; and on the other, an intercepted letter from the Spanish ambassador (a very vigilant observer of all that was going on around him) to his government, which, being published in the Chatham Correspondence, (vol. II., p. 101,) must have come into Mr. Pitt's hands soon after it was written. Mr. Pitt," says he," is not visible. I believe he wants to gain time to see the effect of France's declaration. Your Excellency need not doubt of his union with my Lord Bute; and that the present changes have been made with his privity. The blow is leveled at the Duke of Newcastle and his party. Your Excellency will see the consequences of this."

Be this as it may, the deeper plot was still in progress; and when, through other agency than its own, its object was attained, Dodington wrote to his victorious patron: "I sincerely wish your lord

ship joy of being delivered of a most impracticable colleague, his majesty of a most imperious servant, and the country of a most dangerous minister. I am told that the people are sullen about it. Be that as it may, I think it my duty to my most gracious sovereign, and my gener ous friend, to say, that if I can be of any service to either in anything that can be most difficult and dangerous, I am most ready to undertake it."

Lord Brougham, in his sketches of British Statesmen, sees in the Earl of Bute's reply nothing but austere and dignified rebuke. To me it seems more like the cautious reply of one who, having attained his own ends, chooses to check the familiarity of a confederate whose counsel and exultation are neither useful nor agreeable. It is not improbable, too, that Lord Bute, now that he held alone the helm of State, began to distrust his ability to keep the ship steady, and regretted the absence of the old pilot whom he had helped to throw overboard. Besides, if no concurrence of views and plans had existed between them, would Dodington ever have ventured to write such a letter? Lord Bute says, in reply, (Oct. 7th :) "Whatever private motives of uneasiness I might have in the late administration, I am far from thinking the dissolution of it favorable, in the present minnte, to the king's affairs. I shall not fail to acquaint the king with the very frank and generous declaration you made. Indeed, my good lord, my situation, at all times perilous, is become much more so, for I am no stranger to the language held in this great city: Our darling's resignation is owing to Lord Bute, and he must answer for all the consequences ;' which is, in other words, for the miscarriages of another system, which Pitt himself could not have prevented. All this keeps up my attention, and strengthens my mind without alarming it; not only whispers caution, but steadiness and resolution, wherein my noble friend's assistance will prove a real comfort to me."

Such is the accessible evidence of the miserable court-intrigue, of which alone, it is not possible to doubt, Mr. Pitt would in time have been the victim. Other causes, public in their nature, which it is far more agreeable to contemplate, led to the same results.

The parties to the war which was raging when George III. came to the throne, were, on the one side, France, Austria and Russia-on the other, England and