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CHAPTER IV
AT WESTMINSTER AND GOOSTREE’S
The other group, which rivalled the official Whigs in the zeal of its
opposition to Lord North, was that of the former followers of Chatham.
They had neither organization nor a programme; but in general they
inherited the imperial sentiments and non-partisan traditions of that
great leader. They were less eager than the Rockingham group for
parliamentary reform and the limiting of the royal prerogative; but, like
the Girondins of the French Revolution, the indefiniteness of their aims
left much liberty of action to their following; and Pitt, who naturally
attached himself to this group, rivalled Fox in his zeal for Reform, both
economic and parliamentary.
The leader of the Chathamites was the Earl of Shelburne, who had
been driven into opposition by the arbitrary conduct of the King at the
time of the Wilkes affair. The estimates of his character are very
diverse. Burke wrote of him privately in 1783 as “this wicked man, and
no less weak and stupid than false and hypocritical,” his chief crime
being that of breaking in pieces the Whig party. Few persons would
have gone so far as the vehement Irishman, who, on these lower
levels, allowed party passion to dull his eagle glance. Shelburne was
one of the grands seigneurs and political thinkers of the time. Polite
and courtly, he dazzled men by the splendour of his hospitality. In his
library he shone as a scholar and philosopher, and his conversation
was the index of his keen and supple intellect. In public life he showed
that he never lacked courage. Yet there was always something wanting
about Shelburne. His speech and manner passed so quickly and easily
from the affable to the severe as to beget feelings of distrust. His
enemies accused him of duplicity and dubbed him Malagrida, a well-
95
known Portuguese Jesuit.
We may note here that Pitt either shared or deferred to the general
feeling about Shelburne when he omitted him from his Cabinet in
December 1783.
Some of the specific charges against Shelburne (and most of them
are vague) have vanished now that the mists of passion, amidst which
96
he ever moved, have cleared away. It is the lot of some men to
arouse undeserved dislike or distrust, owing to unfortunate
mannerisms. Yet it is certain that England owes much to the earl. He
was one of the first to espouse the Free Trade principles of Adam
Smith; he was chiefly responsible for the terms of peace of 1782–3;
and the admiration of Benjamin Franklin for him largely conduced to
the signature of the preliminaries with the United States. Posterity has
therefore accorded to him a far higher place than was allowed by the
jealousy or pettiness of his contemporaries. Such was the leader to
whom Pitt attached himself.
On 25th January 1781 Shelburne protested manfully against the
overbearing conduct of our Government in ordering the capture of
Dutch merchantmen before the outbreak of war, and inveighed against
the policy of the Ministry as fatal to liberty and to the welfare of the
Empire. Finally he declared that the tactics of Government had proved
that the conquest of the American colonies, if it could be accomplished,
would entail fatal results at home; that he would be better pleased to
see his country free, though curtailed in power and wealth, than
acquiring greatness, if greatness were to be purchased at the expense
of her constitution and liberty. The speech rang true to the traditions of
97
Chatham; and it awoke responsive echoes in the breast of his son.
Within the space of five weeks Pitt proved that his support was of
the highest value. In a maiden speech, which perhaps bears away the
palm from the first efforts of the greatest orators of all time, he gave
proof of those astonishing powers which nature seemed to have
implanted in a state of maturity. Practice and experience were to
perfect them; but they then left on all his hearers an impression of
wonder as at something almost supernatural in a youth of twenty-one
years. This feeling was all the more natural as the speech dealt with
economic subjects, which Wilberforce regarded as “of a low and
98
vulgarizing quality.”
We must pause here to notice that the topic of economy was at
that time of burning interest. On the whole it excited more general
attention than the subject of parliamentary reform. In fact the latter was
insisted on by practical men mainly with the view of stopping the
frightful waste that resulted from sinecures, jobs, and other forms of
corruption in the public service. Rigid doctrinaires like Major Cartwright
might dilate on the heaven-born right of every man to have a vote, or
depict the beauty of an electoral system which enlisted the virtuous
energies of every citizen and called on him to renew Parliament every
99
year, that being the natural time of renewal of all things. A still stiffer
theorist, Jebb, might go further and insist on the election of a new
Parliament for each session. Together they might call for the ballot,
equal electoral areas, and payment of members. Yet their arguments
would have fallen on deaf ears but for the strain of war taxes, the
dullness of trade, and the blunderings of placemen high in office.
When London, Bristol, and Yorkshire felt the pinch of hard times,
national expenditure became a matter of the most urgent concern.
It was in support of Burke’s proposals for the better regulation of
the King’s Civil List and for abolishing several sinecures that Pitt made
his maiden speech in the House (26th February 1781). At once he
lifted the subject to a high level. The measure, he said, would have
come with more grace, and with more benefit to the public service, had
it sprung from the royal breast. Ministers ought themselves to have
proposed it, thereby showing that His Majesty desired to participate in
the suffering of the Empire.
They ought to consult the glory of their royal master, and seat
him in the hearts of his people, by abating from magnificence what
is due to necessity.... The abridgment of useless and unnecessary
expense can be no abatement of royalty. Magnificence and
grandeur are not inconsistent with retrenchment and economy,
but, on the contrary, in a time of necessity and of common
exertion, solid grandeur is dependent on the reduction of expense;
and it is the general sentiment and observation of the House that
economy is at this hour essentially necessary to national salvation.
What you do
Still betters what is done. When you speak, sweet,
I’ld have you do it ever.
But (said he) if the motion is rejected, and the old and vicious
system of government is in every point tenaciously adhered to, the
freedom of the people and the independence of this House must
be buried in the same grave with the power, the opulence and the
glory of the Empire.
Men so diverse in character as George Selwyn and the young
reformer, Wilberforce, were loud in praise of the speech. The latter,
though he regretfully voted against Pitt, declared him to be “a ready-
made orator”; while the old place-hunter and roué found in it, “du sel et
102
du piquant à pleines mains. Charles [Fox] en fut enchanté.” Horace
Walpole praised the speech in these terms:
So far as we know, not a single vote was gained by this oration, for
the division list showed ninety-eight against Barré’s motion and only
forty-two for it. A Scottish member, Ferguson of Pitfour, a faithful
supporter of Henry Dundas, on one occasion confessed that he had
only once ventured to vote on his own conviction, and that was the
worst vote he ever gave. Many members, while lacking the courage
and wit to make the admission, acted with equal fidelity to their own
interests; and hence even the best speeches rarely won over votes. In
the present case no one answered, and no one could answer, Pitt’s
arguments; yet they had no effect on the docile flock which trooped
into the lobby at the heels of Lord North. By a majority of forty-three
the Commons decided that the King should not be requested to show
his benevolence and disinterestedness.
The third effort of the young orator had no more effect. It came
about, apparently without premeditation, in the course of a debate on
the motion of Fox for the conclusion of an immediate peace with our
American colonies (12th June). In the first part of his speech Pitt
warmly controverted two members who claimed that Chatham had
sympathized with the war; and, in his eagerness to clear his father’s
memory, he averred that his (Chatham’s) conduct on this subject had
been uniform and consistent. After this doubtful assertion he stated his
own views in a most trenchant style. Falling upon Lord Westcote, who
had declared the war to be a holy war, he uttered these remarkable
words:
* * * * *
In the middle of July, after the close of the session, Pitt went on the
western circuit, but the notices of his speeches are very meagre. The
only reference that I have found to this episode in his life is in a letter
of 29th August 1781 to his Cambridge friend, Meeke:
As a proof that Pitt did not merely play with the legal profession, I
may quote this sentence from his letter of June 1782 to Meeke:
I have for many reasons chosen to be only a friend, without
being a member, of Shelburne’s Administration, and am at least as
104
likely to continue a lawyer as you are to commence one.
When I left the House, I left in one room a party of young men,
who made me, from their life and spirits, wish for one night to be
twenty. There was a tablefull of them drinking—young Pitt, Lord
Euston, Berkley, North, etc., singing and laughing à gorge
déployée: some of them sang very good catches; one Wilberforce,
a M. of P., sang the best.