The Long Eighteenth Century

by Frank O'Gorman

  Even before Yorktown, however, the war was becoming politically unsustainable. In May 1781 a Rockinghamite motion to end the war was defeated by only 34 votes, 106 to 72. However, when Fox followed this up with a further motion on 12 June he was defeated by 172 to 99. North cannot have been comforted, however, by the fact that he was opposed in the division by some independents and former ministerialists. The defeat at Yorktown destroyed the ministry. In February 1782 Conway’s motion for an end to the war was defeated by only one vote, 194 to 193. Within three weeks North had resigned.

  North and the king had been defeated but who had won? North, indeed, had advised the king on 28 February that ‘it may be feasible to divide the Opposition, and to take in only a part.’ Desperate to maintain some freedom of action, George III, declaring that ‘my language went to a broad bottom, not the delivering myself up to a party’, appointed both Rockingham and Shelburne and their respective supporters to cabinet offices. The changes were more extensive than they had been at the fall of Walpole; only Thurlow survived from North’s cabinet. Rockingham took the Treasury but the two dominant personalities were the two secretaries, Shelburne and Fox. The Rockingham–Shelburne ministry proceeded to enact a programme of economical reform and, in an attempt to prevent Ireland going the way of America, granted legislative independence to the Irish Parliament. On the issue of peace with America, however, serious divisions within the ministry soon appeared between Shelburne and Fox, the former unwilling to concede total independence. Fox was on the point of resignation when Rockingham’s death on 1 July threw the political scene into confusion.

  The king seized his opportunity, appointing Shelburne to the Treasury and bringing Chatham’s son, William Pitt the Younger, into the cabinet as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Rockingham’s men resigned, unwilling to accept – and by accepting to vindicate – the king’s action. Rockingham’s successor, they argued, should have been chosen by the cabinet, not by George III. This drastic extension of the claims of the Rockingham Party against the royal prerogative was treated with contempt by the king. The parliamentary recess intervened, permitting Shelburne to turn his attention to the peace negotiations. Meanwhile, the Duke of Portland had succeeded to the leadership of Rockingham’s party. The Portland Party, in which Fox was the effective leader, regarded their latest political misfortune at the hands of the king and Shelburne as yet further evidence of the existence of a system of secret influence and court favouritism. Only by continuing the party’s struggle against the system of government which had lost the American colonies could they continue to carry the mantle of Rockingham. When Shelburne’s peace terms came before the Commons in February 1783 they were defeated by 224 to 208 and by 207 to 190. Like North in 1782, Shelburne took defeat by a Commons majority as sufficient cause for resignation. Like Chatham in 1766, he had an exaggerated belief in the ability of the monarchy alone to sustain his administration. Like Chatham’s, his was collapsing around him before he resigned. Thereupon Fox and Portland stiffened their terms: the king must appoint Portland to the Treasury and allow him, not the king, to appoint the cabinet and the junior ministers. The king was aghast at this public, open assault on his prerogatives. For six weeks Britain was without a government as George III twisted in every direction to avoid surrender to the politicians of party. In the most serious constitutional crisis since the Glorious Revolution, the future of the monarchy, of the Portland Party and, indeed, the future shape of British politics appeared to be at stake.

  The king would not have Fox and his men at any price. It was not merely their dogma which he detested. George III always tended to think the worst of his enemies; he regarded Fox and Portland as evil and ambitious men hungry for office. There was some personal justification for his attitude. He had come to hate the leaders of the opposition who had during the past year struck up a relationship with his son George, the Prince of Wales, who had established his court at Carlton House, playing on his weaknesses and cultivating his friendship as political insurance for the reign to come. Furthermore, Fox and his friends did not conceal the fact that they were engaged in a deadly serious political war against the king. The coalition between Fox and North, which was negotiated in March 1783, threatened the independence of the monarchy. Fox calculated that only by uniting his own force of approximately 90 supporters to North’s 120 could Shelburne (who had about 140 followers in all) and the king be defeated. The coalition between Fox and North caused a political sensation. They had been bitter political enemies for years, not least during the years of the American war and on almost every issue. But there were arguments in favour of the coalition. Was Fox simply to stand back and allow Shelburne and North to unite? The American war had been the great issue which had divided Fox and North but it now lay in the past. Some sort of coalition was necessary to carry on government. A Fox–Shelburne coalition was unthinkable in view of the events of the previous twelve months, and the Younger Pitt had ruled out a North–Shelburne coalition because of the way North had governed during his twelve years in power. Yet the Fox–North coalition has gone down in British history as an ‘infamous coalition’, and many contemporaries were shocked at the sight of Fox and the Rockinghams uniting with the man whose war and whose regime they had been consistently denouncing for many years.

  In the end, the king realized that there was no alternative to the coalition, and he admitted them to office with great reluctance and with public indications that they lacked his confidence. The most that can be said for the coalition ministry (April–December 1783) is that the king tolerated it. It is just possible, although unlikely, that the king might have reconciled himself to the coalition had its leaders treated him with respect and settled down to a period of quiet, efficient and unselfish administration. The king’s prejudices against it, however, were confirmed by the unpleasant and public need not only to obtain a large annual sum (£50,000 per annum) for the Prince of Wales but also to pay his huge debts (£60,000) in the summer of 1783. We now know that the king was biding his time and awaiting the right opportunity to dismiss the coalition.7 This was to come on Fox’s India Bill, a yet further measure to regulate the government of the subcontinent. Fox proposed that the government of India should become subject to a board of seven commissioners which would run the administration and, more to the point, control all the patronage of India. These commissioners would be appointed not, as hitherto in such cases, by the crown but by the ministers for four years at a time. Since it was widely believed that the amount of Indian patronage exceeded that of domestic patronage, it was clear that under Foxite commissioners the India Bill would have gone far towards installing Fox and his friends in office for a lengthy, if not, an indefinite period. The East India Company was horrified, and turned its engines of propaganda against the government. In December the bill received majorities in the House of Commons by a ratio of 2 to 1. As it was proceeding through the Lords, however, the king sent a message with Pitt’s cousin, Lord Temple that ‘he should consider them as his enemies’ who voted for the bill. On 17 December 1783 the bill was defeated in the Lords and the coalition government was dismissed. The next day, William Pitt was appointed First Lord of the Treasury at the age of twenty-four, a place he was to retain until 1801.

  We now know that Pitt was implicated in these proceedings, and that he had in fact persuaded George III to dismiss the coalition ministry in the manner that he did. Whether Pitt had thought out the implications of his action is less clear. His government (aptly but, in the end, inaccurately termed ‘the mince pie administration’, because it was not expected to last beyond Christmas) was in a minority in the House of Commons. It was now up to the House to decide between the conflicting claims of crown and party. Was the royal prerogative of appointing ministers to be sustained, or was Fox’s belief in the right of a majority in Parliament to determine the composition of a ministry to prevail? In one of the most exciting parliamentary battles in British history the organization and patience of the forces of the Fox–North coal
ition held for no less than three months, but Fox’s majority eventually shrank until on 8 March 1784 it was down to one. This was the signal for the king to dissolve a Parliament which still had three years to run. At the historic general election of 1784 Pitt obtained a workable majority of over 100. Before the election the combined forces of Fox and North had slightly exceeded 200; after it they numbered slightly over 130. Although the influence of the crown and the government was actively employed against the coalition, there can be no doubt that Pitt had public opinion on his side, and he won many seats in some of the larger boroughs and in the counties.

  Yet Pitt’s victory over Fox in 1783–4 did not only depend on ministerial propaganda. In what was still a traditional society most of the political nation retained enormous respect for the king and deeply disliked the prospect of the closet being stormed and the monarchy shorn of its traditional powers. Although the actions of the Rockingham and Portland Whigs had done much to re-establish the idea and practice of party in the two decades after the ‘Massacre of the Pelhamite Innocents’, their efforts did not meet with the seal of public approval in 1784. Fox and his friends were widely criticized for their part in seducing the Prince of Wales from his family attachments and princely duties. Furthermore, the coalition with North was universally condemned. For his part, the king preserved his dignity and won considerable sympathy and respect. It was extremely fortunate for him that his champion was the son of the Great Commoner, William Pitt, and not, as had been the case in the 1760s, an unpopular Scottish nobleman. Pitt’s courage, his oratorical skill and, not least, his deployment of patronage and propaganda consolidated and strengthened his position and carried his message out of doors.

  The victory of William Pitt ended the ministerial instability of the previous two years. The king now had a minister in whom he had confidence and who had a comfortable majority in Parliament. George III could now retreat from the central position on the political stage which he had for several years been forced to occupy. Disputes about royal powers in relation to those of Parliament and party had been settled for the foreseeable future and politics could return to normal. Pitt acknowledged his place as the king’s servant and resisted any temptation he may have felt to build up his own party. Even at the height of his power, however, he never had more than fifty ‘friends’, and probably rather fewer. Although on routine matters his majority was secure, it was not automatic. Everything depended on the votes of the independents. To the support of the ‘King’s Friends’ (around 200) could be added Pitt’s fifty supporters. Against these the opposition would deploy about 130 MPs. The 150 independents in the House could therefore ultimately determine whether the government won or lost a division. Pitt’s claims on parliamentary support were those of merit and service. Many MPs preferred Pitt’s virtues of patriotism, methodical industry and integrity compared with Charles James Fox’s pursuit of personal and party advantage, in active and well-publicized association with the Prince of Wales.

  The first year of Pitt’s administration saw the government defeated on a number of occasions. For nine months Pitt ostentatiously supported a scrutiny of the votes cast in the recent election in the constituency of Westminster, Charles James Fox’s seat. This petty and unpleasant attempt to unseat his great opponent from one of the most prestigious parliamentary constituencies did Pitt no good, and he appears to have realized it. After a series of defeats in the spring of 1785 he dropped the matter. Similarly, in the same year he acquiesced in the defeat of a ministerial proposal to fortify the dockyards at Plymouth and Portsmouth. Although it was only lost on the casting vote of the Speaker, Pitt had sensed that he did not have the support of the independent Country gentlemen. Further defeats in the same year on parliamentary reform and on a plan to liberalize trade with Ireland chastened him and warned him off future schemes of ambitious reform. In the future he was to recognize the limits to his authority. He came to see that he might not be able to carry either his cabinet or the Commons on a number of issues: these included parliamentary reform, the abolition of the slave trade and the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts. Throughout the remaining years of peace he preferred to improve the political structure less by flamboyant gestures of reform than by the quiet abolition of places and sinecures. Indeed, it has been calculated that in this way Pitt did more to reduce the influence of both the crown and the government than any politician of his generation. Nevertheless, his India Bill of 1784 restored to the crown the appointment of members of the board of control, and Indian patronage was left with the East India Company. Not unnaturally, both the crown and the company were satisfied with this arrangement. Pitt had learned the lessons of Fox’s India Bill very thoroughly. Whatever its weaknesses – and Fox and Burke claimed that corruption in India continued unabated – Pitt’s act was to provide the basis of Indian government for three-quarters of a century.

  Like Walpole, Pitt believed that the strength of the country derived from its economic prosperity which, in turn, depended upon peace. Between 1783 and 1793 Pitt did much to restore the economy by promoting sound national finance and by presiding over a veritable explosion in commercial activity. The first need was to balance the budget and raise revenue, which in 1783 lagged behind income by over £10 million per annum. This was done in two ways. First, the yield from existing taxes was raised by preventing fraud and smuggling, which saved £1 million a year for the Exchequer. Second, new taxes raised another £1 million a year. Pitt’s taxes were a curious assortment which included taxes on luxuries like hackney coaches, everyday items like ribbons, linens and candles and fixtures like windows and, in 1785, shops. Not all of Pitt’s taxes were wise. Indeed, he recognized as much by withdrawing the unpopular shop and window taxes and the tax on linen, and by dropping a projected tax on coal. More successful was the increase in revenue derived simply from increased consumption, a further £2 million. By 1792, as Pitt boasted in his famous budget speech of that year, total government income was 47 per cent higher than it had been nine years earlier. However, Pitt did not merely increase revenue. He attacked the national debt, which in 1783 stood at what contemporaries thought was the ruinous level of £238 million. He re-established the sinking fund in 1786 and by 1793 had managed to liquidate a modest but useful £10 million of debt.

  Under Pitt’s careful management, commercial confidence revived. Although familiar with the free trade philosophy of Adam Smith, he was no doctrinaire free trader, preferring cautious, pragmatic strategies. Sound national finance and the maintenance of peace were two essential prerequisites for commercial confidence. During the years of peace, British commercial activity roughly doubled. Imports rose from £10 million to £20 million between 1783 and 1790, while the value of exports increased from £12 million to £20 million. For this development, the European and American markets were vital. The value of British exports to Europe almost doubled between 1783 and 1792, helping to convert an annual trade deficit of £2.5 million into a surplus of almost £2 million. As for the trade with America, it very quickly recovered from the impact of the war. As early as 1785 the value of British trade with the ex-colonies had attained its pre-war level. As with taxation, however, Pitt’s record was not one of unalloyed success. His proposed free-trade treaty with Ireland in 1785 caused an outcry in England, had to be modified and even then was thrown out by the Irish Parliament. A commercial treaty with France, negotiated in 1786, provided for the reduction of duties of between 10 per cent and 15 per cent on trade between the two nations. Industrial opinion was divided. Old-established manufacturers, especially of silk, paper and leather, wanted protection, while Manchester textile manufacturers and Midlands metal traders yearned for free trade.

  In 1783 Britain had been defeated in a major war and stood isolated in Europe. Pitt was careful to keep out of continental entanglements during the first few years of his ministry. Although he was anxious to involve Britain in commercial competition with France he had no illusions about that country. Like his father he was profoundly s
uspicious of French colonial and naval objectives and concerned about her ambitions in the Low Countries. These latter he was keen to resist, and to that end in 1788 negotiated the triple alliance with Prussia and Holland. Pitt, moreover, kept his head when a minor dispute with Spain over an attack on a small British settlement off Vancouver Island in the Pacific, Nootka Sound, in 1790 aroused demands in the cabinet and in the Commons for war. British interests were not seriously at stake, and Pitt was able to press the Spaniards to negotiate a peaceful settlement which was wholly to Britain’s advantage. In a rather more dangerous dispute arising out of the Eastern question Pitt almost overreached himself in 1791, demanding that Catherine the Great of Russia should restore to Turkey territory conquered in the recent Russo-Turkish war. In the end he was forced to climb down, even at the cost of losing his Foreign Secretary, the Duke of Leeds. The best that can be said is that Pitt realized his mistake, saw that it was not in Britain’s interest to pursue a war in the Turkish Empire and ultimately kept the peace.