It was natural that Pitt and Grenville, till her fleet, laden with the treasures of being such as they were, should take very America, should have arrived. different views of the situation of affairs. Pitt could see nothing but the trophies; Grenville could see nothing but the bill. Pitt boasted that England was victorious at once in America, in India, and in Germa

The existence of the treaty could not be kept a secret from Pitt. He acted as a man of his capacity and energy might be expected to act. He at once proposed to declare war against Spain, and to intercept

ny-the umpire of the Continent, the mis- the American fleet. He had determined, tress of the sea. Grenville cast up the sub- it is said, to attack without delay both Hasidies, sighed over the army extraordinaries, vanna and the Philippines. and groaned in spirit to think that the na- His wise and resolute counsel was rejecttion had borrowed eight millions in one ed. Bute was foremost in opposing it, and year. was supported by almost the whole cabiWith a ministry thus divided, it was not net. Some of the ministers doubted, or difficult for Bute to deal. Legge was the first affected to doubt, the correctness of Pitt's who fell. He had given offence to the intelligence; some shrank from the respon

young King in the late reign, by refusing to support a creature of Bute at a Hampshire election. He was now not only turned out, but in the closet, when he delivered up his seal of office, was treated with gross incivility.

Pitt, who did not love Legge, say this event with indifference. But the danger - was now fast approaching himself. Charles the Third of Spain had early conceived a deadly hatred of England. Twenty years before, when he was King of the two Sicilies, he had been eager to join the coalition against Maria Theresa. But an English fleet had

sibility of advising a course so bold and decided as that which he proposed; some were weary of his ascendency, and were glad to be rid of him on any pretext. One only of his colleagues agreed with him, his brother-in-law, Earl Temple.

Pitt and Temple resigned their offices. To Pitt the young King behaved at parting in the most gracious manner. Pitt, who, proud and fiery every where else, was always meek and humble in the closet, was moved even to tears. The King and the favorite urged him to accept some substantial mark of royal gratitude. Would he

suddenly appeared in the Bay of Naples. like to be appointed governor of Canada? An English captain had landed, had pro- A salary of £5000 a-year should be anceeded to the palace, had laid a watch on nexed to the office. Residence would not the table, and had told his majesty that, be required. It was true that the governor within an hour, a treaty of neutrality must of Canada, as the law then stood, could not be signed, or a bombardment would com- be a member of the House of Commons. mence. The treaty was signed; the squad- But a bill should be brought in authorizing ron sailed out of the bay twenty-four hours Pitt to hold his government together with

after it had sailed in; and from that day the a seat in Parliament, and in the preamble ruling passion of the humbled Prince was should be set forth his claims to the gratiaversion to the English name. He was at tude of his country. Pitt answered, with length in a situation in which he might all delicacy, that his anxieties were rather hope to gratify that passion. He had re- for his wife and family than for himself, cently become King of Spain and the In- and that nothing would be so acceptable to dies. He saw, with envy and apprehension, him as a mark of royal goodness which the triumphs of our navy, and the rapid ex- might be beneficial to those who were deartension of our colonial Empire. He was a est to him. The hint was taken. The Bourbon, and sympathized with the distress same gazette which announced the retireof the house from which he sprang. He ment of the secretary of state, announced was a Spaniard; and no Spaniard could also, that, in consideration of his great pubbear to see Gibraltar and Minorca in the lic services, his wife had been created a peeress in her own right, and a pension of

possession of a foreign power. Impelled by such feelings, Charles concluded a se- three thousand pounds a-year for three lives cret treaty with France. By this treaty, had been bestowed on himself. It was known as the Family Compact, the two doubtless thought that the rewards and honpowers bound themselves, not in express ors conferred on the great minister would words, but by the clearest implication, to have a conciliatory effect on the public make war on England in common. Spain mind. Perhaps, too, it was thought that his postponed the declaration of hostilities only popularity, which had partly arisen from

the contempt which he had always shown of Cadiz, before Bute could be convinced

that the court of Madrid really entertained hostile intentions.

for money, would be damaged by a pension: and indeed a crowd of libels instantly appeared, in which he was accused of having The session of Parliament which followsold his country. Many of his true friends ed Pitt's retirement passed over without thought that he would have best consulted any violent storm. Lord Bute took on the dignity of his character by refusing to himself the most prominent part in the accept any pecuniary reward from the court. House of Lords. He had become secretary Nevertheless, the general opinion of his tal- of state, and indeed prime minister, without ents, virtues, and services, remained unal- having once opened his lips in public extered. Addresses were presented to him cept as an actor. There was, therefore, from several large towns. London showed no small curiosity to know how he would its admiration and affection in a still more acquit himself. Members of the House of marked manner. Soon after his resigna- Commons crowded the bar of the Lords, tion came the Lord Mayor's day. The and covered the steps of the throne. It, King and the royal family dined at Guildhall. was generally expected that the orator Pitt was one of the guests. The young would break down; but his most malicious sovereign, seated by his bride in his state hearers were forced to own that he had coach, received a remarkable lesson. He made a better figure than they expected. was scarcely noticed. All eyes were fixed They, indeed, ridiculed his action as theaton the fallen minister; all acclamations rical, and his style as tumid. They were

especially amused by the long pauses which, not from hesitation but from affectation, he made at all the emphatic words, and Charles Townsend cried out, 'Minute guns!' The general opinion, however,

directed to him. The streets, the balconies, the chimney-tops burst into a roar of delight as his chariot passed by. The ladies waved their handkerchiefs from the windows. The common people clung to the wheels, shook hands with the footmen, and was, that if Bute had been early practised

in debate he might have become an impressive speaker.

In the Commons, George Grenville had been intrusted with the lead. The task

even kissed the horses. Cries of 'No Bute!' 'No Newcastle salmon!' were mingled with the shouts of 'Pitt for ever!" When Pitt entered Guildhall, he was welcomed by loud huzzas and clapping of hands, in was not, as yet, a very difficult one: for Pitt which the very magistrates of the city join- did not, think fit to raise the standard of ed. Lord Bute, in the mean time, was opposition. His speeches at this time were

hooted and pelted through Cheapside, and would, it was thought, have been in some danger, if he had not taken the precaution of surrounding his carriage with a strong body-guard of boxers. Many persons blamed the conduct of Pitt on this occasion, as disrespectful to the King. Indeed, Pitt himself afterwards owned that he had done wrong. He was led into this error, as he was afterwards led into more serious errors, by the influence of his turbulent and mischievous brother-in-law, Temple.

The events which immediately followed Pitts's retirement raised his fame higher than ever. War with Spain proved to be, as he had predicted, inevitable. News came from the West Indies that Martinique had been taken by an expedition which he had sent forth. Havanna fell; and it was known that he had planned an attack on Havanna. Manilla capitulated: and it was believed that he had meditated a blow against Manilla. The American fleet, which he had proposed to intercept, had unloaded an immense cargo of bullion in the haven DECEMBER, 1844. 31

distinguished, not only by that eloquence in which he excelled all his rivals, but also by a temperance and a modesty which had too often been wanting to his character. When war was declared against Spain, he justly laid claim to the merit of having foreseen what had at length become manifest to all, but he carefully abstained from arrogant and acrimonious expressions; and this abstinence was the more honorable to him, because his temper, never very placid, was now severely tried, both by gout and by calumny. The courtiers had adopted a mode of warfare, which was soon turned with far more formidable effect against themselves. Half the inhabitants of the Grub-Street garrets paid their milk-scores, and got their shirts out of pawn by abusing Pitt. His German war, his subsidies, his pension, his wife's peerage, were shin of beef and gin, blankets and baskets of small coal, to the starving poetasters of the Fleet. Even in the House of Commons, he was, on one occasion during this session, assailed with an insolence and malice which called forth the indignation of all men of all parties; but which he thus threw away, or rather put he endured the outrage with majestic pa- into the hands of his enemies. If Newtience. In his younger days he had been castle had been suffered to play at being but too prompt to retaliate on those who first minister, Bute might securely and attacked him; but now, conscious of his quietly have enjoyed the substance of powgreat services, and of the space which he fill-er. The gradual introduction of Tories ed in the eyes of all mankind, he would not into all the departments of the government stoop to personal squabbles. 'This is no might have been effected without any vioseason,' he said, in the debate on the Span- lent clamor, if the chief of the great Whig ish war, 'for altercation and recrimination. connection had been ostensibly at the head A day has arrived when every Englishman of affairs. This was strongly represented should stand forth for his country. Arm to Bute by Lord Mansfield, a man who may the whole; be one people; forget every justly be called the father of modern Torything but the public. I set you the exam- ism, of Toryism modified to suit an order ple. Harassed by slanderers, sinking un- of things under which the House of Comder pain and disease, for the public I forget mons is the most powerful body in the state. both my wrongs and my infirmities!' On The theories which had dazzled Bute

a general review of his life, we are inclined to think that his genius and virtue never shone with so pure an effulgence as during the session of 1762.

The session drew towards the close; and Bute, emboldened by the acquiescence of the Houses, resolved to strike another great blow, and to become first minister in name as well as in reality. That coalition, which a few months before had seemed all powerful, had been dissolved. The retreat of Pitt had deprived the government of popularity. Newcastle had exulted in the fall of the illustrious colleague whom he envied and dreaded, and had not foreseen that his own doom was at hand. He still tried to flatter himself that he was at the head of the government; but insults heaped on insults at length undeceived him. Places which had always been considered as in his gift, were

could not impose on the fine intellect of Mansfield. The temerity with which Bute provoked the hostility of powerful and deeply-rooted interests, was displeasing to Mansfield's cold and timid nature. Expostulation, however, was vain. Bute was impatient of advice, drunk with success, eager to be, in show as well as in reality, the head of the government. He had engaged in an undertaking, in which a screen was absolutely necessary to his success, and even to his safety. He found an excellent screen ready in the very place where it was most needed; and he rudely pushed it away.

And now the new system of government came into full operation. For the first time since the accession of the house of Hanover, the Tory party was in the ascendant. The prime minister himself was a

bestowed without any reference to him. His Tory. Lord Egremont, who had succeedexpostulations only called forth significant ed Pitt as secretary of state, was a Tory, hints that it was time for him to retire. and the son of a Tory. Sir Francis DashOne day he pressed on Bute the claims of wood, a man of slender parts, of small expea Whig Prelate to the archbishopric of rience, and of notoriously immoral characYork. 'If your grace thinks so highly of ter, was made chancellor of the exchehim,' answered Bute, 'I wonder that you quer, for no reason that could be imagdid not promote him when you had the ined, except that he was a Tory and thad power.' Still the old man clung with a been a Jacobite. The royal household desperate grasp to the wreck. Seldom, in- was filled with men whose favorite toast, deed, have Christian meekness and Chris- a few years before, had been the 'King

tian humility equalled the meekness and humility of his patient and abject ambition. At length he was forced to understand that all was over. He quitted that court where he had held high office during forty-five years, and hid his shame and regret among the cedars of Claremont. Bute became first lord of the treasury.

The favorite had undoubtedly committed a great error. It is impossible to imagine a tool better suited to his purposes than that

over the water.' The relative position of the two great national seats of learning was suddenly changed. The University of Oxford had long been the chief seat of disaffection. In troubled times, the High Street had been lined with bayonets; the colleges had been searched by the King's messengers. Grave doctors were in the habit of talking very Ciceronian treason in the theatre; and the under-graduates drank bumpers to Jacobite toasts, and chanted Jacobite airs. Of four successive Chan- The mutual animosity of the Whig and cellors of the University, one had notori- Tory parties had begun to languish after ously been in the Pretender's service; the fall of Walpole, and had seemed to be the other three were fully believed to almost extinct at the close of the reign of be in secret correspondence with the ex- George the Second. It now revived in all iled family. Cambridge had therefore its force. Many Whigs, it is true, were been especially favored by the Hano- still in office. The Duke of Bedford had verian Princes, and had shown herself signed the treaty with France. The Duke grateful for their patronage. George the of Devonshire, though much out of humor, First had enriched her library; George still continued to be Lord-Chamberlain. the Second had contributed munificently Grenville who led the House of Commons, to her senate-house. Bishoprics and dean- and Fox who still enjoyed in silence the eries were showered on her children. Her immense gains of the Pay-Office, had alChancellor was Newcastle, the chief of the ways been regarded as strong Whigs. But Whig aristocracy; her High-Steward was the bulk of the party throughout the counHardwicke, the Whig head of the law. try regarded the new minister with abhorBoth her burgesses had held office under rence. There was, indeed, no want of the Whig ministry. Times had now popular themes for invective against his changed. The University of Cambridge character. He was a favorite; and favorwas received at St. James's with compara- ites have always been odious in this countive coldness. The answers to the address-try. No mere favorite had been at the es of Oxford were all graciousness and head of the government, since the dagger warmth. of Felton reached the heart of the Duke of

The watchwords of the new government Buckingham. After that event, the most

arbitrary and the most frivolous of the Stuarts had felt the necessity of confiding the chief direction of affairs to men who had

were prerogative and purity. The sovereign was no longer to be a puppet in the hands of any subject, or of any combination of subjects. George the Third would given some proof of parliamentary or offinot be forced to take ministers whom he cial talent. Strafford, Falkland, Clarendisliked, as his grandfather had been forced don, Clifford, Shaftesbury, Lauderdale, to take Pitt. George the Third would not Danby, Temple, Halifax, Rochester, Sunbe forced to part with any whom he de- derland, whatever their faults might be,

lighted to honor, as his grandfather had been forced to part with Carteret. At the same time, the system of bribery which had grown up during the late reigns was to

were all men of acknowledged ability. They did not owe their eminence merely to the favor of the sovereign. On the contrary, they owed the favor of the sovereign

cease. It was ostentatiously proclaimed to their eminence. Most of them, indeed, that, since the accession of the young had first attracted the notice of the court King, neither constituents nor representa- by the capacity aud vigor which they had tives had been bought with the secret service shown in opposition. The Revolution money. To free Britain from corruption seemed to have for ever secured the state and oligarchical cabals, to detach her from against the domination of a Carr or a Vilcontinental connections, to bring the bloody liers. Now, however, the personal regard and expensive war with France and Spain of the King had at once raised a man who to a close, such were the specious objects which Bute professed to procure.

had seen nothing of public business, who had never opened his lips in Parliament, over the heads of a crowd of eminent orators, financiers, diplomatists. From a private gentleman, this fortunate minion had

Some of these objects he attained. England withdrew, at the cost of a deep stain on her faith, from her German connections. The war with France and Spain was ter- at once been turned into a secretary of minated by a peace, honorable indeed and state. He had made his maiden speech advantageous to our country, yet less hon- when at the head of the administration. orable and less advantageous than might The vulgar resorted to a simple explana

have been expected from a long and almost unbroken series of victories, by land and sea, in every part of the world. But the only effect of Bute's domestic administration was to make faction wilder and corruption fouler than ever.

tion of the phenomenon, and the coarsest ribaldry against the Princess Mother was scrawled on every wall and in every alley.

This was not all. The spirit of Party, roused by impolitic provocation from its long sleep, roused in turn a still fiercer and more malignant Fury, the spirit of nation- for a libel on the Revolution, was honored al animosity, The grudge of Whig with a mark of royal approbation, similar against Tory was mingled with the grudge to that which was bestowed on the author of Englishman against Scot. The two of the English Dictionary, and of the Vansections of the great British people had ity of Human Wishes. It was remarked not yet been indissolubly blended together. that Adam, a Scotchman, was the court

The events of 1715 and of 1745 had left painful and enduring traces. The tradesmen of Cornhill had been in dread of seeing their tills and warehouses plundered by bare-legged mountaineers from the Grampians. They still recollected that Black Friday, when the news came that the rebels were at Derby, when all the shops in the city were closed, and when the Bank of England began to pay in sixpences. The

architect, and that Ramsay, a Scotchman, was the court painter, and was preferred to Reynolds. Mallet, a Scotchman of no high literary fame, and of infamous character, partook largely of the liberality of the government. John Home, a Scotchman, was rewarded for the tragedy of Douglas, both with a pension and with a sinecure place. But, when the author of the Bard, and of the Elegy in a Country Churchyard,

Scots, on the other hand, remembered, ventured to ask for a Professorship, the with natural resentment, the severity with emoluments of which he much needed, and which the insurgents had been chastised, for the duties of which he was, in many the military outrages, the humiliating laws, respects, better qualified than any man livthe heads fixed on Temple Bar, the fires ing, he was refused; and the post was beand quartering-blocks on Kennington Com- stowed on the pedagogue under whose care mon. The favorite did not suffer the Eng- the favorite's son-in-law, Sir James Low

ther, had made such signal proficiency in the graces and in the humane virtues. Thus, the first lord of the treasury was detested by many as a Tory, by many as a

lish to forget from what part of the island he came. The cry of all the south was that the public offices, the army, the navy, were filled with high-cheeked Drummonds and Erskines, Macdonalds and Macgilli- favorite, and by many as a Scot. All the vrays, who could not talk a Christian hatred which flowed from these various tongue, and some of whom had but lately sources soon mingled, and was directed in begun to wear Christian breeches. All one torrent of obloquy against the treaty the old jokes on hills without trees, girls of peace. The Duke of Bedford, who without stockings, men eating the food of negotiated that treaty, was hooted through horses, pails emptied from the fourteenth the streets. Bute was attacked in his story, were pointed against these lucky ad- chair, and was with difficulty rescued by a venturers. To the honor of the Scots it troop of guards. He could hardly walk must be said, that their prudence and their the streets in safety without disguising pride restrained them from retaliation. himself. A gentleman who died not many

Like the princess in the Arabian tale, they stopped their ears tight, and, unmoved by the shrillest note of abuse, walked on, without once looking around, straight towards the Golden Fountain.

years ago used to say, that he once recognized the favorite Earl in the piazza of Covent Garden, muffled in a large coat, and with a hat and wig drawn down over his brows. His lordship's established type with the mob was a jack-boot, a wretched

Bute, who had always been considered as a man of taste and reading, affected, pun on his Christian name and title. A from the moment of his elevation, the jack-boot, generally accompanied by a petcharacter of a Mæcenas. If he expected ticoat, was sometimes fastened on a galto conciliate the public by encouraging lows, and sometimes committed to the literature and art, he was grievously mis- flames. Libels on the court, exceeding in taken. Indeed, none of the objects of his audacity and rancor any that had been munificence, with the single exception of published for many years, now appeared Johnson, can be said to have been well se- daily both in prose and verse. Wilkes, lected; and the public, not unnaturally, with lively insolence, compared the mo

ascribed the selection of Johnson rather to the Doctor's political prejudices than to his literary merits. For a wretched scribbler named Sheffeare, who had nothing in common with Johnson except violent Jacobitism, and who had stood in the pillory

ther of George the Third to the mother of Edward the Third, and the Scotch minister to the gentle Mortimer. Churchill, with all the energy of hatred, deplored the fate of his country, invaded by a new race of savages, more cruel and ravenous than