equipped against them. Each of them in an age of gross corruption was incorruptible, and the almost tragic pomp and circumstances attending on the death of both, present coincidences rarely to be found in the pages of history.

When Pitt, in 1756, became Secretary of State, on the full understanding that he alone was to direct the war, the fortunes of England in every quarter of the globe wore a disastrous aspect. In Europe she had only one ally-the King of Prussiaand he was then standing at bay amid a circle of mighty hunters. Her armies were weak, badly munitioned, and badly led; her navy could hardly keep the sea. Hanover was overrun by France, and her fleets threatened our coasts. The nation seemed insensible to its own disgrace, for it was scarcely possible to recruit either service. Our hold on India would have been lost but for the genius and valour of a merchant's clerk : our American colonies were imperilled rather than defended by inactive or incompetent officers. At home, affairs were little more promising than abroad, for, while privateers swarmed in the narrow seas, trade necessarily drooped. To this conclusion had come the successors of Walpole.

But almost as soon as Pitt took the helm, the labouring State vessel righted herself. "Now, a man of head being at the centre, the whole matter gets vital." No more apathy, no more oscillation, no more dallying with war. pervaded and re-animated the nation.

b

The spirit of one man Every department under

his direction responded to his energy, his vigilance, and his

com

The Earl of Loudon, Commanderin-Chief in North America, was pared by a Philadelphian, in conversation with Benjamin Franklin, to "St. "George upon the signposts, always "on horseback but never advancing." Admiral Holbourne, who commanded the fleet off Louisburg, declined to attack the French, because while he had seventeen ships of the line they had eighteen, and a greater WEIGHT OF METAL," according to the new seaphrase," says Chesterfield indignantly, "which was unknown to Blake." (Letter to his Son, September 30,

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assurance of success.

Even his colleagues, though marvelling and murmuring at the magnitude and cost of his preparations," ceased to oppose him. Cromwell had not been more completely master of his position than the Great Commoner was for some years. He was the Government. The King himself, who at first only acquiesced in the new Tribune of the People, at last applauded and honoured him. A really brave man himself, George II. could reverence valour in others. He was delighted by the rescue of his Electorate, and by the mortification of the Duke of Newcastle, whom of all his ministers he most hated and despised.

And now the curtain rose upon scenes of unexampled triumph. England bristled with arms; a well-appointed militia, distributed over the island, set at liberty the regular army. France, attacked on some and menaced on other points, withdrew from Hanover, next was disastrously defeated at Minden, and, so far from invading England, dreaded herself invasion. Some of her most important harbours suffered severely. She lost all her West Indian Islands except St. Domingo: she lost the Canadas: all her settlements in the East Indies, many stations of value to her in Asia and Africa. The House of Bourbon was humbled. “These are the doings of Mr. Pitt," said Horace Walpole, “and "they are wondrous in our eyes."

The grounds of Pitt's extraordinary influence upon the people of England have never been more forcibly or faithfully described than by an eminent living historian. After dwelling upon the eloquence which abashed Pitt's ablest opponents," the skilful

a The cost of his wars did not escape the notice of Junius: "I entirely agree "with Macaroni that this country does 66 owe more to Lord Chatham than it ever can repay, for to him we owe "the greatest part of our national "debt, and THAT, I am sure, we never "can repay."-Letter xi. Among the stronger recusants against this expenditure was George Grenville. "Pitt," says Lord Macaulay, "could see no"thing but the trophies; Grenville "could see nothing but the bill. Pitt

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"boasted that England was victorious "at once in America, in India, and in Germany, the umpire of the Con"tinent, the mistress of the sea. Gren"ville cast up the subsidies, sighed over the army extraordinaries, and groaned in spirit to think that the "nation had borrowed eight millions "in one year." (Edinburgh Review,' October, 1844.) Pitt's successors were more lavish than he was, but they purchased only loss, defeat, and humiliation for many years.

" and polished Murray," "the bold and dashing Fox,”—“ and if "these failed, who could hope to succeed?"-Earl Stanhope proceeds:

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But that which gave the brightest lustre, not only to the eloquence of Chatham but to his character, was his loftiness "and nobleness of soul. If ever there has lived in modern times "a man to whom the praise of a Roman spirit might be duly applied, that man, beyond all doubt, was William Pitt. He "loved power-but only as a patriot should-because he knew "and felt his own energies, and felt also that his country needed "them, because he saw the public spirit languishing and the "national glory declined-because his whole heart was burning "to revive the one, and to wreathe fresh laurels round the "other. He loved fame-but it was the fame that follows, "not the fame which is run after-not the fame that is gained by elbowing and thrusting, and all the little arts that bring "forward little men, but the fame that a minister will and "must wring from the very people whose prejudices he despises "and whose passions he controls. The ends to which he employed both his power and his fame will best show his object "in obtaining them. Bred amid too frequent examples of corruption; entering public life at a low tone of public "morals; standing between the mock patriots and the sneerers "at patriotism,—between Bolingbroke and Walpole—he mani"fested the most scrupulous disinterestedness, and the most lofty and generous purposes; he shunned the taint himself, "and in time removed it from his country. He taught British "statesmen to look again for their support to their own force "of character instead of court cabals or Parliamentary corruption. He told his fellow-citizens, not, as agitators tell them, that they were wretched and oppressed, but that they "were the first nation in the world-and under his guidance they became so." a

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I now return to the events immediately following George III.'s

a Lord Mahon's Hist. of England,' vol. iii. p. 15.

accession. The ink on the Royal Speech was scarcely dry before the suspicions of the Whigs were awakened." It presently appeared that they were no longer to be the only chanuels of court favour or preferment. Several noblemen of the old Jacobite connection were appointed lords, and several gentlemen grooms of the bedchamber; and on the third day of the new reign Lord Bute was sworn of the Privy Council. This appointment indeed was not not out of the usual course of things. The Earl had been Groom of the Stole to the Prince, and it was customary for the King to continue his household servants in the same offices which they had held under him while Prince of Wales, and the holder of that office is always made a Privy Councillor. Perhaps the preferment of Lord Bute attracted the more attention at the moment from the circumstance of the King's eldest brother, Edward Duke of York, being sworn in at the same time. But later writers have unduly - magnified this appointment."

Nothing short, however, of the Earl's banishment from Court would have satisfied the Whigs or the nation in their present state of feeling, and for such a step there was no pretext, unless indeed the King had thought fit to endorse the scandals respecting the favourite's position at Carlton House. Only a few days after Bute's admission to the Privy Council, a handbill was affixed to the Royal Exchange with these words: "No petticoat "government; no Scotch favourite; no Lord George Sackville: " and courtiers-odora canum vis-were not slow in detecting the channel through which thenceforward royal favours were most likely to flow. It soon became a question, according to a lady's

jest at the time, "what the King should burn in his chamber, "whether Scotch coal, Newcastle coal, or pit coal." Very early in the following year (February 2) there was a riot in the playhouse while the King was there. A recent tax on beer was imputed to Lord Bute, and the mob conveyed this ungentle hint of their disapprobation of it and him.

Had the Cabinet been unanimous and really as strong as it was in outward seeming, Lord Bute's influence, whatever may have been its foundation or extent, might very probably not have reached beyond the royal household. But the yoke of Pitt had sat for some time uneasily on the necks of his colleagues, who were growing weary of a war which tended to his glory alone, and were also, perhaps not unreasonably, alarmed at the cost the war was involving. The Duke of Newcastle fretted and fidgeted at the running account for glory, and whined over the eclipse of his own consequence at the counciltable. Lord Granville could not stomach the haughtiness of the Secretary; Fox, though he consoled himself with the Pay Office, was impatient of a second place among the orators of the day. The only cordial supporter of Pitt was his own brotherin-law, Lord Temple. Accordingly, Lord Bute had two levers to work with, the pride of one minister and the discontent of others, and it must be owned that he did not use them unskilfully. Before, however, proceeding to trace the gradual dismemberment of the Whig party, and the steps which led to the Tory Government under Lord North, it will be proper to speak of the first Parliament of George III., for much that is contained in his letters will have to be illustrated from the Parliamentary ingredients of the time.

On the 21st of March, 1761, the Parliament of the late reign

a Even Pitt himself had been startled at the sum two years earlier. "I wish "to God," he writes to Newcastle, April 4, 1758, "I could see my way through this mountain of expense!" Chatham Correspondence,' vol. i. p. 305. The total expenditure in 1759

was 12,503,5641. "A most incredible "sum," writes Lord Chesterfield, December 15, 1758. From Lord Mahon's Hist. of England,' vol. iv. p. 246. bAnnual Register,' 1761, part i.

p. 43.