first time, leave no doubt upon the reader's mind of the entire sincerity of the King's convictions, and of the pain it caused him to carry them out. The style in which they are written is slovenly to the last degree; but the very haste and carelessness of their composition is in some sense an evidence that they were a faithful and unvarnished picture of his thoughts. The language which he is recorded to have held in conversation about this time is equally decisive of his sincerity:

Under such circumstances, and as if to tranquillize his mind, he reverted again and again to the religious obligation which he conceived to bind him. One morning-so his faithful equerry General Garth many years afterwards related he desired his Coronation Oath to be once more read out to him, and then burst forth into some passionate exclamations: "Where is that power on earth to absolve me from the due observance of every sentence of that oath? . . . No-I had rather beg my bread from door to door throughout Europe than consent to any such measure!" Another day at Windsor-this was on the 6th or 7th of the month-the King read bis Coronation Oath to his family, asked them whether they understood it, and added: "If I violate it, I am no longer legal Sovereign of this country, but it falls to the House of Savoy."

In the middle of February the King fell ill. His illness was at first no more than a feverish cold. On the 17th he saw Mr. Addington, and on the 18th be saw the Duke of Portland. With

versation that George the Third discerned, what

of making a peace which had become inevitable, have been laid aside by general consent. The documents which have been published in later times sufficiently dispose of the malignant insinuations with which Lord Auckland took occasion to repay the favour of his early patron. At least, if Pitt ever entertained any such idea, he never breathed it to any human being. Nor were the colleagues who acted with him the most cordially upon this question, Lord Grenville and Lord Spencer, either conscious of any such manoeuvre, or aware of any point in his conduct which would suggest the need of such an explanation. Fox's juggle,' and Lord Auckland's 'mystery,' were figments of their own distempered minds. With the exception of Lord Brougham, no modern authority of importance has adopted them. In truth the grounds of Pitt's conduct were so obvious that the mystery is rather that any party spirit can have mistaken them. Without passing an actual pledge, he had allowed it to be intimated to the Catholics of Ireland that the Ministry was favourable to them, and that it would be in a much better position for considering their claims when the Union with England had become

law.

On the strength of these assurances, which probably did not lose either in force or precision in the hands of the inferior agents of the Government, the Catholics gave the project their support. It is very clear that the latter be talked very calmly on the generel opposed as it was both by the secret treason aspect of state-affairs. "For myself," said His Majesty, "I am an old Whig; and I consider of some, and the unconcealed self-interest of those statesmen who made barrier-treaties and many, it never could have been carried if the conducted the ten last years of the Succession | Catholics had opposed it. Pitt felt himself War the ablest we ever had." The Duke only bound to pay a fair price for value received. noticed as unusual that the King spoke in a loud He did not think himself at liberty, after he tone of voice. But it is remarkable in this conhad gained his object, to repudiate the understanding on which the votes that gained it were given. And when he found in the King's persistency an unexpected and insuperable obstacle, his only mode of fixing the responsibility where it really lay was to resign. A contrary view of political morality has been so often sanctioned within the last thirty years by distinguished statesmen of all parties, that Pitt's scruples upon the subject of breaking implied promises may appear Quixotic. But no one who applies to public affairs the morality of private life, will doubt that Pitt was in the right.

since his time has become much more apparent, how, not by any sudden change, but by the gradual progress of events, the Whig party has drifted away from its first position in the reign of Queen Anne, and come round to occupy the original ground of its opponents.'-vol. iii. pp. 292, 293.

It was inevitable that with such feelings he should have refused to entertain the propositions upon which Mr. Pitt and his Cabinet had agreed. As soon as his resolution was intimated to the Minister, the latter appears to have recognised the hopelessness of struggling against it, and resigned without even It by no means follows that the King was demanding a personal interview. The sud- in the wrong. Of the two, his grounds of acdenness with which this step was taken at a tion were the strongest for while Pitt was moment when his power in Parliament was only fulfilling an implied engagement, the more unquestioned than ever, caused much King was keeping what he believed to be a surprise and some suspicion. The suspicion solemn oath. Such has not, however, been was without ground. The rumours which the judgment which it has been fashionable were current at the time to the effect that the with Liberal historians and critics to proCatholic claims had only afforded a coloura-nounce. In fact their principal motive for ble pretext for escaping from the humiliation sparing Pitt in respect to this transaction, ap

pears to have been that they might be better | judged more kindly by many at least of his able to turn the full force of their animosity critics. It is a sad comment on the morality upon the King. Fox's opinion of the scru- by which historians try the actions of great ple entertained by the King was, that the men, that Henry IV.'s abandonment of Promention of the Coronation Oath was one of testantism, or Charles I.'s abandonment of the most impudent and disgusting pieces of Episcopacy, to serve the purpose of the mohypocrisy he had seen.'* If he judged of ment, have not been visited with one tenth the King's esteem for his oath by the esteem part of the invective that has followed George which he himself had shown in 1783 for his III.'s honest, though blind veneration for his own most solemn asseverations, he could not oath. well come to any other conclusion. If at any time of his life he had professed to take an important political step, out of a regard for his own previous promises, the proceeding would have been most justly designated by the vigorous epithets we have quoted. The fury with which his later followers have attacked the King's persistency on this occasion is less intelligible. One would have thought that that persistency was exacted by the most rudimentary principles of honour. His view of the bearing of his Coronation Oath might have been erroneous; but it was the belief of many persons far more gifted and far more cultivated than himself. It implies neither intellectual nor moral obliquity to entertain a belief which is the popular persuasion of the age. And, assuming that it really was his belief, it was not only natural that he should have acted up to it, but he would have been the most contemptible of men if he had disregarded it. For the sake of a worldly interest of no very pressing kind, he would have perjured himself of an oath sworn to in the most solemn manner, and relating to the most sacred subject. Not only no wise king, but no man who was fit to associate with gentlemen, would have done that which some writers inveigh against George III. for having refused. The Constitutional duties' of an English King are a matter of prudence, not of special obligation; but, even if they had been imposed by law instead of by a vague and shifting custom, they could not have bound him to a perjury. Nor did the importance of the question in any way affect his duty. As it happened, his decision, though of great, was not of vital moment. It embarrassed the subsequent settlement of the Roman Catholic claims; but it produced at the time no consequences of importance. But, if it had been as momentous as it was trivial in its immediate results, it would have been far better for the fair fame of George III. in the eyes of posterity-to speak of no higher tribunal that he should have forfeited his crown or his life in resisting Catholic claims, than that he should for expediency's sake have yielded what in his own belief he had sworn to refuse. And yet, if he had consciously forsworn himself, he would have been

*Fox's Mem, and Corr., iii. 153.

Though Pitt had rightly estimated the strength of the King's determination, he had not anticipated the depth of the King's at tachment to himself. The struggle of parting with him for conscience' sake was too severe for a mind already shaken by insanity. Before the new Ministers could be installed, the old symptoms of 1778 returned. The attack was quite as severe; fortunately it was not quite as obstinate. Addington's happy sug gestion of the hop-pillow-which Lord Stanhope will not allow to have originated the sobriquet of the Doctor'-brought about an amendment before any steps had been taken for the appointment of a regency. But it was a narrow escape, and the risk that had been run made a deep impression upon Pitt. As soon as the King was well enough to receive the message, Pitt sent him a promise, by Dr. Willis, that he would never during the King's lifetime renew the question of the Catholic claims. As soon as this had been done, it occurred to some of Pitt's subordinates, who were sharing his loss of office without sharing in any degree his credit for magnanimity, that as the cause of his resignation had disappeared, there was no reason why the resignation itself should not follow its example. Pitt did not view this process of reasoning with absolute disfavour. He would take no step himself; but he did not conceal his willingness to resume office from his friends, or for bid them to mention it to others. But to Addington the idea did not seem quite so natural. He was not so much impressed with his own enormous inferiority to Pitt as Dundas and Pelham seem to have expected. Moreover, having been made to resign the Speakership by the representation that he alone could save the country from ruin in such a crisis, he was not inclined to fall between the two stools, or to become the victim of a lovers' quarrel between the King and Mr. Pitt. So he gave the strongest possible discouragement to Dundas's modest proposal. As soon as his reluctance was ascertained, Pitt interfered to rescue him from further pressure, and suppressed the murmurings of his own displaced friends with a strong hand.

Pitt's inconsistent conduct on this occasion has been very severely blamed. Even the calm and judicial mind of Sir G. C. Lewis

I

'For these reasons I believe, and must be permitted to maintain, that the conduct of Mr. Pitt in March, 1801, is free from all ambiguity, and open to no just imputation, but guided from first to last by the same high

sense of duty as distinguished his whole career.'-vol. iii. pp. 311–313.

refuses to acquit him. Why,' he asks, if been willing to resume office at once upon he was so willing to remain in March, was he such terms. If, however, the Catholic Quesso resolved on resigning in February; or why, tion were honourably and for good reason if he was so resolved upon resigning in Febru- laid aside, the special, and indeed the only, ary, was he so willing to remain in March? Under him there was every prospect that the reason for calling in "the Doctor" was gone. No doubt, if the intervening fact of the King's new Government would be a weak one-even insanity be left out of sight, Pitt's conduct far weaker than from various causes which I was marked by a levity worthy only of a co- shall hereafter explain it really proved. quette. But this fact, with all the contingent have already shown what were the anticipaconsequences that hung on it, entirely altered tions upon this point of so experienced and so the state of facts upon which he had to form far-sighted a politician as Dundas. A weak his judgment. It was one of those political at a period when the national interests called Government was then in prospect; and that cases of conscience of which we have spoken, most loudly for a strong one. It was the which a constitutional Minister may at any duty of a patriot Minister to avert, if he honmoment have to solve, in which a possible act ourably could, that evil from his country. It of patriotism lies on one side, and a certainty was his duty not to shrink from the service of obloquy on the other. Whatever decision of his Sovereign, if that Sovereign thought fit Pitt had taken, he could not have expected to to ask his aid, and if the question which had avoid some degree of blame from those who so recently severed them was from other and inevitable causes to sever them no more. were not disposed to view his conduct leniently. Lord Stanhope puts the case on Pitt's behalf as forcibly as it can be put :— 'I would venture, in the first place, to ask how the critic can feel the smallest difficulty in explaining at least, if not in justifying, the change which he here describes. As reasonably might he state his surprise that the Empe- Whether Pitt was right or wrong, his ror of Austria was not willing to treat on the change of conduct was intelligible enough. 1st of December, 1805, and was willing on the 3rd of the same month; the fact being that In February, 1801, he had to consider which the battle of Austerlitz was fought on the in- was the least evil-that Addington should tervening day. The intervening illness of become Minister, or that the Catholics of George the Third affords, as I conceive, a no Ireland should think that they had been less clear, a no less sufficient explanation. deceived by their Government. In April When it became manifest that the proposal of the question had wholly changed. The notothe Roman Catholic claims had not only wrung rious illness of the King had set all suspicions the mind of the aged King with anguish, but of bad faith at rest; and a change was altogether obscured and overthrown it, the duty of a statesman, even if untouched by perthreatened far more formidable in its results, sonal considerations, acting solely on public and far more irremediable in its character, grounds, was then to refrain from any such than the accession of Addington to office. proposal during the remainder of His Majesty's The question which he had then to decide reign. Loyal Roman Catholics themselves was, whether it was better that the Catholics could not expect, could not even desire, their should wait till the King's death, or that the claims to be under such circumstances urged. King should be driven mad. As the event Let me moreover observe that the restraint which Mr. Pitt laid upon himself in consehas proved, England would have flourished, quence was one that came to be adopted by whichever horn of the dilemma had been all other leading politicians of that age. It chosen. At the time, however, it had been was on the same understanding that Lord proved by experience that the Catholic Castlereagh took office in 1803; Mr. Tierney claims could have been postponed without also in the same year; Mr. Canning in 1804; danger; whereas the dangers of a Regency Lord Grenville and Mr. Fox in 1806. All were untried and unknown. There had been these, with whatever reluctance, agreed that on this most tender point the conscience of no Regency in English history since the ReGeorge the Third should be no further pressed. formation. In French history the experiment And surely if the ground here stated was suf- of a Regency had been exhaustively tried, but ficient, as I deem it, to justify Mr. Tierney, not with results of a character to encourage who had never before held office, and who owed imitation. In any case, whatever the expeno special attachment to the King, the ground diency of the question may have been, Mr. was far stronger in the case of Mr. Pitt, who Pitt will be forgiven by most men for having had served his Majesty as Prime Minister declined deliberately to drive into insanity through most trying difficulties and for more than seventeen years. an aged Sovereign, whose confidence and intimacy he had uninterruptedly enjoyed for the period of seventeen years, merely for the purpose of hastening by a short space the

It may be said, however, that although Mr. Pitt was right to relinquish the Catholic Question in March, 1801, he should not have

Pitt's life have been so angrily assailed by | of Pitt's concession to the King in 1804, he the friends of Mr. Fox. It certainly needs changed his party altogether, and for fifteen to be a warm admirer of Mr. Fox to years acted with men of whose pacific policy understand even the imputed crime, with- abroad and reforming policy at home he out entering upon the proof of it. Mr. equally disapproved. It has been said by Lord Pitt thought that the circumstances of the Macaulay that if Pitt had persisted, the King time demanded a comprehensive Ministry. would have given way, as he gave way two A factious and powerful opposition would years later, before 'the immutable resolution of have added seriously to the difficulties of Lord Grenville.' The reply is very simple. the country, in the midst of its struggle for The circumstances of 1806 were not the cirexistence; and the only way of avoiding cumstances of 1804. The King was not recoa factious opposition was by buying up vering from a fit of insanity, and the army of the possible heads of it. Therefore Mr. Boulogne was not threatening the English Pitt proposed to give office to Mr. Fox coast; and consequently Lord Grenville could and his friends. Doubts have been thrown press his demands with safety. On the other upon the sincerity of Mr. Pitt in propos- hand, Addington was no longer in the House ing this profitable bargain to the King. of Commons, and therefore, in default of any Those doubts, however, have been generally other leader to whom he could have had regiven up. If need were, the correspondence course, the King was compelled to surrender between the Minister and the King, at discretion. But the haste with which he which Lord Stanhope publishes, would set rid himself of his immutably resolved' the most obstinate scepticism at rest. But Minister, on the very first opportunity that Pitt's wishes only went up to a certain offered, showed how keenly he felt the point. He desired to purchase Fox; but humiliation to which he had been made to there was a limit to the price which he stoop. In 1804, it would have driven him was prepared to pay. He had no intention, mad; or if it had not driven him mad, it by persisting in his demand, again to worry would have irritated him into returning to the King into insanity. There was the Addington again. It is difficult to say, under more reason for precaution upon this head, the circumstances of the moment, which of that in the beginning of the year the King the two alternatives would have been the had suffered a return of the old symptoms of most disastrous for the country. 1788 and 1801. To avert this danger, Pitt had consented to abandon the claims of the Catholics; and he did not rate so much more highly the claims of Mr. Fox, or the value of his goodwill, as to persist in his case when he had yielded in theirs. This was no sudden impulse. He had distinctly explained, both to Fox and Grenville, that he should yield to any objection on the King's part, before the operations in the House of Commons were commenced by which Addington was displaced. It would seem to be self-evident that the course he took was the only course that he could have rightly taken. Whatever the advantages may have been of Fox's presence in the Government, or rather of his absence from the Opposition bench, no one can seriously maintain that they outweighed the dangers of a Regency crisis in the face of a foreign invasion. And the obvious course for every genuine patriot, under the grave circumstances of the time, would have been to join together to make the strongest Ministry that the King would be content to accept. But Lord Grenville, by some myste

rious

process of reasoning or of temper, contrived to persuade himself and his friends that the best way of remedying Fox's exclusion by the King was for them all to exclude themselves. Accordingly he flew into furious opposition; and to mark his disapproval

In any case a lukewarm enthusiasm for Fox can hardly be imputed to Pitt as an unpardonable sin. Pitt can hardly have been ignorant of the bitter and relentless hatred with which Fox continued to regard him. It is not probable that the scurrilous abuse of Pitt, in which we know from Fox's letters that he indulged in private intercourse, can have remained wholly unknown to the object of it. It may well be doubted whether Fox could have heartily worked with a man whom, at the time, he was designating in his correspondence as a mean, low-minded dog,' a mean rascal.' It is certain that by such a coalition Pitt must have foregone the allegiance of many of the stanchest members of his party, who looked upon such an alliance as nothing less than execrable.' is difficult to believe that Fox could have been, under any circumstances, a useful instrument in carrying on a war which for ten years he had opposed with such unmeasured vehemence. The man who could write to his political friend, The truth is, I am gone something further in hate to the English Government than you and the rest of my friends are, and certainly further than can with prudence be avowed: the triumph of the French Government over the English does in fact afford me a degree of pleasure which it is very difficult to disguise,' was not