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Home Domestic Affairs, 1760-1815 1760-1815; Part 7 |
1760-1815; Part 7The coalition was to have but a short life. Public opinion condemned it. The king was violently opposed to both Fox and North, and when the cabinet ministers kissed hands on appointment, a humorous contemporary noticed that George III put back his ears and eyes like a recalcitrant horse at Astley's. The ministry produced a bill for the reorganization of the Government of India. Under its terms the government and patronage of that vast dependency would be under the control, for the next four years, of commissioners, all of whom were Fox's supporters. "The bill", as was said at the time, "would take the diadem off the king's head and put it on that of Mr. Fox." But the king saw his chance; a message was sent to the "king's friends" to vote against the bill, which was accordingly thrown out in the House of Lords (The king gave Lord Temple a paper stating that "whoever voted for the bill was not only not his friend but would be considered his enemy; and if these words were not strong enough Earl Temple might use whatever words he might deem stronger and more to the purpose". Armed with this message, Temple had little difficulty in securing the rejection of the bill by a majority of nineteen. This Lord Temple was a son of George Grenville). The ministry, though it possessed a large majority in the House of Commons, was then dismissed, just before the Christmas of 1783, after an existence of only eight months.George's new prime minister was a young man of twenty-four, William Pitt the younger, the son of the great Earl of Chatham. William Pitt, born in 1759 - the great year of victories - had been brought up to statesmanship from his earliest infancy, and when, after an education at home and at Cambridge (William Pitt as a child was very precocious. At the age of seven, when told that his father had been raised to the peerage, he said " that he was glad he was not the eldest son, but that he could serve his country in the House of Commons like his papa ". At the age of twelve he wrote his first poem, and when a year older his first play - with a political plot. At the age of fourteen and a half, when he did not weigh much more than six stone, he went to Cambridge - the story, however, that his nurse brought him there in a carriage and stayed to look after him lacks confirmation), he entered Parliament in 1780, he at once made his mark. After refusing a subordinate place in Lord Buckingham's ministry, he had become chancellor of the exchequer under Lord Shelburne; and he was now made prime minister on December 19, 1783. Pitt, however, on taking office, had great difficulty in forming a ministry, and being in a minority in the House of Commons his Government was at first looked upon almost as a joke, " as a mince-pie administration ", sure to end after the Christmas festivities were over. But Fox and North and their followers who were now in opposition made a mistake. Pitt, despite various defeats in the House, held on. His courage and resourcefulness, coupled with the extreme violence of the opposition, won him increasing support; and when in April he dissolved Parliament he came back amidst great popular excitement with a decisive majority, no less than one hundred and sixty of Fox's supporters - Fox's martyrs they were called - losing their seats (The most exciting election was at Westminster, where Fox was a successful candidate. The poll was open for forty days, and there were continual conflicts between a body of seamen whom Fox's naval opponent, Lord Hood, had brought up to London, and the hackney chairmen, who supported Fox. The king, of course, favoured Hood, whilst the Prince of Wales was an active ally of Fox. But Fox's most successful canvasser was the beautiful Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, who really won the election). For the next seventeen years Pitt, trusted alike by the king and the nation, reigned supreme. |
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