me responsible for measures I am no longer allowed to guide." The sagacious earl Granville, president of the council, coolly replied, "The gentleman, I find, is determined to leave us, and I cannot say I am sorry for it, as he would otherwise have compelled us to leave him; for if he is determined to assume solely the right of advising his majesty, and directing the operations of war, to what purpose are we here assembled?" On a division, the minister himself, and his brother-in-law, lord Temple, were the only members of the council who voted for an immediate declaration of war against Spain.

Pitt, conformable to his declared resolution, carried the seals of his office to the king; although not without hopes, as is believed, that he would be ост. 5. desired to retain them. But royal favour had, by this time, begun to flow into new channels.

The earl of Bute claimed a large share of that favour. He had been much about the person of George III. before his accession to the throne; and beside the pleasure of having partly formed the mind of the heir apparent to the British crown, he had the particular satisfaction in so doing of discharging a debt of gratitude to the memory of his majesty's father, Frederic prince of Wales, whose friendship and confidence he enjoyed in a very high degree, along with Mr. Pitt and other reputed patriots. Soon after the death of George II. this nobleman was appointed secretary for the northern department: and he now expected, in consequence of the divisions in the privy-council, and the affection of his royal master, to seize the reins of government. The duke of Newcastle, and other ministers of the late king, who had found themselves overshadowed by the superior abilities of the great commoner, also wished his removal; and as HE, the favourite of the people, had found it necessary to form a coalition with them, and to flatter the political prejudices of his aged sovereign, in order more effectually to serve his country, and gratify his own boundless ambition, THEY, in hopes of recovering

VOL. V.

3 F

covering their consequence, yielded in like manner a temporary support to the earl of Bute, supposed to be the bosom favourite of the youthful monarch.

The king, therefore, received the seals from Mr. Pitt with ease and dignity. He expressed his regret for the loss of so able a servant, at a time when abilities for public business were so much required; but he did not solicit him to resume his office. Little prepared for a behaviour so firm, yet full of condescention, the haughty secretary is said to have burst into tears. This was the time for conciliation between the powerful sovereign and his greatest subject, if the highest ability to serve the state, although inferior to many in rank and fortune, can entitle a subject to that distinction. But a subject, though a good one, may be too great. The king chose to abide by the opinion of the majority of his council. He accepted Mr. Pitt's resignation; settled upon him a pension of three thousand pounds a year, for three lives, and conferred the title of baroness on his lady; he himself declining the honour of nobility, but willing that it should descend to his offspring.

No change in the British ministry ever occasioned so much alarm as the resignation of Mr. Pitt. It seemed equal to a revolution in the government. As the nation, under his administration, had been raised from despondency and disgrace, to the highest degree of glory, triumph and exultation, the most serious apprehensions were entertained, by the body of the people, that it might again sink into the same state of depression, and be overwhelmed by its numerous enemies, since his all-inspiring genius no longer directed its councils; or that an inglorious peace would be patched up, in order to avert the danger of a new war.

But this alarm was soon quieted by the vigorous measures of the new ministry, and the address with which their emissaries drew off the veil from the imperfections

5. Account of Mr. Pitt's Resignation, &c. as published by the two parties.

of

of the late secretary, whose reputation as a patriot as well as a statesman they endeavoured to destroy. They keenly exposed his inconsistency, and called in question his political sagacity, in so warmly entering into the German contest, against which he had formerly so vehemently and so justly declaimed. They blamed his shameful prodigality, in expending so much of the national treasure in fruitless expeditions to the coast of France, instead of directing them against the remaining French islands in the West Indies; and his inexcusable negligence in not ordering general Amherst to enter Louisiana, which might have been easily conquered, during the last campaign, without sending any additional force to America. And they maintained with some appearance of reason, that his resignation discovered more pride than patriotism. But when they attempted to ascribe all the success of his measures to mere chance, and turn into ridicule his most laudable enterprises, the sentiments of the people revolted against the insult offered to their understanding. And all sincere lovers of their country, whatever might be their opinion of his principles, lamented the loss of so able and popular a minister at so dangerous a crisis; while his friends entered zealously into a vindication of his whole conduct, and severely reprobated the insidious arts of his unworthy colleagues, who had obliged him to quit the helm of state, by thwarting him in his favourite measure, and irritating a temper naturally too hot, and a spirit which they knew could not brook controul.

In changing opinion upon farther experience and good grounds, they ingeniously observed, there was no inconsistency; that all men are liable to error and mistake; and that whatever might have been Mr. Pitt's original opinion of the policy of engaging in the German war, the proposal of neutrality in regard to that war, made by France, in the late negociation, was an irrefragable proof that she did not think herself a gainer by the continental contest, and consequently justified his pursuing it; that the expeditions to the coast of France,

though

though attended with few immediate and positive advantages, had distracted the councils and the measures of the enemy, at the same time that they roused the spirit of the English nation, and had eventually made us victorious in every quarter of the globe; that this spirit, having borne down all resistance in America and the East Indies, was now to have been directed against the remaining French islands in the West Indies, a formidable armament being actually ready to sail for those latitudes; and, if Mr. Pitt had been allowed to commence hostilities immediately against Spain, there was the utmost reason to believe, that we should soon have been in possession not only of Martinico, Hispaniola, and Cuba, but of the mines of Mexico and Peru. In reply, the friends of administration affirmed, that instead of achieving new conquests, he was no longer able to act; that having exhausted the resources of the kingdom, and drawn upon it new enemies, he had deserted his station at the helm, and left the vessel of state to sink or swim amid the storm he had raised'.

These disputes, and their anxiously expected issue, engaged the attention of all Europe. The German allies of Great-Britain flattered themselves that the seals would be restored to Mr. Pitt, and expressed their apprehensions of the injury which the common cause might suffer by his resignation; while the Bourbon courts indulged a hope, that his exclusion from the administration would be perpetual, and represented the failure of the late promising negociation, between France and England, as solely the effect of his arrogance.

The French ministry went yet farther. They industriously circulated the news of a secret treaty between France and Spain, into which they had been driven by the domineering temper of the English secretary. By this alarming intelligence, they presumed that they

6. Publications of the times,

should

should be able to frighten the new ministers of George III. into a treaty of peace on their own terms, or at least to deter them from declaring war against Spain, until her preparations were completed, when such a measure would be more agreeable to the courts of Versailles and Madrid. But they were unacquainted with the character of the men whom they meant to intimidate; so that their vain-glorious boasting produced an effect directly opposite to that for which it was intended.

The earl of Egremont, who had succeeded Mr. Pitt as secretary for the southern department, sensible of the necessity of behaving with spirit in the dispute with Spain, or of utterly forfeiting the confidence of the people, had already, with the consent of his colleagues, instructed the British embassador at Madrid to act with firmness, and now ordered him to require an account of the purport of this vaunted treaty. But all the answer which the earl of Bristol could obtain was, "That his catholic majesty "had judged it expedient to renew his family compact "with the most christian king." And as the nature of the present, or the existence of any preceding compact, was then unknown to the English ministry, and to all foreign nations, our embassador was directed to demand a satisfactory explanation on the subject, and to signify, that a refusal would be considered as a declaration of war on the part of Spain. The pride of the Spanish nation was roused, and the earl of Bristol was told, "That the

spirit of haughtiness which dictated this demand, had "made the declaration of war in attacking the king's dig"nity!" And he was given to understand, that he might return to England when, and in what manner he thought proper.

In consequence of this answer, the earl of Bristol immediately quitted Madrid, and the conde de Fuentes left London. Before his departure, however, the Spanish embassador delivered to the earl of Egremont a paper in the form of a manifesto, apparently calculated to distract the British councils, by fostering the spirit of faction, already