It is clear, from this account, that the separation between Mr. Fox and a portion of his political friends was no new project, and that Mr. Burke had long endeavoured to remove Fox by representing him as the obstacle to a coalition. In the arrangements for that purpose, Mr. Fox's honour and that of his friends appear to have received very little consideration. It would seem to have been in Mr. Pitt's contemplation, that Fox should serve under him in the House of Commons; and that he should undergo some probation before he should be judged qualified to hold the seals of the Foreign Office. Mr. Fox in the course of these negotiations was occasionally, as Lord Loughborough terms it, "harsh and opinionative;" that is to say, he was not ready at once to sacrifice his own position and that of his friends to enable Lord Loughborough to hold the great seal. Had Mr. Pitt offered directly to Mr. Fox the Foreign Office, with the leadership of the House of Lords, there can be little doubt that Mr. Fox, however reluctant, would have accepted the offer. What might then have happened; whether Mr. Fox would have brought Mr. Pitt round to his pacific opinions, and whether any attempts of that kind could have averted war, it is now impossible to say.

The Duke of Portland, Lord Fitzwilliam and Mr. Wyndham, separated from Mr. Fox with the greatest reluctance; these ties could not be torn asunder without leaving a wound which bled, and a scar which defaced. The kind unaffected nature of Mr. Fox had bound his friends to him with no

common affection, and his letters show how deep was the sorrow which followed a political breach.

While Mr. Fox was thus deserted by the panicstruck followers of Mr. Burke, Mr. Grey and others eager for parliamentary reform united themselves into a society called the "Association of the Friends of the People." The movement was unfortunate, the consequences disastrous. At such a time prudence counselled delay; Mr. Fox himself was never among the most forward in the cause of Parliamentary Reform and did not join the Association.* following letter from Lord Carlisle refers to it :

"DEAR FOX,

:

The

"GROSVENOR PLACE, July 23rd, 1792.

"The actual state of the Party appears to different people in such a different point of view that I flatter myself you will excuse this application to you, and that I endeavour, by your help, to ascertain its real condition; and, according to the lights you bestow, regulate my ideas, which I confess have been perplexed by events which have lately taken place.

"I submit, therefore, to your consideration the evident necessity of clearing away all doubt upon the following important point:-Whether those persons who originally favoured and adhere to the Association are to be deemed separated from the Party, or still belonging to it, though with a more relaxed connection; to gather, if occasion offers, the fruits of

* See Lord Holland's "Memoirs of the Whig Party," vol. i.

our common labours; or, on the contrary, to be looked upon no longer sharers of our political fortunes ?

"Persuaded you will deal with me with your usual frankness and sincerity, I think it right, on my part, to advertise you that I do not make this requisition to you under the seal of private friendship, but in order that I may be at liberty to make free use of the authority of your judgment and opinion.

"If I am authorised to consider all party connection dissolved between the Opposition and the Associators, by the conduct they have thought fit to adopt, I might entertain the hope, that at least one great obstacle was removed (however others might subsist) to the construction, by some means, of a stronger Government than the country is at present possessed of, the want of which all moderate men, friends and supporters of the Administration, are ready to admit; and I think I shall not be suspected of hypocrisy when I assert, that, under the present circumstances, the adding that strength to Government (if possible) is required of us all as a conscientious discharge of public duty.

"Believe me to be, dear Fox, "Ever yours most sincerely and affectionately,

"CARLISLE."

Thus while Mr. Fox, deeply attached to the Constitution, attached to peace, but no less to the honour of the country, gave to his friends the most patriotic counsels, the great Whig Party which he led broke

off into two divisions-the one imbibed even more than the Minister those alarms of democracy which there wanted nothing but firmness and calm temper to dissipate; the other embracing speculations of reform, for which the country was little prepared, frightened the lovers of peace, and weakened the influence of their honest and wise leader. Mr. Fox was left almost alone; his party broken, his popularity gone, his friends deserting him, his eloquence useless, his name held up to detestation.

In this situation, which might have overcome the fortitude of a man much less distinguished for sensibility than Mr. Fox, he held on his course with unvarying firmness, keen sagacity, and an eloquence as fraught with feeling as with argument. He bore aloft the standard of Whiggism, amid the attacks of his enemies and the desertion of his followers. He was purely and simply a Whig: devoted to the popular principles of that party, and embracing them all the more closely amid the fears of the timid, and the wild plans of the enthusiast.

When war was proposed, he thus analysed, in a speech in Parliament, the reasons on which it had been defended:

"The grounds were three: the danger of Holland; the decree of the French Convention of November 19th; and the general danger to Europe from the progress of French arms. With respect to Holland, the conduct of ministers afforded a fresh proof of their disingenuousness; they could not state that the Dutch had called upon us to fulfil the terms of our

alliance; they were obliged to confess that no such requisition had been made, but added that they knew the Dutch were very much disposed to make it. Whatever might be the words of the treaty, we were bound in honour by virtue of that treaty to protect the Dutch if they called upon us to do so, but neither by honour nor the treaty till then..

The plain state of the matter was that we were bound to save Holland from war, or by war, if called upon, and that to force the Dutch into a war, at so much peril to them, was not to fulfil, but to abuse the treaty. The decree of the 19th November he considered as an insult, and the explanation of the Executive Council as no adequate satisfaction; but the explanation showed that the French were not disposed to insist upon that decree, and that they were inclined to peace, and then our Ministers, with haughtiness unexampled, told them they had insulted us, but refused to tell them the nature of the satisfaction that we required. It was said we must have security, and he was ready to admit that neither a disavowal by the Executive Council of France, nor a tacit repeal by the Convention, on the intimation of an unacknowledged agent, of a decree which they might renew the day after they repealed it, would be a sufficient security. But, at least, we ought to tell them what we meant by security; for it was the extreme of arrogance to complain of insult without deigning to explain what reparation we required, and he feared an indefinite term was here employed not for the purpose of obtaining, but of precluding satis