Walpole, the first prime resigned because he could no trol the because no longer in harmony with his reign of George II. the sovereign's right to preside at cabinet councils had not only become obsolete, but the new office of prime minister, which Walpole was the first to fill, had arisen as a necessary substitute for that headship which the king minister, himself had before supplied. The first member of the cabinet who thus arose to the post of premier still further advanced the growth of the new system by resigning office after a long period of power, not because he had lost the confidence of his longer con- sovereign, but because he could no longer control a majority commons; of the house of commons. Then followed the settlement of Granville, the principle in the case of Lord Granville, that it is the duty of a minister to resign when he is no longer in political harmony with the majority of his colleagues. In the light of colleagues; these facts it is possible to say that at the death of George II. "cabinet rule had been upon its trial for nearly half a century; and, despite many blemishes and errors, its superiority to the systems of government that had preceded it was tacitly accepted by the nation."2 Such was the condition of things when George III. came upon the scene, firmly resolved to restore the crown to its ancient position by becoming his own first minister, and by breaking up the system of party organization and control, without which cabinet government in its modern form is impossible. His design thus to strike at the undo what roots of an institution whose growth was fast overshadowing the royal office was greatly facilitated by the internal disormoted by ganization of the Whigs, who, since their cohesion had been broken by the fall of Walpole, had become divided into cliques and factions. In order to remove the weakness arising from that cause, and at the same time to perpetuate the rule of the great Whig families that filled all the higher offices of state, a coalition had been formed between Pitt and Newcastle, which, during the three years preceding the accession of George III., had crystallized into a political power that seemed well-nigh impregnable. As a means of dissolving that coalition, and of revesting the entire executive power in the crown, the king called to his aid his personal friend, the earl of Bute, and along with him a set of secret counsellors, the greater part of whom were Tories, with a Jacobite conception of the preroga George's design to had been done pro dissensions of the Whigs; 1 See above, p. 462. 2 Torrens, Hist. of Cabinets, vol. ii. p. 566. friends;" a secret and ble coterie; a secretary of state; Newcastle power; tive, who soon came to be known as "the king's men," or "the king's friends."1 Then, instead of advising with his "the king's responsible ministers, the king counselled with this secret and irresponsible coterie behind the throne,2 to strengthen whose irresponsihands he dissolved parliament, after he had prepared with Bute's aid a list of court candidates whose return was urged by the whole power of the crown, even against the ministers themselves when they were known to be opposed to the king's designs. Bute, who had been immediately sworn of the privy Bute made council, was, in March, 1761, made one of the secretaries of state. When, therefore, in October of that year Pitt insisted upon an instant declaration of war with Spain,3 the new favorite, as the mouthpiece of his master, joined forces with Newcastle joined and the rest of the Whigs, who were jealous of his supremacy, in driving and thus by rejecting Pitt's proposal drove him from power.4 Pitt from The disruption of the Whig ministry thus begun was completed in May, 1762, when the miserable duke of Newcastle, with the more powerful of his colleagues, was driven out in order to give a free hand to Lord Bute, who at once became the nominal head of the government as first lord of the treasury. The king's plans were now complete. The ministerial ministerial system which the Whigs had been constructing for nearly fifty superseded years was broken down, and its place supplied by a coterie of by a body "the king's friends" under the leadership of Bute, who was favorites not prime minister in the sense in which Walpole had been, nominal but a mere court favorite or grand vizier, whose rise and fall depended solely upon the will of his master, and not upon that of the house of commons. In order to render himself more independent of that body and more secure from the attacks of the Whig leaders, who had been forced by his revolutionary proceedings into an organized opposition, the king resolved upon the making of a peace, whose preliminaries were approved in December, 1762, by a majority of five to one, obtained through means so shameful as to constitute a notable England. Grenville Papers, vol. i. p. 386. 1 Burke's "Present Discontents," Works, vol. ii. pp. 240-242; May, Const. Hist., vol. i. p. 13. 2 Called by Burke the "double" or "interior cabinet." 8 That country had made a secret treaty with France, then at war with 4 Chatham Corr., vol. ii. p. 159; system of court under leadership of Bute; popular outburst of episode in the history of parliamentary corruption.1 Against opinion this new system of absolutism which thus enslaved the house against the of commons, while it committed the greatest ministerial office change soon drove to a court favorite, public opinion protested in such a burst of Bute from power; popular indignation as had not fallen upon the throne since the days of the Stuart kings. So intense did the riot and uproar become that Bute, fearful lest he should involve "his royal master in his ruin," was forced in the spring of 1763 to withdraw from the perilous office he had enjoyed for less than succeeded eleven months. Before disappearing from the scene, however, by George Grenville. Bute arranged for the appointment of George Grenville as the head of a cabinet composed of his more courtly colleagues, whose policy he proposed to direct from his hiding-place in the royal closet.2 The freedom of the press; John Wilkes and Briton;" 2. In the course of the tumult that caused the fall of Bute, the new-born force of public opinion, which could find expression neither in the councils of the king nor in the halls of parliament, invoked the aid of the organ destined to grow into the great political power now known as the fourth estate. John Wilkes, who was the first to establish the right of the press to freely discuss public affairs, had come upon the scene as a bitter opponent of Bute, and in order to make his opposition the "North the more effective he had founded a paper called "The North Briton," which had assailed the obnoxious Scot without mercy. When he resigned, the issue of the paper was suspended; but when the king's speech, framed by the Grenville ministry, revealed the fact that there had been a mere change of men and not of measures, a supplemental number of "The North Briton," No. 45, was issued on the 23d of April, 1763, containing an offensive criticism not only of the cabinet and the unpopular Peace of Paris, but also of the terms of the king's speech at the prorogation. Three days before he received any evidence that Wilkes was the author of "The North Briton," Lord Halifax, the leading secretary of state, issued a general as such a general warrant "to search for authors, printers, issued by a and publishers," who were to be brought before him for examistate; nation. The messengers who held this roving commission No. 45, of April 23, 1763; warrant secretary of 1 See above, p. 472. 8 Parl. Hist., vol. xv. p. 1331, n.; 2 Grenville Papers, vol. ii. pp. 32, Lord Mahon's Hist., vol. v. p. 45; 33, 85. Adolphus' Hist., vol. i. p. 116. persons issue such usage; case it was illegal, arrested in the course of three days not less than forty-nine forty-nine persons, on mere suspicion, and among them Dryden Leach, arrested on a printer, and Wilkes himself, who was committed to the suspicion; Tower. After he had been removed from his house the messengers returned, and after ransacking his drawers carried off all his private papers. The right of a secretary of state, claiming to act as a conservator of the peace, to issue general warrants without previous evidence of guilt, and without identification of the person of the accused, rested only upon a usage right to that had prevailed in the days of high prerogative. "It is writs rested said that the usage has been so; and that many such war- only on rants have been issued, since the Revolution, down to this time." In order to test the legality of such warrants, Dryden in Leach's Leach brought an action of trespass in the king's bench held that against the messengers, and after full argument it was held they were that such warrants were illegal because the usage of a particu- because lar office upon which the right to issue them was based, not being a general usage, had never grown into law. The court also declared that the usage was a bad one, and that no degree of antiquity can give sanction to a usage bad in itself." 1 "usage bad In the warrant under which Wilkes and Leach were arrested, the messengers were authorized not only to search for "printers and publishers," but "to apprehend and seize, together with their papers," such as they might suspect. The right to issue right to a general search warrant of that character was said to rest general upon a practice of the star chamber which, after its abolition, search had been revived and revested in the secretary of state by the said to rest Licensing Act of Charles II. In order to test the validity of practice that special part of the writ, Wilkes brought an action against chamber; Wood, the under-secretary of state, who had personally superintended the search of his house and the carrying away of his papers. The result was a judgment against Wood, in which declared illegal in the chief justice declared it to be his opinion that "the office Wilkes v. precedents, which have been produced since the Revolution, Wood; are no justification of a practice in itself illegal, and contrary 1 Leach v. Money, State Trials, vol. xix. p. 1000; Burrow's Rep., vol. iii. pp. 1692, 1742; Sir W. Blackstone's Rep., p. 555. The principle announced was that "A general warrant issued by a secretary of state to search for and seize the author (not named) of a se- in itself;" issue a warrant upon of star and in Entick v. "1 to the fundamental principles of the constitution." 1 Two years later the same question was again presented in the case of Entick v. Carrington, when the illegality of a general search Carrington; warrant issued by a secretary of state to seize the papers of the author of a seditious libel, even when the author was named, was finally put at rest by a judgment in which Lord Camden declared that if such writs were upheld, "the secret cabinets and bureaus of every subject in the kingdom will be thrown open to search and inspection of a messenger, whenever the secretary of state shall think fit to charge, or even suspect, a person to be the author, printer, or publisher, of a seditious libel." 2 Lord Camden's judgment. Wilkes claimed his refused to plead in king's bench on that ground; Wilkes, at the time of his arrest, was a member of the house of commons, and he therefore applied, on a writ of habeas corpus, for his release, which was granted by reason of his commons; privilege.3 privilege. It being then known that he was the author of "The North Briton," an information charging him with criminal libel was filed against him in the court of king's bench, where he refused to put in an appearance, also upon the ground of privilege. The arch offender was thus in the hands of two great courts, each of which claimed the right to punish him for the way in which he had seen fit to exercise the right of freedom of discussion; and the struggle which he then inaugurated against the right of either to punish a citizen for the exercise of that privilege finally resulted in its establishment in the form in which it is now understood. The high court of parliament itself, whose summary jurisdiction must first be conauthors of sidered, claimed the right not only to punish its own members guilty of libellous publications, but also to censure or commit any other person who might print anything that could be construed into a contempt against itself. As illustrations, refer power of parliament to punish libellous publica tions; 66 1 State Trials, vol. xix. p. 1153; 8 Rex v. Wilkes, Wilson's Reports, vol. ii. p. 151; State Trials, vol. xix. P. 539. 4 He declared, however, upon the meeting of parliament in November, 1763, that if his privilege should be affirmed he would waive it, and "put himself upon a jury of his countrymen." - Cobbett's Parl. Hist., vol. xv. p. 1359, et seq. |