first to advocate a reform of sion of George III. his purpose to declare war against Spain was successfully resisted by his colleagues, he resigned office, declaring to the cabinet council that he had been called to power by the voice of the people, to whom he considered himself accountable for his conduct. It was as the leader of this new political force embodied in the corporate person of the people, whose aggregate voice made up what was called public opinion, that Pitt won his highest title of "the great commoner." In the hope of establishing harmony between the political machinery of the state and the new force by which it was destined to be impelled, Pitt was the first to advocate such a reform of the representative system as would enable the repre- the sovereign people to speak through the sovereign parlia ment. Thus before the end of the reign of George II., EngFrederick land, in the words of Frederick of Prussia, after having been declared "for a long time in labor at last brought forth a man," and that man it was who, after widening the limits of the British empire in two hemispheres, was the first to give direction and force to the new-born power of public opinion which, with the rude weapons at its command, finally broke the hold of the crown and the aristocracy upon the legislature, and thus made possible the completion of the ministerial system in the form in which it exists to-day. The progress made during the reigns of George III. and George IV. by the liberalizing movement thus begun will be drawn out in the following chapter. sentative system; that England had "at last brought forth a man." CHAPTER II. ITS PROGRESS DURING THE REIGNS OF GEORGE III. AND GEORGE IV. ministerial accession III.; precept, 1. JUST as the new ministerial system under the leadership Growth of of Pitt, who was the first to arouse the nation to a sense of its system new and higher destiny, had made England the first maritime checked by and colonial power in the world, its growth was suddenly of George checked by the accession of George III., who was the first and the last of the Hanoverian kings who aspired not only to reign but to rule. Defective as the education of the young king was, it had been so directed as to imbue him with a love for arbitrary principles of government, and the tendency thus begun was stimulated and encouraged by his mother's con- his tinual precept of "George, be king."1 Unlike his two imme- mother's diate predecessors he was native born, and in order the more "George, be king;" perfectly to play the part of "a patriot king," as Bolingbroke 2 had conceived it for him, he added with his own hand to his first speech to parliament the stirring declaration, "Born and he gloried educated in this country, I glory in the name of Briton.' In the review already made of the growth of cabinet government during the reigns of George I. and George II., the fact was emphasized that their foreign birth and personal incompetency, coupled with a consequent willingness to surrender their personal right to rule into the hands of their constitutional advisers, had gone far to develop the idea of the impersonal- impersonity of the sovereign, the cornerstone of the existing system. sovereign ality of the Under such conditions it was that the Whig ministry that developed came into power as a whole, upon the accession of George I., foreign prewere able to meet apart from the king under the presidency of one of their own number; and so before the end of the to the composition of the speech and "in the name of Briton;" under his decessors; Walpole, the first prime minister, 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 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.1 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 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 undo what had been done pro dissensions of the Whigs; 1 See above, p. 462. 2 Torrens, Hist. of Cabinets, vol. ii. p. 566. a secret and ble coterie; of state; Newcastle 4 Pitt from 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 friends;" irresponsible coterie behind the throne,2 to strengthen whose irresponsi hands 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 a secretary state. When, therefore, in October of that year Pitt insisted upon an instant declaration of war with Spain, 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.1 power; 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 leadership 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." 3 That country had made a secret treaty with France, then at war with 4 Chatham Corr., vol. ii. p. 159; system of court under of Bute; popular change Bute from power; 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 soon drove to a court favorite, public opinion protested in such a burst of 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, 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 by George The freedom of the press; John Wilkes and 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 ;" 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.3 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 exami nation. The messengers who held this roving commission No. 45, of 1763; warrant secretary of state; 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; Adolphus' Hist., vol. i. p. 116. 33, 85. |