1782.

attempts to induce the Whig party to take office upon
his own terms, but without success. He was at length
obliged to authorise Lord Rockingham to form an ad-
ministration upon the basis of the independence of
America, and a curtailment of the influence of the crown.
The list of the new cabinet, before being submitted to
the king, received the approval of the leading Whigs.
The king refused to see his new premier until he was
actually in office, and conducted the ministerial negotia-
tions through Lord Shelburne, who was appointed Home
Secretary, and at whose suggestion Mr. Dunning (with
the title of Lord Ashburton) was added to the cabinet,
without previous communication with Lord Rockingham.
The contest in which the North administration had been
overthrown was a struggle of the king's personal will,
backed by the influence of the crown, against the inde-
pendent portion of the House of Commons. When the
result was known, Fox openly treated it as a victory of
the Commons over the king; declaring in his place in
Parliament that the new ministers must remember that
they owed their situations to the House.
The king,
though fully sensible that he had sustained defeat, was
prudent enough to tolerate for a time a ministry com-
posed for the most part of men whom he regarded as his
personal enemies. The only member of the late ministry
who remained in office was Lord Chancellor Thurlow,
who retained his place at the express desire of the king,
and who showed his independence of his new colleagues
by opposing them in council. But the new ministry
were very short-lived; within four months of their ap-
pointment they were dissolved, by the death, on July 1,
of the premier, Lord Rockingham.*

e

Knight, Hist. of England, vol.

vi. p. 439.

Sir G. C. Lewis, in Edinb. Rev. vol. xcix. pp. 18-22.

2. Shelburne Administration.-July 1782.

Two days afterwards, Mr. Secretary Fox advised the king to appoint some member of the Rockingham party as premier; but his Majesty refused, and gave the appointment to Lord Shelburne, whereupon Fox, Burke, Sheridan, and others of their friends, resigned office. Nevertheless the new ministry was decidedly Whig, and professed the same principles as their predecessors. Mr. Pitt, the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, and leader of the House of Commons, was, at this time, accounted a good Whig. Fox, after his resignation, continued in opposition, and soon afterwards entered into his famous Coalition with Lord North, which immediately placed the government in a very perilous position. The comparative strength of parties in the House of Commons was estimated to afford the ministry 140 votes, Lord North 120, Fox 90, and the residue uncertain. Preliminaries of peace, which recognised the independence of the American colonies, had been agreed upon by the government, and presented to Parliament. It was decided that their acceptance should be a test question between the new Coalition and the ministry. Accordingly, a motion of censure upon the terms of the preliminaries was proposed by Lord J. Cavendish, on February 21, and agreed to by the House of Commons, by 207 to 190 votes. Three days afterwards, the ministry resigned. Owing to the difficulties of the situation, there was a ministerial interregnum, which extended to the beginning of April. In the interim, the king made an unsuccessful attempt to induce Mr. Pitt to form a government; and the Commons, on March 24, passed an address, praying his Majesty to form a strong and united administration, which was graciously received, and responded to through Earl Ludlow. On March 31, a motion was made for a further address upon

Adolphus, Geo. III. vol. iii. pp. 459, 464, 466,

1782.

1783.

the subject; but the House being of opinion that it was premature to interpose again with their advice so soon after his Majesty's gracious reply to their former address, the motion was withdrawn.h

3. Duke of Portland's First Administration.—April 1783. At length, on April 2, 1783, the celebrated Coalition. Ministry' was formed, under the nominal presidency of the Duke of Portland. It included Lord North and Mr. Fox, heretofore such bitter and, as was supposed, irreconcilable opponents. The other cabinet offices were chiefly filled by followers of Fox, who was himself the virtual prime minister. The Coalition was unpopular with the nation on public grounds, and was vehemently assailed both in and out of Parliament. Lord North and his friends attempted to vindicate their conduct by arguments of expediency. The king himself resented the Coalition for personal reasons. He had long entertained a great aversion to Fox, which was aggravated by the friendship that had sprung up between Fox and the Prince of Wales. Lord North was formerly a favourite with the king, but he now looked upon him as a deserter to the enemy's camp. He therefore resolved to take the earliest opportunity of ridding himself of his obnoxious advisers. Nothing remarkable occurred during the remainder of the session in which the ministry was appointed. But, on the reassembling of Parliament, in the autumn of 1783, the king's speech announced that the treaties of peace had been signed. Mr. Pitt, as leader of the Opposition, reminded ministers that these treaties were substantially identical with the preliminary articles, upon which they had turned out their predecessors in office. Early in the

h Parl. Hist. vol. xxiii. pp. 687

709.

Russell's Memorials of Fox, vol. iì. p. 95.

For the principal arguments for

and against the Coalition, see Adolphus, vol. iii. pp. 460-464; Edinb. Rev. vol. xcix. p. 46.

Parl. Hist. vol. xxiii. p. 1140.

session, Mr. Secretary Fox introduced his famous India Bill. Its principal feature was that it vested the government of India, for four years, in a commission of seven persons, named in the Bill, and not removable by the crown, except upon an address from the two Houses of Parliament. Pitt denounced the plan as dangerous to the constitution,' and a violation of the chartered rights of the East India Company. But though the measure was unpopular in the country, the Coalition were sufficiently strong to carry it through the House of Commons without difficulty. In the Lords it obtained a different reception. Lord Temple, at the instigation of the king himself," brought about its rejection, in that House, on December 17, by 95 to 76 votes. On the following day, the king dismissed the ministry, and again appealed to Pitt to assume the reins of government.

4. Mr. Pitt's First Administration.-December 1783.

On December 19, 1783, Mr. Pitt's first administration was formed. Earl Temple, who had been appointed a Secretary of State, advocated an immediate dissolution of Parliament. But Pitt would not agree to this, being of opinion that the time had not yet come when the country could be appealed to with success. Accordingly Temple resigned, on the 22nd instant, leaving the youthful premier to bear the brunt of the severest contest ever waged in

1

ample of the most pernicious kind,
productive of intrigue and faction,
and calculated for extending a cor-
rupt influence in the crown. It frees
ministers from responsibility, while
it leaves them all the effect of
patronage.' See Adolphus, vol. iv.
p. 59 n.; Lords' Journals, June 19,
1773. See Edinb. Rev. vol. cvii. p.
578.

A protest-signed by Lord Rockingham, the Duke of Portland (the present head of the administration), Lord Fitzwilliam, and other peers— to a Bill for the management of the East India Company's affairs, in 1773, contained the following passage, which, from its striking applicability to Mr. Fox's Bill, was much quoted at the time :-The election of executive officers in Parliament is See ante, p. 52; Knight's Hist. plainly unconstitutional, and an ex- of Eng. vol. vii. p. 138.

1783.

1783.

Parliament. For though Pitt possessed the unlimited confidence of the king, and the support of the House of Lords, yet a powerful majority of the House of Commons was arrayed against him. His cabinet consisted of seven persons, all of whom, save himself, were peers." His only assistant in the House of Commons was his friend Dundas. He was assailed at once by every imaginable device of a hostile Opposition-votes of want of confidence, censures upon the government, obstructions and defeats in every shape.° But he stood firm; and though frequently urged by his supporters, and even by the king himself, to dissolve Parliament, he refrained from doing so until he considered that the country was prepared to sustain him. It was not until March 24 that the prorogation took place, to be followed by an immediate dissolution. But such was the inveteracy of the Opposition that Pitt was obliged to prorogue before the passing of an Appropriation Act. Upon the reassembling of Parliament, however, it appeared that the amount of unauthorised expenditure had been very small, so that no objection was urged, or indemnity sought for, in regard to the same.” The sense of the country, in reference to the great issues involved in the contest between Pitt and the Coalition, had been expressed at the time by numerous addresses to the king. It was afterwards unmistakably pronounced by the return of a House of Commons which gave a triumphant support to the new administration. Above 160 members lost their seats at this election, nearly all of whom were Oppositionists. Upon the meeting of Parliament, an amendment was moved to the address in answer to the royal speech, to rescind the paragraph which expressed approval of the late dissolution; but it

n

Stanhope's Pitt, vol. i. p. 165. ment, in March 1784. Mirror of See a list of the defeats of Pitt, Parl. 1841, pp. 1953, 1954. in the House of Commons, from his 3 Hats. Prec. 208; see also post, acceptance of office, in December p. 533. 1783, to the dissolution of Parlia