CHATHAM.*
TRI authentic Life of Chatham is still to be written. The best account that we have of the great Minister is contained
'10 Chatham. By A. S. McDolvaU, D.A. London: Methuen and Co. Pa. 6d.] in Macaulay's two essays, which remain unchallenged, and it is something of a disgrace that the services of the great Minister have not been celebrated upon the august scale which he would have appreciated. Mr. McDowall's little book does but supplement Macaulay's sketch. It fills in the details and yet weakens the impression. But it may be read with profit by those who like their history in a compact form, and the picture which it presents is in most of its traits just and lifelike.
William Pitt the elder entered the House of Commons under profound disadvantages. Mr. McDowell thinks that be was an adventurer, in the same sense that Canning and Disraeli were adventurers ; in other words, that while he was resolved, as they were, never to sacrifice principle on the altar of opportunity, he had no fixed stake in the country. This opinion does not seem to us quite sound. If William Pitt was not himself a landed proprietor, he was the son of a. wealthy house ; he held a commission in the Guards and a place in the Royal household; he was connected with more than one great family. Moreover, he first entered Parliament as the representative of Old Sarum, a rotten borough, to sit for which was a privilege to which a political adventurer could not aspire. But if Pitt was not an " adventurer " in Mr. McDowall's sense, he had to fight with heavy odds. The King had a profound dislike of him, and the Ministers for whom corruption was an inheritance feared his uncompromising honesty. So that though he believed himself the true saviour of the country, he was compelled to wait many years for the responsibilities of office. Nor was the popular opinion of him more favourable than his Sovereign's. The Gazetteer detected in him "an overbearing disposition and a weak judgment " ; it declared that he " assumed the character of a great man, which he is in no way able to support"; and urged him to consider "that every one who has the same natural imperfections with Tully, has not therefore the same natural perfections, that though his neck should be as long, his body as slender, yet his voice may not be as sonorous, his action may not be as just." Time proved the falsity of this detraction; but the judgment of the Gazetteer was generally endorsed, and Pitt had to force his way into power by his own courage and talent. Even when he first gave his support to the Government he was charged with in- consistency. He had done his best to denounce Carteret, and in giving his countenance to the Government he supported Carteret's policy. In this action there was, perhaps, a suspicion of change. But Pitt was large-minded enough to know that consistency was not the first of political virtues, and he was inspired by a keen sense of his own ability to govern the country. He knew that in Carteret's hands the reins of office would always be loosely held, and he was patriotic enough to desire that England should be governed by the man best able to save her,—namely, himself. Had he failed, he might have been condemned as both arrogant and inconsistent. But he did not fail, and the end which he achieved abundantly justified the means employed.
Yet even after he had become Paymaster of the Forces his difficulties were not finished. He was passed over again in 1754, and he began to despair of the future. " All ardour for public business is really extinguished in my mind," he wrote to Hardwicke, " and I am totally deprived of all consideration by which alone I could have been of any use. The weight of immovable Royal displeasure is a load too great to move under ; it must crush any man—it has sunk and broke me." Such was one of the many laments which Pitt uttered with perfect justice concerning the King's disfavour. Mr. McDowall says that they show Pitt at his weakest and his worst. We cannot agree with him. For a statesman the King's approval was the first necessity, and there was no weakness in Pitt's com- plaint that the services which he would render his country were declined. Yet even the King himself must have been conscious of his folly when Pitt at last took office as War Minister. Indeed, no statesman ever made more splendid use of his opportunity. With Pitt thought and action were one during these eventful years. Not only did he arouse England from the apathy into which she had fallen, but he won victories all the world over, and firmly established the British Empire in Canada, in India, and in every quarter where England opposed the arms of France. Truly his achievement was nothing less than what Sir John Seeley called "the expansion of England." Not content with fighting in Canada and in Germany, Pitt in 1758 despatched two expeditions to West Africa, capturing Goree and Senegal, and organised two descents upon the French coast. The next year saw the capture of Quebec, and the irreparable loss of Wolfe. A year later the French power was broken in India, and the tale of Pitt's successes was told. Throughout all these campaigns Pitt's was the directing brain. As Mr. McDowell points out, Pitt was not merely a War Minister, as we understand his functions to-day; he also per- formed the duties of a modern General Staff. But while he lost sight of nothing himself, he showed the greatest skill in the choice of those who served him. He was not afraid to entrust the fortunes of England to young men. He promoted Wolfe over a vast number of officers ; while Howe, Amherst, and Monckton all owed their advancement to this far-seeing Minister.
In a sense the year 1760 was the culmination of Pitt's career. It is true that he played his part in opposing the disastrous Peace of Paris, and in attempting by wise con- cessions to save our American Colonies. But as his influence increased his capacity diminished. In 1765 he could do no more than send to Grafton "the best wishes of a Somerset- shire bystander." From time to time he came out of his retirement to deliver an eloquent speech or to inspire his followers to oppose Lord North's policy. On April 7th, 1778, he made his last speech in the House of Lords, whence he was carried unconscious to Downing Street, and a month later he was dead. His death, like his life, seems to have been modelled upon the deaths of ancient heroes, and it is essential to remember that he took Thucydides and Plutarch for his masters. Thucydides he called "the historian of our common humanity, the teacher of abstract political wisdom," and in shaping his own course he never forgot the lofty examples furnished by Plutarch. He emulated the great men of ancient times in the scrupulous probity of his career, which was not ostentatious, as Mr. McDowell says, but unusual ; and them, too, he followed in the pomp and circumstance of his least actions. It has been the fashion to call him theatrical, and Mr. Lecky detects in him something of the charlatan. But if he were theatrical, he did but use the means readiest at hand to attract the notice and support of the people. A statesman in a democratic country must make himself known, and to be widely known is to be histrionic. Few popular statesmen, indeed, have escaped this charge, and it weighs but as a feather upon the reputation of Pitt. His faults were venial, though very much might be forgiven to the man who restored her glory to England, and established the Empire which is to-day England's glory upon the solid basis of patriotism and pride.
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