But Pitt was not a man to be disheartened by a single failure, or to be put down by the most lively repartee.When a few days later, the opposition proposed a resolution directly censuring the treaties, he spoke with an eloquence, energy, and dignity which raised his fame and popularity higher than ever.To the coalition of Fox and North he alluded in language which drew forth tumultuous applause from his followers."If," he said, "this ill-omened and unnatural marriage be not yet consummated, Iknow of a just and lawful impediment; and, in the name of the public weal, I forbid the banns."The ministers were again left in a minority; and Shelburne consequently tendered his resignation.It was accepted; but the King struggled long and hard before he submitted to the terms dictated by Fox, whose faults he detested, and whose high spirit and powerful intellect he detested still more.The first place at the board of Treasury was repeatedly offered to Pitt; but the offer, though tempting, was steadfastly declined.The young man, whose judgment was as precocious as his eloquence, saw that his time was coming, but was not come, and was deaf to royal importunities and reproaches.His Majesty, bitterly complaining of Pitt's faintheartedness, tried to break the coalition.Every art of seduction was practised on North, but in vain.During several weeks the country remained without a government.It was not till all devices had failed, and till the aspect of the House of Commons became threatening, that the King gave way.The Duke of Portland was declared First Lord of the Treasury.Thurlow was dismissed.Fox and North became Secretaries of State, with power ostensibly equal.But Fox was the real prime minister.
The year was far advanced before the new arrangements were completed; and nothing very important was done during the remainder of the session.Pitt, now seated on the opposition bench, brought the question of parliamentary reform a second time under the consideration of the Commons.He proposed to add to the House at once a hundred county members and several members for metropolitan districts, and to enact that every borough of which an election committee should report that the majority of voters appeared to be corrupt should lose the franchise.The motion was rejected by 293 votes to 149.
After the prorogation, Pitt visited the Continent for the first and last time.His travelling companion was one of his most intimate friends, a young man of his own age, who had already distinguished himself in Parliament by an engaging natural eloquence, set off by the sweetest and most exquisitely modulated of human voices, and whose affectionate heart, caressing manners, and brilliant wit, made him the most delightful of companions, William Wilberforce.That was the time of Anglomania in France;and at Paris the son of the great Chatham was absolutely hunted by men of letters and women of fashion, and forced, much against his will, into political disputation.One remarkable saying which dropped from him during this tour has been preserved.AFrench gentleman expressed some surprise at the immense influence which Fox, a man of pleasure, ruined by the dice-box and the turf, exercised over the English nation."You have not," said Pitt, "been under the wand of the magician."In November 1783 the Parliament met again.The government had irresistible strength in the House of Commons, and seemed to be scarcely less strong in the House of Lords, but was, in truth, surrounded on every side by dangers.The King was impatiently waiting for the moment at which he could emancipate himself from a yoke which galled him so severely that he had more than once seriously thought of retiring to Hanover; and the King was scarcely more eager for a change than the nation.Fox and North had committed a fatal error.They ought to have known that coalitions between parties which have long been hostile can succeed only when the wish for coalition pervades the lower ranks of both.If the leaders unite before there is any disposition to union among the followers, the probability is that there will be a mutiny in both camps, and that the two revolted armies will make a truce with each other, in order to be revenged on those by whom they think that they have been betrayed.Thus it was in 1783.At the beginning of that eventful year, North had been the recognised head of the old Tory party, which, though for a moment prostrated by the disastrous issue of the American war, was still a great power in the state.To him the clergy, the universities, and that large body of country gentlemen whose rallying cry was "Church and King," had long looked up with respect and confidence.Fox had, on the other hand, been the idol of the Whigs, and of the whole body of Protestant dissenters.The coalition at once alienated the most zealous Tories from North, and the most zealous Whigs from Fox.The University of Oxford, which had marked its approbation of North's orthodoxy by electing him chancellor, the city of London, which had been during two and twenty years at war with the Court, were equally disgusted.