PITT 147 against France, said not a word indicating esteem or friendship for the prime minister. War was speedily declared. The first consul threatened to in vade England at the head of the conquerors of Belgium and Italy, and formed a great camp near the Straits of Dover. On the other side of those straits the whole population of our island was ready to rise up as one man in defence of the soil. At this conjunc ture, as at some other great conjunctures in our history the con juncture of 1660, for example, and the conjuncture of 1688 there was a general disposition among honest and patriotic men to forget old quarrels, and to regard as a friend every person who was ready, in the existing emergency, to do his part towards the saving of the state. A coalition of all the first men in the country would, at that moment, have been as popular as the coalition of 1783 had been un popular. Alone in the kingdom the king looked with perfect com placency on a cabinet in which no man superior to himself in genius was to be found, and was so far from being willing to admit all his ablest subjects to office that he was bent on excluding them all. A few months passed before the different parties which agreed in regarding the Government with dislike and contempt came to an understanding with each other. But in the spring of 1804 it be came evident that the weakest of ministries would have to defend itself against the strongest of Oppositions, an Opposition made up of three Oppositions, each of which would, separately, have been formidable from ability, and which, when united, were also for midable from number. The party which had opposed the peace, headed by Grenville and Windham, and the party which had op posed the renewal of the war, headed by Fox, concurred in thinking that the men now in power were incapable of either making a good peace or waging a vigorous war. Pitt had in 1802 spoken for peace against the party of Grenville, and had in 1803 spoken for war against the party of Fox. But of the capacity of the cabinet, and especially of its chief, for the conduct of great affairs, he thought as meanly as either Fox or Grenville. Questions were easily found on which all the enemies of the Government could act cordially together. The unfortunate first lord of the treasury, who had, during the earlier months of his administration, been supported by Pitt on one side and by Fox on the other, now had to answer Pitt and to be answered by Fox. Two sharp debates, followed by close divisions, made him weary of his post. It was known, too, that the Upper House was ever more hostile to him than the Lower, that the Scotch representative peers wavered, that there were signs of mutiny among the bishops. In the cabinet itself there was discord, and, worse than discord, treachery. It ding- was necessary to give way ; the ministry was dissolved, and the task of forming a Government was entrusted to Pitt, dstry Pitt was of opinion that there was now an opportunity, such as tjns. had never before offered itself, and such as might never offer itself again, of uniting in the public service, on honourable terms, all the eminent talents of the kingdom. The passions to which the French Revolution had given birth were extinct. The madness of the innovator and the madness of the alarmist had alike had their day. Jacobinism and Antijacobinism had gone out of fashion together. The most liberal statesman did not think that season propitious for schemes of parliamentary reform ; and the most conservative statesman could not pretend that there was any occasion for gagging bills and suspensions of the Habeas Corpus Act. The great struggle for independence and national honour occupied all minds ; and those who were agreed as to the duty of maintaining that struggle with vigour might well postpone to a more convenient time all disputes about matters comparatively unimportant. Strongly impressed by these considerations, Pitt wished to form a ministry including all the first men in the country. The treasury he reserved for himself ; and to Fox he proposed to assign a share of power little inferior to his own. The plan was excellent; but the king would not hear of it. Dull, obstinate, unforgiving, and at that time half mad, he positively refused to admit Fox into his service. Anybody else, even men who had gone as far as Fox, or further than Fox, in what His Majesty considered as Jacobinism Sheridan, Grey, Erskine should be graciously received, but Fox never. During several hours Pitt laboured in vain to reason down this senseless antipathy. That he was perfectly sincere there can be no doubt ; but it was not enough to be sincere he should have been resolute. Had he declared himself determined not to take office without Fox, the royal obstinacy would have given way, as it gave way, a few months later, when opposed to the immutable resolution of Lord Grenville. In an evil hour Pitt yielded. He flattered himself with the hope that, though he consented to forego the aid of his illustrious rival, there would still remain ample materials for the formation of an efficient ministry. That hope was cruelly disappointed. Fox entreated his friends to leave personal considera tions out of the question, and declared that he would support, with the utmost cordiality, an efficient and patriotic ministry from which he should be himself excluded. Not only his friends, how ever, but Grenville and Grenville s adherents answered with one voice that the question was not personal, that a great constitu tional principle was at stake, and that they would not take office while a man eminently qualified to render service to the common wealth was placed under a ban merely because he was disliked at court. All that was left to Pitt was to construct a Government out of the wreck of Addington s feeble administration. The small circle of his personal retainers furnished him with a very few useful assistants, particularly Dundas (who had been created Viscount Melville), Lord Harrowby, and Canning. Such was the inauspicious manner in which Pitt entered on his Secoad second administration. The whole history of that administration Pitt was of a piece with the commencement. Almost every month adniinis- brought some new disaster or disgrace. To the war with France tration, was soon added a war with Spain. The opponents of the ministry May 12 were numerous, able, and active. His most useful coadjutors he 18C4. soon lost. Sickness deprived him of the help of Lord Harrowby. It was discovered that Lord Melville had been guilty of highly culpable laxity in transactions relating to public money. He was censured by the House of Commons, driven from office, ejected from the Privy Council, and impeached of high crimes and mis demeanours. The blow fell heavy on Pitt. It gave him, he said in parliament, a deep pang ; and, as he uttered the word pang his lip quivered, his voice shook, he paused, and his hearers thought that he was about to burst into tears. Such tears shed by Elclon would have moved nothing but laughter. Shed by the arm- hearted and open-hearted Fox, they would have moved sympathy, but would have caused no surprise. But a tear from Pitt would have been something portentous. He suppressed his emotion, how ever, and proceeded with his usual majestic self-possession. His difficulties compelled him to resort to various expedients. At one time Addington was persuaded to accept office with a peerage ; but he brought no additional strength to the Govern ment. Though he went through the form of reconciliation, it was impossible for him to forget the past. While he remained in place he was jealous and punctilious ; and he soon retired again. At another time Pitt renewed his efforts to overcome his master s aversion to Fox ; and it was rumoured that the king s obstinacy was gradually giving way. But, meanwhile, it was impossible for the minister to conceal from the public eye the decay of his health and the constant anxiety which gnawed at his heart. His sleep was broken. His food ceased to nourish him. All who passed him in the park, all who had interviews with him in Downing Street, saw misery written in his face. The peculiar look which he wore during the last months of his life was often pathetically described by Wilberforce, who used to call it the Austerlitz look. Still the vigour of Pitt s intellectual faculties and the intrepid haughtiness of his spirit remained unaltered. He had staked everything on a great venture. He had succeeded in forming another mighty coalition against the French ascendency. The united forces of Austria, Russia, and England might, he hoped, oppose an insurmountable barrier to the ambition of the common enemy. But the genius and energy of Napoleon prevailed. While the English troops were preparing to embark for Germany, while the Russian troops were slowly coming up from Poland, he, with rapidity unprecedented in modern war, moved a hundred thousand men from the shores of the ocean to the Black Forest, and compelled a great Austrian army to surrender at Ulm. To the first faint rumours of this calamity Pitt would give no credit. He was irritated by the alarms of those around him. " Do not believe a word of it, " he said ; " it is all a fiction. " The next day he received a Dutch newspaper containing the capitulation. He knew no Dutch. It was Sunday, and the public offices were shut. He carried the paper to Lord Malmesbury, who had been minister in Holland; and Lord Malmesbury translated it. Pitt tried to bear up, but the shock was too great; and he went away with death in his face. The news of the battle of Trafalgar arrived four days later, and seemed for a moment to revive him. Forty-eight hours after that most glorious and most mournful of victories had been announced to the country came the Lord Mayor s Day ; and Pitt dined at Guildhall. His popularity had declined. But on this occasion the multitude, greatly excited by the recent tidings, welcomed him enthusiastically, took off his horses in Cheapside, and drew his carriage up King Street. When his health was drunk, he returned thanks in two or three of those stately sentences of which he had a boundless command. Several of those who heard him laid up his words in their hearts ; for they were the last words that he ever uttered in public : " Let us hope that England, having saved herself by her energy, may save Europe by her example." This was but a momentary rally. Austerlitz soon completed what Ulm had begun. Early in December Pitt had retired to Bath, in the hope that he might there gather strength for the approaching session. While he was languishing there on his sofa arrived the news that a decisive battle had been fought and lost in Moravia, that the coalition was dissolved, that the Continent was at the feet of France. He sank down under the blow. Ten days later he was so emaciated that his most intimate friends hardly knew him. He came up from Bath by slow journeys, and
on the llth of January 1806 reached his villa at Putney. Parlia-