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Rocking

premier.

the favour of the king and the suavity of its gentle and good-humoured chief. The most potent cause of North's success was undoubtedly his influence over the House of Commons. He was thoroughly conversant with the practice of Parliament, and an adept in the art of controlling a popular assembly. Ready-witted, dexterous, and agreeable as a speaker, he could always maintain his ground, even against the phalanx of wit and eloquence that was generally arrayed against him; and yet his public policy was weak and vacillating. His (recently published) correspondence with George III. affords abundant proof of the persistent interference of his Majesty with the details of government, both great and small, in every branch of the public service; and of Lord North's ready submission to the king's will. The North administration came to an end in 1782. The events which occasioned its downfall have been already explained in a former part of this work, wherein will be found a notice of the successive administrations of England from that period to the present time. A brief mention of the several ministries from 1721 to 1782 was needful in this place, for the purpose of elucidating the growth of the office of Prime Minister under parliamentary government.

In March, 1782, after the resignation of Lord North, ham again the Marquis of Rockingham was appointed First Lord of the Treasury, and nominal chief minister. The king, who felt the loss of his favourite, Lord North, very keenly, was violently opposed to Lord Rockingham, whom he justly regarded as the nominee of the ultra-Whig party. He would have preferred Shelburne, who was also a Whig, but less extreme in his opinions; but that nobleman declined to undertake the formation of a ministry, and advised the king to send for Rockingham. The king was obliged to consent, and Lord Shelburne quitted the royal

Donne, vol. ii. pp. 399, 450. Jesse,
Life of George III. vol. i. p. 487.

Commons upon Lord North's resignation, see Jesse, George III. vol. ii. See ante, vol. i. p. 73. For an p. 347. account of the scene in the House of

presence with full powers to treat with Lord Rockingham as to men and measures, and with the understanding that the latter nobleman should be at the head of the Treasury. But so averse was the king to this arrangement, that he expressed his determination not to admit Lord Rockingham to an audience until he had completed the construction of the cabinet. This mark of royal displeasure would have induced Lord Rockingham to decline the proffered honour, had he not been urged by his friends to forego his objections. Accordingly, on March 27, he waited upon the king to submit the names Coalition of the proposed ministry. It comprised Lord Shelburne ministry. and Mr. Fox, as Secretaries of State, and an equal number of the Shelburne and Rockingham parties. These discordant elements refused to amalgamate, and naturally produced dissensions in office and differences in Parliament. Such, however, were the abilities and popularity of Fox, that he was generally considered as the principal person in this ministry, and, had he been so disposed, he might easily have attained an acknowledged pre-eminence. In proof of the small estimation in which Lord Rockingham was held, it is stated, that while it is the admitted right of the Prime Minister to take the king's pleasure' upon the creation of peers, Mr. Dunning received a peerage on the advice of Lord Shelburne, and without the knowledge of the chief minister; who, as soon as he became aware of the circumstance, applied to his Majesty for a similar favour on behalf of another lawyer, Sir Fletcher Norton."

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After the death of Lord Rockingham, in July, 1782, Shelburne the king appointed Lord Shelburne First Lord of the ministry. Treasury; whereupon his colleague, Fox, immediately resigned. Fox accused Shelburne of gross and systematic duplicity towards his brother ministers, and particularly to himself when they were Secretaries of State together; and now, in the words of his friend, Edmund Burke, he

Jesse, George III. vol. ii. pp. 352, 373. Adolphus, Hist. Geo. III. vol. iii. pp. 348, 349.

Govern

ment by depart

appeared to feel the utter impossibility of his acting for any length of time as a clerk in Lord Shelburne's administration.' A letter written by Lord Grenville, in December, 1782, mentions Lord Shelburne's evident intention to make cyphers of his colleagues.'" But in the ensuing February this ministry came to an end. Then followed the brief and inglorious episode of the Coalition administration of Fox and North, which was nominally under the presidency of the Duke of Portland, but in which Fox, who held the seals as Secretary of State, was virtually supreme. The preparation of an unpopular and most objectionable measure for the government of India occasioned the downfall of this ministry, under circumstances which have been already described in the previous volume." It was in December, 1783, that the Coalition ministry received its dismissal from the king, and was succeeded by the powerful administration of Mr. Pitt, which lasted from 1783 to 1801.*

The method of government by departments-which was in vogue before the Revolution, continued to prements still vail under Walpole, and was still in operation during the prevailing. period we have been passing under review-enabled the sovereign to exercise a more direct influence in all the details of government than would have been possible under a united administration subordinated to a political head. In fact it gave to the occupant of the throne that general superintendence over all departments of State which is now exercised by the Prime Minister. But this bureaucratic system excited much dissatisfaction in Parliament. In 1781 the existing governmental arrangements were strongly denounced in both Houses. The Duke of Richmond declared that the country was governed by clerks, each minister confining himself to his own office; and,

Russell's Corresp. of Fox, vol. i.
p. 457. Jesse, George III. vol. ii.
p. 380.

" Buckingham Papers, vol. i. p. 84.
Russell's Life of Fox, vol. ii.

p. 4. Corresp. of Fox, vol. ii. p. 95.
See ante, vol. i. pp. 52, 77. Rus-
sell's Life of Fox, ch. xviii.
* Ante, vol. i. pp. 77–80.

consequently, instead of responsibility, union of opinion, and concerted measures, nothing was displayed but dissension, weakness, and corruption." Upon the formation of the Coalition ministry, in 1783, at a private meeting which took place between the new allies on February 14, Mr. Fox insisted that the king should not be suffered to be his own minister;' to which Lord North replied, ‘If you mean there should not be a government by departments, I agree with you; I think it a very bad system. There should be one man, or a cabinet, to govern the whole, and direct every measure. Government by departments was not brought in by me; I found it so, and had not vigour and resolution to put an end to it. The king ought to be treated with all sort of respect and attention, but the appearance of power is all that a king of this country can have. Though the government in my time was a government by departments, the whole was done by the ministers, except in a few instances." Lord North's doctrine in respect to the authority of the crown was greatly in advance of his time, and was not, as we have seen, in accordance with his own practice. But whatever theoretical opinions might be entertained by his responsible advisers on this subject, the king himself, taking advantage of the system which Lord North condemned, lost no opportunity of exercising the authority which he believed to be the proper appurtenance of the regal office, so as to be, in fact, his own minister."

ministry.

It was impossible that any administration could tole- W. Pitt's rate a continual interference, on the part of the sovereign, in the details of government. Accordingly, when William Pitt, at the earnest solicitation of the king, consented to take the chief direction of the State, the constitutional relations between the sovereign of England and his ministers underwent a change, and began gradually to assume

Parl. Hist. vol. xxii. 651.
Russell, Corresp. of Fox, vol. ii.

See ante, p. 132.

See ante, vol. i. pp. 47–54.

p. 38.

Develop

Premier's

office.

their present aspect. Mr. Pitt's principles being thoroughly in accord with those of his royal master, the king was content to acquiesce in his judgment and conduct of affairs, so far as was consistent with a due regard to his own prerogative. While, so far as his colleagues were concerned, the commanding talents and indomitable energy of Mr. Pitt enabled him to assert, without hesitation or complaint, a supremacy in the Cabinet Councils that has ever since been the acknowledged right of the First Minister of the Crown.

The development of the office of Prime Minister in the ment of the hands of men who combined the highest qualities of statesmanship with great administrative and parliamentary experience-such as Sir Robert Walpole, the two Pitts, and Sir Robert Peel-has contributed materially to the growth and perfection of parliamentary government. Before the Revolution, the king himself was the mainspring of the State, and the one who shaped and directed the national policy. If he invoked the assistance of wiser men in this undertaking, it was that they might help him to mature his own plans, not that they might rule under the shadow of his name. With the overthrow of prerogative government all this was changed. When the king was obliged to frame his policy so as to conciliate the approbation of Parliament, it became necessary that his chief advisers should be statesmen in whom Parliament could confide. And no ministers will accept responsibility unless they are free to offer such advice as they think best, and to retire from office, if they are required to do anything which they cannot endorse. In every ministry, moreover, the opinions of the strongest man must ultimately prevail. Thus, by an easy gradation, the personal authority of the sovereign under prerogative government receded into the background, and was replaced by the supremacy of the Prime Minister under parliamentary government. In the transition period which

See ante, vol. i. p. 56. Donne, Corresp. Geo. III. vol. ii. p. 451.

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