which had now in fact no actual existence, but in the return of members to the house. They had no existence in property, in population, in trade, in weight … Another set of boroughs and towns, in the lofty possession of English freedom, claimed to themselves the right of bringing their votes to market. They had no other market, no other property, and no other stake in the country, than the property and price which they procured for their votes. Such boroughs were the most dangerous of all others. So far from consulting the interests of their country in the choice which they made, they held out their borough to the best purchaser, and in fact, they belonged more to the Nabob of Arcot than they did to the people of Great-Britain … Such boroughs … were sources of corruption; they gave rise to an inundation of corrupt wealth, and corrupt members, who had no regard nor connection, either for or with the people of this kingdom.29
Pitt attacked the argument that the constitution could not be changed, saying he was afraid ‘that the reverence and the enthusiasm which Englishmen entertained for the constitution, would, if not suddenly prevented, be the means of destroying it; for such was their enthusiasm, that they would not even remove its defects, for fear of touching its beauty’.30
Pitt’s motion was supported by the veteran Alderman Sawbridge and by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, the famous Covent Garden playwright who was also a new MP, but opposed by his own cousin Thomas Pitt of Bocconoc. Appropriately enough for someone who elected himself as Member of Old Sarum, Thomas pointed out that equality of representation never was nor could have been the basis on which their ancestors meant to erect the liberties of England, or they would never have allowed ‘the little county of Rutland to send as many members to that assembly as Yorkshire or Devon’.31
This was to be the majority view. When the ‘orders of the day’ were moved to cut short further debate on Pitt’s motion, 161 voted aye, and Pitt and Fox led 141 in voting no. Pitt was disappointed, writing to his mother: ‘The failure of my motion was rather unexpected, and might perhaps have been prevented if so strong an Opposition had been foreseen. I believe it is a very small party that is heartily for it,’32 but other reformers took heart from the narrow defeat, certainly not suspecting that this was the closest they would come to parliamentary reform for half a century. A further meeting of reformers was held at the Thatched House Tavern in St James’s Street on 18 May, calling for a new wave of petitions from across the country, and Pitt and Wyvill resolved to continue to work closely together.
Even as this meeting took place the obstacles to meaningful reform were becoming ever clearer. On 17 May Alderman Sawbridge moved a motion for shortening the duration of parliaments, still set at seven years. He was supported by both Pitt and Fox, but Burke could no longer restrain himself. As Sheridan later described it to a friend: ‘On Friday last Burke acquitted himself with the most magnanimous indiscretion, attacked W. Pitt in a scream of passion, and swore Parliament was and always had been precisely what it ought to be, and that all people who thought of reforming it wanted to overturn the Constitution.’33 If Pitt needed any further reminding that the Rockingham Whigs did not share his attachment to genuine reform, he certainly received it the following month when a further plank of reform was opposed by Fox himself. On 19 June Lord Mahon introduced a Bill for combating bribery at elections, only to find that Fox opposed it and succeeded in removing many of the proposed penalties in it as being too severe. Mahon withdrew the Bill in disgust. ‘This was,’ Pretyman tells us, ‘I believe, the first question upon which they [Pitt and Fox] happened to differ before any separation took place between them. I must, however, remark that although they had hitherto acted together in Parliament, there had been no intimacy or confidential intercourse between them.’
Fox had always been courteous and generous to Pitt. But by the end of June 1782, with Fox and the new government approaching a major crisis, Pitt owed them nothing.
Dundas was always a perceptive observer of events. ‘Unless they change their idea of government, and personal behaviour to the King,’ he said of the new government, in which he continued as Lord Advocate, ‘I do not believe they will remain three months.’34 He would turn out to be exactly correct, and however arrogant Pitt’s refusal to hold a junior office may have seemed, he would lose nothing from standing apart from the intense feuding and personal enmities which characterised the short-lived Rockingham administration.
Rockingham himself had two great strengths: he was consistent and principled in his Whig views, and among the Whigs he was foremost in wealth and connections. From his vast mansion of Wentworth Woodhouse* his influence upon the rest of the landed Whig aristocracy radiated across the land. These strengths had helped him to maintain the Whigs as a forceful opposition party through the 1770s and to hold them in readiness as an alternative government. But once he was in office as First Lord of the Treasury they were more than outweighed by his weaknesses: inexperience in government, timidity in arbitrating between fractious Ministers, and a bodily constitution which was not up to the strain. He was indecisive and forgetful, better known for his interests in racing, farming and horse-breeding than for having strong opinions about most political issues. George III thought that he ‘never appeared to him to have a decided opinion about things’.35 This was a government held together by its leader rather than driven forward by him.
The single most important change in British politics brought about under the Rockingham government was the legislative independence granted to the Irish Parliament in May 1782, but this was in no way a premeditated act. Irish opinion was united behind the fiery politician Henry Grattan, who seized the chance to demand home rule provided by the coincidence of a new government in London, military defeat overseas, and the existence of 100,000 armed Irish Volunteers who had been set up to defend the country in the absence of British troops. While the new Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the Duke of Portland, pleaded in vain for time, Grattan made the most of his advantage, backed by the threat of force, and the Ministers gave in. For the moment the issue was settled, but time would show that the discontents of Ireland had been appeased but not resolved.
The change of government meant peace negotiations to end the war with America, and separately with France, Spain and Holland, would now begin. Major operations on the American mainland may have been over, but Britain and the Continental powers continued to battle for a stronger negotiating position. The Spanish were determined to retake Gibraltar, ceded to Britain in 1713, and in the West Indies the British and French fleets manoeuvred among their colonies. From there in late May came news of a devastating British victory. On 12 April, only three weeks after Lord North had left office in the shadow of military humiliation, Admiral Rodney decisively defeated the French fleet near Dominica, and in doing so restored Britain’s naval superiority and saved the West Indian colonies. A nation that had begun to despair of recovering its domination of the oceans now rejoiced: ‘The capital and the country were thrown into a delirium of joy.’36
While Rodney’s great victory elated the country, it only served to exacerbate the differences over the peace negotiations between the two Secretaries of State, Fox and Shelburne. The conflict between these two men was at the heart of the intense rivalries which would pull the government apart. Shelburne had been flattered by George III, who had clearly wanted him to be the head of the government if only Fox and the other Rockingham Whigs would allow it. Fox, for his part, had no shortage of reasons for distrusting Shelburne, both personal and political. For one thing they were cousins, and ‘an old prejudice’ between the two branches of the family had remained active for decades.37 Probably still more offensive to Fox was that after all the work he had done and the speeches he had given to turn out the North ministry, it was Shelburne who had acquired the lion’s share of the spoils and could often outvote him in the Cabinet. Added to this poisonous mixture was an issue of real substance between them: Fox believed that the independence of America should be granted unconditionally, while Shelburne felt that it should be contingent on the satisfactory conclusion of a treaty with America’s European allies. Since Shelburne, as Home and Colonial Secretary, had responsibility for the negotiations