The Cabinet had agreed to the unconditional independence of America, but Shelburne, possibly emboldened by Rodney’s victory, continued to pursue his own plans and sent his own representative, Richard Oswald, to the negotiations in Paris behind Fox’s back. Fox was enraged by ‘this duplicity of conduct’,38 believing that Shelburne was deliberately undermining the negotiations or seeking to bring down the government in concert with the King. By the end of June Fox was trying to bring matters to a head in the Cabinet and to have the policy decided one way or the other, even if it meant the ‘absolute rupture’39 of the government. The feud had reached its peak, but the climactic meetings of the Rockingham Cabinet were to take place without Rockingham himself. At the beginning of June, according to Wraxall, ‘when he rose to address the House [of Lords], he declared that he felt himself so severely indisposed as to be almost incapable of uttering a word … “The disorder universally prevalent afflicts me so violently, that at times I am not completely in possession of myself.”’40 It is hard to imagine a modern Prime Minister making such a disarmingly honest admission. In any event, he took to his bed and was still there as his Ministers squared up to each other at the end of June.
Pitt, in the meantime, occasionally busied himself on the back benches while planning a summer on the Western Circuit to improve his finances. He was also anxious that his mother’s annuity, long since in arrears, should be paid by the government. On 27 June he wrote from Lincoln’s Inn to his mother:
My brother tells me he has mentioned to you that Ld Rockingham is ill, wch is unfortunately in the way of any thing more at present; but Ld S[helburne]. told me yesterday that Ld R. had expressed himself as wishing to do something that might give you a security for the future. You are very good in thinking of communicating any share of what I am sure your own occasions may demand entire; mine are not so pressing but that they will wait very tolerably at present; and I shall expect that Westminster Hall will in good time supply all that is wanting.
The Circuit begins on Tuesday sen’night.* I hope to call in my way westward, if not certainly in my return; and I shall undoubtedly be able to make some stay after it is over, tho’ my plan for the remainder of the summer is not quite settled … Lord Rockingham’s very precarious state occasions a great deal of suspense, and if it ends ill, may, I am afraid, produce a great deal of confusion …41
The plans Pitt was making to visit his mother and join the Western Circuit would be abandoned only a few days after he wrote this letter. At a Cabinet meeting on 30 June to discuss the peace negotiations Fox was outvoted. If he had resigned as Secretary of State that day it would have been seen as a resignation on a matter of principle. By delaying in order to consult his friends it was to become seen as a matter of pique. For at 11.30 in the morning of 1 July 1782 Charles Watson-Wentworth, second Marquis of Rockingham and First Lord of the Treasury, breathed his last. The one man who had held the government together was gone, and his body was scarcely cold before the battle over his successor was joined in earnest.
*The seat of William Beckford, the rich, eccentric and flamboyant son of the late William Beckford, who had been Lord Mayor of London and an ally of Chatham.
*In the House of Commons, then as now, the votes are counted by two Members from each side who act as ‘tellers’ and who are not themselves included in the voting figures.
*Wentworth Woodhouse, near Rotherham, remains to this day the largest private house in Britain.
*The term ‘se’nnight’, meaning one week, was still in common usage at this time.
‘Our new Board of Treasury has just begun to enter on business; and tho’ I do not know that it is of the most entertaining sort, it does not seem likely to be very fatiguing … Lord North will, I hope, in a very little while make room for me in Downing Street, which is the best summer Town House possible.’
WILLIAM PITT, CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER, 16 JULY 1782
‘W. Pitt Secretary of State! and Lord Shelburne Premier! Surely the first cannot be qualified for such an office, and the last is, in my opinion, little to be depended upon.’
LORD MORNINGTON, 12 July 17821
THE UNEASY COALITION which had surrounded Rockingham was rent asunder within hours of his death. Fox had been on the brink of resigning, but seeing a chance to acquire genuine control of the government, nominated the Duke of Portland as First Lord of the Treasury. Portland was another traditional Whig aristocrat, now forty-four years old, but more suited to ministerial office and more dedicated to politics than Rockingham had been. He was known for ‘integrity, ability, and firmness’,2 but certainly not for oratory or inspiration. Fox’s intention in putting Portland forward was that one less than totally effectual Whig magnate would succeed another, and Fox, while disqualified from being First Lord of the Treasury himself because of the intense animosity between him and the King, would be in charge. George III, however, was no laggard when he saw an opportunity for which he had been waiting. Having failed even to enquire about the health of the dying Rockingham in the preceding weeks, the King wrote to Shelburne immediately on receiving news of his death, offering him the leadership of the government ‘with the fullest political confidence’.3 Oddly enough, the Rockingham Whigs were the grouping most caught by surprise by the death of their leader, probably because physicians had forecast his recovery, while their rivals were immediately ready for action. One of them wrote: ‘All is confusion at present, for as his friends from the declaration of his physicians did not think him in immediate danger the blow is the severer. Nobody at present can say who will be the successor … C. Fox’s idea at five o’clock this afternoon was in case His Majesty would not put the Duke of Richmond at the head of the Treasury to put the Duke of Portland there … they will not hear at this present moment of Shelburne …’4
Hear of it or not, the Whigs were presented with a fait accompli. Shelburne was to be First Lord of the Treasury, provided he could assemble a government around him. With Parliament about to break for the summer recess he would then have several months in which to fortify his parliamentary position. A new stage of confusion now reigned over who would serve under Shelburne. Fox consulted his friends about resigning, while the King took the unusual step on 3 July of speaking to each Cabinet Minister individually to explain that Shelburne would head the administration. According to Shelburne, ‘Mr. Fox, spoke to the K. rather in a strong way & seemed surprised to find that His M. dare have any opinion of his own.’5 The newspapers of the time demonstrate the bewilderingly rapid changes in the situation. The Morning Chronicle of 2 July printed a leaked list of the potential new government, with William Pitt as Treasurer of the Navy (a position outside the Cabinet and one he would have been unlikely to accept); by 6 July Fox is reported to have resigned and Pitt to be on his way to being a Secretary of State; and on 9 July it was said that Fox would be in the government after all, as Chancellor. In fact, on 4 July Fox had handed in his seals of office to the King and had ‘an angry Conversation’ with Shelburne. He could not bear to serve under the ministerial rival who he believed had spent the last three months undermining him.
While controversy raged around Fox, the undaunted Shelburne set about bringing Pitt into the government. Without Fox in the Cabinet, a powerful House of Commons debater would be needed in the front rank of the administration, and Pitt was one of the few men answering to that description. In addition, Shelburne regarded Pitt as one of his supporters and someone with very similar views to himself. He had tried to include him in the government at a more junior level only three months before. Now the need, and the opening, were clear. Fox himself, in one of his last friendly conversations with Pitt, said to him after Rockingham’s death: ‘They look to you; without you they cannot succeed; with you I know not whether