By all accounts, Shelburne was a difficult person to get to know or like. He was clever and hardworking, and intellectually attracted to much the same causes as Pitt, favouring economical and parliamentary reform, peace treaties which emphasised the enhancement of free trade, a liberal commercial settlement with Ireland, and the creation of a new Sinking Fund to repay the national debt. Like Pitt he was a disciple of Adam Smith, who had recently provided the intellectual framework for advocates of free trade. Yet for all his qualities, Shelburne was never generally trusted. He had a sound grasp of diplomacy, trade and finance, but did not understand the psychology of his individual colleagues, who found that he was too remote, too critical, or at other times too given to flattery for his sincerity to be accepted. George Rose, who became Secretary to the Treasury that summer and who would subsequently be one of Pitt’s closest colleagues, described Shelburne in his diaries as ‘sometimes passionate or unreasonable, occasionally betraying suspicions of others entirely groundless, and at other times offensively flattering. I have frequently been puzzled to decide which part of his conduct was least to be tolerated.’19 Shelburne, he said, had ‘a suspicion of almost anyone he had intercourse with, a want of sincerity, and a habit of listening to every tale-bearer who would give him intelligence or news of any sort’.20 Even worse for the new government, Shelburne’s public character bore out this private assessment. Before the Lords had risen for the summer, Shelburne had claimed that Fox had never raised his differences over policy towards America in the Cabinet. Fox demanded a retraction, and Lord Derby the following day accused Shelburne in the Lords of ‘a direct deviation from the truth’. Shelburne’s pathetic reply was that ‘he made no such assertion; but he had certainly said, that “in his opinion” that was the cause, and the exclusive cause; but he had not asserted it as a fact’.21 In August, Christopher Wyvill was very pleased to receive a letter from Shelburne saying that he would ‘deal nobly’ with the reform ideas of the Yorkshire Association, but soon afterwards when Shelburne realised that many Ministers were opposed to parliamentary reform he had to tell Wyvill that his letter was meant ‘as a communication to you personally’,22 and not as a statement of government policy. The impression spread that this First Minister could not be trusted.
Far and away the most important task of the Shelburne government was to conduct the peace negotiations in Paris. Within weeks of taking charge, Shelburne was forced to concede the point on which Fox had tried to insist: the unequivocal acknowledgement of American independence. Previously he had pursued his ideal of the American colonies remaining in some form of association with Great Britain while being granted extensive territory towards the Mississippi and the Great Lakes, some of it provided from Canada. Finally dropping the idea of any such association, he now concluded with the colonies by the end of November the preliminary articles of peace which gave them both the territory they desired and the acknowledgement of their complete independence. The settlement with America allowed Britain to drive a far harder bargain with France and Spain, including on the vital issue of the Spanish claim to Gibraltar. In September the Spaniards had attacked Gibraltar but met with a crushing defeat. Shelburne and the King were inclined to exchange Gibraltar for Puerto Rico or West Florida, but too much blood had now been spilled in the defence of the Rock for British opinion willingly to give it up. This was a view shared by many senior Ministers, probably including Pitt, and Shelburne was only able to maintain unity in the Cabinet by the unusual device of not calling it together for a meeting.
It was in the middle of these disagreements and negotiations, with the preliminaries of peace with America signed on 30 November but the negotiations with the European powers still underway, that Parliament assembled in early December. With both Fox and North, along with their followers, on the opposition benches, the government’s position was precarious, and much would ride on Pitt’s ability to put its case in the Commons. Observers had expected Shelburne to use the recess to bring some of the opposition forces into the government’s ranks and thereby secure a majority. But ‘on the opening of the session, it soon … became evident that no such Ministerial approximation had taken place, and the Administration relied for support upon its own proper strength or ability’.23 Historians have estimated the strength of the parliamentary factions that Christmas at 140 MPs behind Shelburne (including the ‘King’s friends’), 120 followers of North, and ninety supporters of Fox.24 The government was thus heavily outnumbered unless all the independents came to its aid.
There were several reasons why Shelburne had done nothing to strengthen his government when he had the opportunity. The first was that he did not understand the House of Commons, and had taken some highly speculative and wildly over-optimistic assessments of the numbers from the normally reliable government official John Robinson as facts. He wrote to one colleague that he would have the support of ‘almost all the property of the Country, and that he did not believe his opponents in the H. of Commons would exceed 60’.25 The second reason was that although Shelburne himself could not countenance negotiating once again with Fox, Pitt would under no circumstances serve alongside Lord North, and any alliance with an opposition grouping would therefore make the existing government difficult to hold together. At least, Shelburne assured himself, Fox and North were such long-standing opponents that they could not join forces against him.
The government that met in Parliament that winter was therefore hamstrung, overconfident, and preoccupied with its own differences over the peace negotiations. Within days it was under pressure. On the opening day, Shelburne was asked whether the peace terms with America would stand whatever happened in the European negotiations, to which he replied: ‘This offer is not irrevocable; if France does not agree to peace, the offer ceases.’26 On the following day, when Fox raised this in the Commons, all the Ministers present gave an answer diametrically opposite to that of their leader, with Pitt twice insisting that the agreement with America was unconditional. Shelburne was now in difficulties, with the King asking him to persuade Pitt to recant his ‘mistake’, but with Pitt sticking to his honest reply, declaring that ‘on mature consideration, and he persisted in it … recognition could not be revoked, even if the present treaty should go off’.27
Shelburne was on the brink of a successful negotiation in Paris, but he had embarrassed his government and alienated more of his colleagues. Ministers found that they were shut out of the peace negotiations, and by the end of January 1783 both Keppel and Richmond resigned. The government was thus in grave difficulties as it prepared to present the final outcome of the negotiations to Parliament on 27 January, with a debate arranged for 17 February. In the final articles of peace, the French gained Tobago and St Lucia, but had to hand back all their other conquests. Britain recognised Spanish control of Minorca and the Floridas, but kept Gibraltar. The Dutch recovered Trincomalee in Ceylon, but had to accept free navigation by British ships in the East Indies. Given all the circumstances it was not a dishonourable settlement, and Shelburne was proud of the fact that it laid the foundations for the expansion of trade with both America and the Continent. Sadly for him, the parliamentary position of his government was now so perilous that the merits of his peace proposals were lost amidst the scramble for power of February 1783.
The morale of government supporters was low as both Houses gathered on 17 February to debate the preliminaries of peace. Ministers tabled a modest motion expressing ‘satisfaction’ at a settlement which offered ‘perfect reconciliation and friendship’, but try as he might Pitt could not persuade William Grenville, his cousin and future Foreign Secretary, to second the motion; William Wilberforce agreed to do so instead. Even as Parliament met, the government’s disintegration gathered pace. The Duke of Grafton, upon hearing that Richmond’s seat in the Cabinet would be taken by Pitt’s friend the young Duke of Rutland, without prior consultation with himself, resigned on the spot. Rutland was to have the unusual distinction of turning up to his first Cabinet meeting on the same day that the government resigned. A senior resignation on the day of a vital debate was bad enough,