Fox’s strategy was also to avoid a dissolution, since that would bring the full weight of government influence on to Pitt’s side in an election. He would not immediately supply the pretext for an election by ‘stopping the supplies’, but he would take every other measure to humiliate Pitt and vote down whatever policies the new government attempted.
The stage was set for one of the great political confrontations of British history.
The early days of the battle were not auspicious for Pitt. He first attempted to cut through all the problems by sending a mutual friend, Lord Spencer, to ask Fox to join the government, but without Lord North and without the India Bill as proposed. A confident Fox turned this down flat. Two days after taking office Pitt received a body blow when Temple, who had taken office on 19 December as a Secretary of State, resigned on the twenty-first. Historians have never been able to agree on why he did so. Wraxall and other contemporary commentators thought it was because Pitt would not dissolve Parliament. Stanhope thought it was because the King had not recognised Temple’s previous service as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland or his recent services by elevating him to a dukedom. The explanation given by his brother, William Grenville, in the House of Commons at the time was that he wished to be ‘ready to meet any charge that shall be brought against him’, and would be able to ‘answer for his conduct whenever he shall hear the charge’.21 This has a ring of truth. Ministerial resignations usually take place for more than one reason, and it is likely that Temple simply took fright at the difficulty of the whole situation, with the added fear that he might be impeached. Dundas, eagerly taking office as Treasurer of the Navy, thought Temple was a ‘dammed dolter-headed coward’, and the King was still referring to ‘his base conduct’ six years later. Whatever the reason for it, this resignation left Pitt terribly exposed, deprived of his leading colleague and senior spokesman in the Lords. Pretyman recalled that: ‘This was the only event, of a public nature, which I ever knew disturb Mr. Pitt’s rest, while he continued in good health. Lord Temple’s resignation was determined upon at a late hour in the evening of the 21st; and when I went into Mr. Pitt’s bedroom the next morning he told me, that he had not had a moment’s sleep. He expressed great uneasiness at the state of public affairs; at the same time declaring his fixed resolution not to abandon the situation he had undertaken, but to make the best stand in his power, though very doubtful of the result.’22
By the morning of Tuesday, 23 December, Wilberforce was writing in his journal: ‘Morning Pitt’s … Pitt nobly firm … Cabinet formed.’23 It was indeed formed, but it was not very distinguished. Senior figures who had held high office in the past such as Lord Camden and the Duke of Grafton declined to take part in this risky enterprise. Pitt was able to form a small Cabinet of seven members, including himself: the conspirator Lord Thurlow back as Lord Chancellor, the trusty Gower as President of the Council, Pitt’s young friend the Duke of Rutland as Lord Privy Seal, Admiral Lord Howe as First Lord of the Admiralty and, as Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary, Lord Sydney and the Marquis of Carmarthen. The latter two held the two highest offices after Pitt and Thurlow, but were considered by William Grenville, who would one day succeed each of them, as ‘unequal to the most ordinary business of their own offices’.24 Hardly any of the others could make an effective speech, and all of them except Pitt were in the House of Lords: the huge burden of debating in the House of Commons would fall almost entirely on Pitt himself.
At the more junior levels of the government Pitt relied on bringing in his young friends, with George Rose and Tom Steele as Secretaries to the Treasury, Henry Dundas as Treasurer of the Navy, William Grenville and Lord Mulgrave as Paymasters of the Forces and Richard Pepper Arden as Solicitor General. The list was completed by the Duke of Richmond as Master General of the Ordnance (he would later agree to join the Cabinet in the same role), Lloyd Kenyon as Attorney General and Sir George Yonge as Secretary at War.
This list of undistinguished peers and youthful companions was not immediately impressive. One commentator noted that the main attribute of the new government was its collective capacity for drink. Sir Gilbert Elliot dismissed the Ministers as ‘a set of children playing at ministers [who] must be sent back to school, and in a few days all will have returned to its former course’.25 Of the many commentaries writing off the chances of the new government the most famous came from Fox’s friend Mrs Crewe, who said to Wilberforce: ‘Well, he [Pitt] may do what he likes during the holidays, but it will be only a mince-pie administration, depend on it.’26 William Eden, at that stage still a political opponent, wrote that ‘They are in desperate straits even for Old men and Boys to accept situations.’27 Pitt’s youth was again derided, with his opponents composing a jingle called ‘Billy’s Too Young to Drive Us’, and even Robinson, now advising him on the parliamentary numbers, describing him as ‘a delicate high spirited mind, beset by Boys, Theoreticks and prejudiced persons’.28 Pitt’s position was seen as weak by most observers, and hopeless by some. As the Commons rose for the Christmas recess, Fox allowed the Land Tax Bill to pass, but in return extracted a promise that Parliament was not about to be dissolved. It would convene again on 12 January 1784. The battle for supremacy would then commence on the floor of the House of Commons.
*Pitt’s re-election for Appleby, although a formality, was once again required by his acceptance of ministerial office.
‘The country calls aloud to me that I should defend this castle; and I am determined therefore that I WILL defend it.’
WILLIAM PITT, FEBRUARY 1784
‘It was a struggle between George the Third’s sceptre and Mr. Fox’s tongue.’
SAMUEL JOHNSON
PITT HAD NO CHANCE to savour being First Lord of the Treasury at the age of twenty-four. He worked without pause through the Christmas of 1783 to bolster his precarious position. He knew that in two weeks’ time he would be facing a House of Commons in which he at present had no majority, and that all the other great parliamentary speakers of the age – Fox, Burke, North, Sheridan – would be arrayed against him. The burden of defeating them would rest entirely with him, and if he failed, so would the blame.
Pitt employed all the tools at his command. From his earliest hours as Prime Minister he showed the cool ruthlessness which characterises those politicians who are capable of seizing power and keeping it. For all his difficulty in finding credible Ministers he had no compunction in shirking those who might have brought seniority, but whom he considered liabilities. One of these was Charles Jenkinson, who was so close to the King that his inclusion would have cast doubt on Pitt’s denial that he had been part of a plot. More significantly, he excluded Shelburne, his former patron and leader, who had brought him into his last government as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Shelburne, as a former First Lord of the Treasury, had great seniority and acknowledged abilities, but he was unpopular and Pitt had not enjoyed working with him. He found himself excluded. The absence of any previous head of an administration in his government helped to underline the fact that Pitt alone was in charge. As Dundas observed: ‘This young man does not choose to suffer it to be doubtfull who is the effectual Minister.’1
Next, with the ready cooperation of George III, Pitt opened the floodgates of government patronage which had been locked tightly shut during the Fox – North administration. Thomas Pitt