Pitt, on the other hand, was very open to Loughborough, and expressed a wish to form a strong and united Ministry which could face the difficulties of the time. The chief obstacle to a coalition, he said, was Fox's support of French principles, which must preclude his taking the Foreign Office immediately. The remark is noteworthy as implying Pitt's expectation that either Fox might tone down his opinions, or the Revolution might abate its violence. Further, when Loughborough reminded him of the ardour of his advocacy of the Abolitionist cause, he replied that some concession must be made on that head, as the King strongly objected to the way in which it was pushed on by addresses and petitions, a method which he himself disliked. Further, he freely admitted that the "national Aristocracy" of the country must have its due weight and power.[49] These confessions (assuming that Loughborough reported them correctly) prepare us for the half right turn which now becomes the trend of Pitt's political career. In order to further the formation of a truly national party, he was willing, if necessary, to postpone the cause of the slaves and of Parliamentary Reform until the advent of calmer times.
At this stage of the discussions, then, Pitt was willing to meet the Whigs half way. But the chief difficulty lay, not with Fox and his friends, but with the King. When Pitt mentioned the proposal to him, there came the characteristic reply: "Anything complimentary to them, but no power."[50] How was it possible to harmonize this resolve with that of Fox, that the Whigs must have an equality of power? Grenville was a further obstacle. How could that stiff and ambitious man give up the Foreign Office to Fox, whose principles he detested? We hear little of Grenville in these days, probably because of his marriage to Lady Ann Pitt, daughter of Lord Camelford. But certainly he would not have tolerated a half Whig Cabinet.
It is therefore strange that the proposals were ever renewed. Renewed, however, they were, in the second week of July. Loughborough having spread the impression that Pitt desired their renewal, Leeds was again pushed to the front, it being suggested that he might be First Lord of the Treasury. Finally, on 14th August, the King granted him a private interview at Windsor, but stated that nothing had been said on the subject for a long time, and that it had never been seriously considered, it being impossible for Pitt to give up the Treasury and act as Commis to the Whig leaders. This statement should have lessened the Duke's astonishment at hearing from Pitt on 22nd August that there had been no thought of any change in the Government.[51] This assertion seems to belie Pitt's reputation for truthfulness. But it is noteworthy that Grenville scarcely refers to the discussions on this subject, deeply though it concerned him. Further, Rose, who was in close touch with Ministers, wrote to Auckland on 13th July that he had heard only through the newspapers of the "negotiations for a sort of Coalition," and that he knew there had been none; that Dundas had conferred with Loughborough, but there had been no negotiation.[52]
Now the proneness of these two men to scheming and intrigue is well known; and it seems probable that they so skilfully pulled the wires at Burlington House as to quicken the appetites of the Whig leaders. Dundas may have acted with a view to breaking up the Whig party, and Loughborough in order to bring about a general shuffle of the cards favourable to himself. Malmesbury and others, whose desires or interests lay in a union of the Portland Whigs with Pitt, furthered the scheme, and gave full credence to Loughborough's reports. But we may doubt whether Pitt took the affair seriously after the crushing declaration of the King: "Anything complimentary to them, but no power." The last blow to the scheme was dealt by Pitt in an interview with Loughborough, so we may infer from the following letter from George III to the former:
Weymouth, August 20, 1792.[53]
I cannot but think Mr. Pitt has judged right in seeing Lord Loughborough, as that will convince him, however [whoever?] were parties to the proposal brought by the Duke of Leeds, that the scheme can never succeed: that the Duke of Portland was equally concerned with the former appeared clearly from his letters. …
The King, then, looked on the whole affair as a Whig plot; and Pitt, whatever his feelings were at first, finally frowned upon the proposal. Doubtless, in an official sense, there was justification for his remark to the Duke of Leeds, that the coalition had never been in contemplation; for the matter seems never to have come before the Cabinet. But as a statement between man and man it leaves something to be desired on the score of accuracy. Annoyance at the very exalted position marked out for the Duke, whose capacity Pitt rated decidedly low, may have led him to belittle the whole affair; for signs of constraint and annoyance are obvious in his other answers to his late colleague. There, then, we must leave this question, involved in something of mystery.[54] We shall not be far wrong in concluding that Pitt wished for the formation of a national Ministry, and that the plan failed, partly from the resolve of Fox never to play second to Pitt; and still more from the personal way in which the King regarded the suggestion.
The King meanwhile had marked his sense of the value of Pitt's services by pressing on him the honourable position of Warden of the Cinque Ports, with a stipend of £3,000 a year, intimating at the same time that he would not hear of his declining it (6th August).[55] It is a proof of the spotless purity of Pitt's reputation that not a single libel or gibe appeared in the Press on his acceptance of this almost honorary post.[56]
One brilliant recruit to the Whig ranks was now won over to the national cause, of which Pitt was seen to be the incarnation. Already at Eton and Oxford George Canning had shown the versatility of his genius and the precocious maturity of his eloquence. When his Oxford friend, Jenkinson (the future Earl of Liverpool) made a sensational début in the House on the Tory side, Sheridan remarked that the Whigs would soon provide an antidote in the person of young Canning. Great, then, was their annoyance when the prodigy showed signs of breaking away from the society of the Crewes and Sheridan, in order to ally himself with Pitt. So little is known respecting the youth of Canning that the motives which prompted his breach with Sheridan are involved in uncertainty. It is clear, however, from his own confession that, after some discussion with Orde, he himself made the first offer of allegiance to Pitt in a letter of 26th July 1792. He then informed the Prime Minister that, though on terms of friendship with eminent members of the Opposition, he was "in no way bound to them by any personal or political obligation," and was therefore entirely free to choose his own party; that he was ambitious of being connected with Pitt, but lacked the means to win an election, and yet refused to be brought in by any individual—a reference, seemingly, to an offer made to him by the Duke of Portland. In reply, Pitt proposed an interview at Downing Street on Wednesday, 15th August.[57]
At noon on that day the two men first met. We can picture them as they faced one another in the formal surroundings of the Prime Minister's study. Pitt, at this time thirty-three years of age, had lost some of the slimness of youth, but his figure was bony, angular, and somewhat awkward. His face was as yet scarcely marked by the slight Bacchic blotches which told of carouses with Dundas at Wimbledon. Months and years of triumph (apart from the Russian defeat) had stiffened his confidence and pride; but the fateful shadow of the French Revolution must have struck a chill to his being, especially then, on the arrival of news of the pitiable surrender of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, and the shooting down of the Swiss Guards at the Tuileries. No royalist could look on the future without inward shuddering; and both these men were ardent royalists. We know from Canning's confession that it was the starting of the club, the Friends