The Critical Period of American History. Fiske John
in the war, she had the satisfaction of detaching the American colonies from England, thus inflicting a blow which it was confidently hoped would prove fatal to the maritime power of her ancient rival; but beyond this short-lived satisfaction, the fallaciousness of which events were soon to show, she obtained very little. On the 20th of January, 1783, the preliminaries of peace were signed between England, on the one hand, and France and Spain, on the other. A truce was at the same time concluded with Holland, which was soon followed by a peace, in which most of the conquests on either side were restored.
Coalition of Fox with North.
A second English ministry was now about to be wrecked on the rock of this group of treaties. Lord Shelburne's government had at no time been a strong one. He had made many enemies by his liberal and reforming measures, and he had alienated most of his colleagues by his reserved demeanour and seeming want of confidence in them. In December several of the ministers resigned. The strength of parties in the House of Commons was thus quaintly reckoned by Gibbon: "Minister 140; Reynard 90; Boreas 120; the rest unknown or uncertain." But "Reynard" and "Boreas" were now about to join forces in one of the strangest coalitions ever known in the history of politics. No statesman ever attacked another more ferociously than Fox had attacked North during the past ten years. He had showered abuse upon him; accused him of "treachery and falsehood," of "public perfidy," and "breach of a solemn specific promise;" and had even gone so far as to declare to his face a hope that he would be called upon to expiate his abominable crimes upon the scaffold. Within a twelvemonth he had thus spoken of Lord North and his colleagues: "From the moment when I shall make any terms with one of them, I will rest satisfied to be called the most infamous of mankind. I would not for an instant think of a coalition with men who, in every public and private transaction as ministers, have shown themselves void of every principle of honour and honesty. In the hands of such men I would not trust my honour even for a moment." Still more recently, when at a loss for words strong enough to express his belief in the wickedness of Shelburne, he declared that he had no better opinion of that man than to deem him capable of forming an alliance with North. We may judge, then, of the general amazement when, in the middle of February, it turned out that Fox had himself done this very thing. An "ill-omened marriage," William Pitt called it in the House of Commons. "If this ill-omened marriage is not already solemnized, I know a just and lawful impediment, and in the name of the public safety I here forbid the banns." Throughout the country the indignation was great. Many people had blamed Fox for not following up his charges by actually bringing articles of impeachment against Lord North. That the two enemies should thus suddenly become leagued in friendship seemed utterly monstrous. It injured Fox extremely in the opinion of the country, and it injured North still more, for it seemed like a betrayal of the king on his part, and his forgiveness of so many insults looked mean-spirited. It does not appear, however, that there was really any strong personal animosity between North and Fox. They were both men of very amiable character, and almost incapable of cherishing resentment. The language of parliamentary orators was habitually violent, and the huge quantities of wine which gentlemen in those days used to drink may have helped to make it extravagant. The excessive vehemence of political invective often deprived it of half its effect. One day, after Fox had exhausted his vocabulary of abuse upon Lord George Germaine, Lord North said to him, "You were in very high feather to-day, Charles, and I am glad you did not fall upon me." On another occasion, it is said that while Fox was thundering against North's unexampled turpitude, the object of his furious tirade cosily dropped off to sleep. Gibbon, who was the friend of both statesmen, expressly declares that they bore each other no ill will. But while thus alike indisposed to harbour bitter thoughts, there was one man for whom both Fox and North felt an abiding distrust and dislike; and that man was Lord Shelburne, the prime minister.
As a political pupil of Burke, Fox shared that statesman's distrust of the whole school of Lord Chatham, to which Shelburne belonged. In many respects these statesmen were far more advanced than Burke, but they did not sufficiently realize the importance of checking the crown by means of a united and powerful ministry. Fox thoroughly understood that much of the mischief of the past twenty years, including the loss of America, had come from the system of weak and divided ministries, which gave the king such great opportunity for wreaking his evil will. He had himself been a member of such a ministry, which had fallen seven months ago. When the king singled out Shelburne for his confidence, Fox naturally concluded that Shelburne was to be made to play the royal game, as North had been made to play it for so many years. This was very unjust to Shelburne, but there is no doubt that Fox was perfectly honest in his belief. It seemed to him that the present state of things must be brought to an end, at whatever cost. A ministry strong enough to curb the king could be formed only by a coalescence of two out of the three existing parties. A coalescence of Old and New Whigs had been tried last spring, and failed. It only remained now to try the effect of a coalescence of Old Whigs and Tories.
Such was doubtless the chief motive of Fox in this extraordinary move. The conduct of North seems harder to explain, but it was probably due to a reaction of feeling on his part. He had done violence to his own convictions out of weak compassion for George III., and had carried on the American war for four years after he had been thoroughly convinced that peace ought to be made. Remorse for this is said to have haunted him to the end of his life. When in his old age he became blind, he bore this misfortune with his customary lightness of heart; and one day, meeting the veteran Barré, who had also lost his eyesight, he exclaimed, with his unfailing wit, "Well, colonel, in spite of all our differences, I suppose there are no two men in England who would be gladder to see each other than you and I." But while Lord North could jest about his blindness, the memory of his ill-judged subservience to the king was something that he could not laugh away, and among his nearest friends he was sometimes heard to reproach himself bitterly. When, therefore, in 1783, he told Fox that he fully agreed with him in thinking that the royal power ought to be curbed, he was doubtless speaking the truth. No man had a better right to such an opinion than he had gained through sore experience. In his own ministry, as he said to Fox, he took the system as he found it, and had not vigour and resolution enough to put an end to it; but he was now quite convinced that in such a country as England, while the king should be treated with all outward show of respect, he ought on no account to be allowed to exercise any real power.
Now this was in 1783 the paramount political question in England, just as much as the question of secession was paramount in the United States in 1861. Other questions could be postponed; the question of curbing the king could not. Upon this all-important point North had come to agree with Fox; and as the principal motive of their coalition may be thus explained, the historian is not called upon to lay too much stress upon the lower motives assigned in profusion by their political enemies. This explanation, however, does not quite cover the case. The mass of the Tories would never follow North in an avowed attempt to curb the king, but they agreed with the followers of Fox, though not with Fox himself, in holy horror of parliamentary reform, and were alarmed by a recent declaration of Shelburne that the suffrage must be extended so as to admit a hundred new county members. Thus while the two leaders were urged to coalescence by one motive, their followers were largely swayed by another, and this added much to the mystery and general unintelligibleness of the movement. In taking this step Fox made the mistake which was characteristic of the Old Whig party. He gave too little heed to the great public outside the walls of the House of Commons. The coalition, once made, was very strong in Parliament, but it mystified and scandalized the people, and this popular disapproval by and by made it easy for the king to overthrow it.
Fall of Shelburne's ministry.
It was agreed to choose the treaty as the occasion for the combined attack upon the Shelburne ministry. North, as the minister who had conducted the unsuccessful war, was bound to oppose the treaty, in any case. It would not do for him to admit that better terms could not have been made. The treaty was also very unpopular with Fox's party, and with the nation at large. It was thought that too much territory had been conceded to the Americans, and fault was found with the article on the fisheries. But the point which excited most indignation was the virtual abandonment of the loyalists, for here the honour of England was felt to be at stake. On this ground the treaty was emphatically condemned by Burke, Sheridan, and Wilberforce, no less than by North. It was