Thus, one star, and that the brightest ornament of our orrery, having been suffered to be lost, those who were accustomed to inspect and watch our political heaven ought not to wonder that it should be followed by the loss of another.--
So star would follow star, and light light, Till all was darkness and eternal night."]
Even on the subject of the American war, which was now the important point that called forth all the resources of attack and defence on both sides, the co-operation of Mr. Sheridan appears to have been but rare and casual. The only occasions, indeed, connected with this topic upon which I can trace him as having spoken at any length, were the charges brought forward by Mr. Fox against the Admiralty for their mismanagement of the naval affairs of 1781, and the Resolution of censure on His Majesty"s Ministers moved by Lord John Cavendish. His remarks in the latter debate upon the two different sets of opinions, by which (as by the double soul, imagined in Xenophon) the speaking and the voting of Mr. Rigby were actuated, are very happy:--
"The Right Hon. Gentleman, however, had acted in this day"s debate with perfect consistency. He had a.s.sured the House that he thought the n.o.ble Lord ought to resign his office; and yet he would give his vote for his remaining in it. In the same manner he had long declared, that he thought the American war ought to be abandoned; yet had uniformly given his vote for its continuance. He did not mean, however, to insinuate any motives for such conduct;--he believed the Right Hon. Gentleman to have been sincere; he believed that, as a member of Parliament, as a Privy Councillor, as a private gentleman, he had always detested the American war as much as any man; but that he had never been able to persuade the Paymaster that it was a bad war; and unfortunately, in whatever character he spoke, it was the Paymaster who always voted in that House."
The infrequency of Mr. Sheridan"s exertions upon the American question combines with other circ.u.mstances to throw some doubts upon an anecdote, which has been, however, communicated to me as coming from an authority worthy in every respect of the most implicit belief. He is said to have received, towards the close of this war, a letter from one of the leading persons of the American Government, expressing high admiration of his talents and political principles, and informing him that the sum of twenty thousand pounds had been deposited for him in the hands of a certain banker, as a mark of the value which the American people attached to his services in the cause of liberty. To this Mr. S.
returned an answer (which, as well as the letter, was seen, it is said, by the person with whom the anecdote originated) full of the most respectful grat.i.tude for the opinion entertained of his services, but begging leave to decline a gift under such circ.u.mstances. That this would have been the nature of his answer, had any such proposal occurred, the generally high tone of his political conduct forbids us to feel any doubt,--but, with respect to the credibility of the transaction altogether, it is far less easy to believe that the Americans had so much money to give, than that Mr. Sheridan should have been sufficiently high-minded to refuse it.
Not only were the occasions very few and select, on which he offered himself to the attention of the House at this period, but, whenever he did speak, it was concisely and unpretendingly, with the manner of a person who came to learn a new road to fame,--not of one who laid claim to notice upon the credit of the glory he brought with him. Mr. Fox used to say that he considered his conduct in this respect as a most striking proof of his sagacity and good taste;--such rare and una.s.suming displays of his talents being the only effectual mode he could have adopted, to win on the attention of his audience, and gradually establish himself in their favor. He had, indeed, many difficulties and disadvantages to encounter, of which his own previous reputation was not the least. Not only did he risk a perilous comparison between his powers, as a speaker and his fame as a writer, but he had also to contend with that feeling of monopoly, which pervades the more worldly cla.s.ses of talent, and which would lead politicians to regard as an intruder upon their craft, a man of genius thus aspiring to a station among them, without the usual qualifications of either birth or apprenticeship to ent.i.tle him to it.
[Footnote: There is an anecdote strongly ill.u.s.trative of this observation, quoted by Lord John Russell in his able and lively work "On the Affairs of Europe from the Peace of Utrecht."--Mr. Steele (in alluding to Sir Thomas Hanmer"s opposition to the Commercial Treaty in 1714) said, "I rise to do him honor"--on which many members who had before tried to interrupt him, called out, "Taller, Taller;" and as he went down the House, several said, "It is not so easy a thing to speak in the House:" "He fancies because he can scribble," &c. &c.,--Slight circ.u.mstances, indeed, (adds Lord John,) but which show at once the indisposition of the House to the Whig party, and the natural envy of mankind, long ago remarked by Cicero, towards all who attempt to gain more than one kind of pre-eminence.] In an a.s.sembly, too, whose deference for rank and property is such as to render it lucky that these instruments of influence are so often united with honesty and talent, the son of an actor and proprietor of a theatre had, it must be owned, most fearful odds against him, in entering into compet.i.tion with the sons of Lord Holland and Lord Chatham.
With the same discretion that led him to obtrude himself but seldom on the House, he never spoke at this period but after careful and even verbal preparation. Like most of our great orators at the commencement of their careers, he was in the habit of writing out his speeches before he delivered them; and, though subsequently he scribbled these preparatory sketches upon detached sheets, I find that he began by using for this purpose the same sort of copy books, which he had employed in the first rough draughts of his plays.
However ill the affairs of the country were managed by Lord North, in the management of Parliament few ministers have been more smoothly dexterous; and through the whole course of those infatuated measures, which are now delivered over, without appeal, to the condemnation of History, he was cheered along by as full and triumphant majorities, as ever followed in the wake of ministerial power. At length, however, the spirit of the people, that last and only resource against the venality of parliaments and the obstinacy of kings, was roused from its long and dangerous sleep by the unparalleled exertions of the Opposition leaders, and spoke out with a voice, always awfully intelligible, against the men and the measures that had brought England to the brink of ruin. The effect of this popular feeling soon showed itself in the upper regions.
The country-gentlemen, those birds of political omen, whose migrations are so portentous of a change of weather, began to flock in numbers to the brightening quarter of Opposition; and at last, Lord North, after one or two signal defeats (in spite even of which the Court for some time clung to him, as the only hope of its baffled, but persevering revenge), resigned the seals of office in the month of March, 1782, and an entirely new administration was formed under the promising auspices of the Marquis of Rockingham.
Mr. Sheridan, as might be expected, shared in the triumph of his party, by being appointed one of the Under Secretaries of State; and, no doubt, looked forward to a long and improving tenure of that footing in office which his talents had thus early procured for him. But, however prosperous on the surface the complexion of the ministry might be, its intestine state was such as did not promise a very long existence.
Whiggism is a sort of political Protestantism, and pays a similar tax for the freedom of its creed, in the multiplicity of opinions which that very freedom engenders--while true Toryism, like Popery, holding her children together by the one common doctrine of the infallibility of the Throne, takes care to repress any schism inconvenient to their general interest, and keeps them, at least for all intents and purposes of place-holding, unanimous.
Between the two branches of Opposition that composed the present administration there were some very important, if not essential, differences of opinion. Lord Shelburne, the pupil and friend of Lord Chatham, held the same high but unwise opinions, with respect to the recognition of American independence, which "the swan-like end" of that great man has consecrated in our imagination, however much our reason may condemn them. "Whenever" said Lord Shelburne, "the Parliament of Great Britain shall acknowledge the independence of America, from that moment the sun of England is set for ever." With regard to the affairs of India, too, and the punishment of those who were accused of mismanaging them, the views of the n.o.ble Lord wholly differed from those of Mr. Fox and his followers--as appeared from the decided part in favor of Mr. Hastings, which he took in the subsequent measure of the Impeachment. In addition to these fertile seeds of disunion, the retention in the cabinet of a person like Lord Thurlow, whose views of the Const.i.tution were all through the wrong end of the telescope, and who did not even affect to conceal his hostility to the principles of his colleagues, seemed such a provision, at starting, for the embarra.s.sment of the Ministry, as gave but very little hope of its union or stability.
The only Speech, of which any record remains as having been delivered by Mr. Sheridan during his short official career, was upon a motion made by Mr. Eden, the late Secretary for Ireland, "to repeal so much of the act of George I. as a.s.serted a right in the King and Parliament of Great Britain to make laws to bind the Kingdom of Ireland." This motion was intended to perplex the new ministers, who, it was evident from the speech of Mr. Fox on the subject, had not yet made up their minds to that surrender of the Legislative Supremacy of Great Britain, which Ireland now, with arms in her hands, demanded. [Footnote: Mr. Fox, in his speech upon the Commercial Propositions of 1785, acknowledged the reluctance that was felt at this period, in surrendering the power of external or commercial legislation over Ireland:--"a power," he said, "which, in their struggles for independence, the Irish had imprudently insisted on having abolished, and which he had himself given up in compliance with the strong prejudices of that nation, though with a reluctance that nothing but irresistible necessity could overcome."] Mr.
Sheridan concurred with the Honorable Secretary in deprecating such a hasty and insidious agitation of the question, but at the same time expressed in a much more unhesitating manner, his opinion of that Law of Subjection from which Ireland now rose to release herself:--
"If he declared himself (he said) so decided an enemy to the principle of the Declaratory Law in question, which he had always regarded as a tyrannous usurpation in this country, he yet could not but reprobate the motives which influenced the present mover for its repeal--but, if the house divided on it, he should vote with him."
The general sense of the House being against the motion, it was withdrawn. But the spirit of the Irish nation had advanced too far on its march to be called back even by the most friendly voice. All that now remained for the ministers was to yield, with a confiding frankness, what the rash measures of their predecessors and the weakness of England had put it out of their power with safety to refuse. This policy, so congenial to the disposition of Mr. Fox, was adopted. His momentary hesitation was succeeded by such a prompt and generous acquiescence in the full demands of the Irish Parliament, as gave all the grace of a favor to what necessity would, at all events, have extorted--and, in the spirited a.s.sertion of the rights of freemen on one side, and the cordial and entire recognition of them on the other, the names of Grattan and Fox, in that memorable moment, reflected a l.u.s.tre on each other which a.s.sociates them in its glory for ever.
Another occasion upon which Mr. Sheridan spoke while in office,--though no report of his Speech has been preserved--was a motion for a Committee to examine into the State of the Representation, brought forward by the youthful reformer, Mr. William Pitt, whose zeal in the cause of freedom was at that time, perhaps, sincere, and who little dreamed of the war he was destined to wage with it afterwards. Mr. Fox and Mr. Sheridan spoke strongly in favor of the motion, while, in compliance with the request of the former, Mr. Burke absented himself from the discussion--giving the cause of Reform, for once, a respite from the thunders of his eloquence, like the sleep of Jove, in Homer, which leaves the Greeks for the moment masters of the field.
[Greek]_Sphin chndos opaze, minuntha per, ophr"eati endei Zeus.
[Footnote: "And, while the moment lasts of Jove"s repose, Make victory theirs." COWPER.]
Notwithstanding all this, however, the question was lost by a majority of 161 to 141.
Immediately on his accession to office, Mr. Sheridan received the following letter from his brother Charles Francis, who had been called to the Irish bar in 1778 or 9, but was at this time practising as a Special Pleader:--
"Dublin, March 27, 1782.
"DEAR d.i.c.k,
"I am much obliged to you for your early intelligence concerning the fate of the Ministry, and give you joy on the occasion, notwithstanding your sorrow for the departure of the good Opposition. I understand very well what you mean by this sorrow--but as you may be now in a situation in which you may obtain some substantial advantage for yourself, for G.o.d"s sake improve the opportunity to the utmost, and don"t let dreams of empty fame (of which you have had enough in conscience) carry you away from your solid interests.
"I return you many thanks for Fox"s letter. I mean for your intention to make him write one--for as your good intentions always satisfy your conscience, and that you seem to think the carrying them into execution to be a mere trifling ceremony, as well omitted as not, your friends must always take the _will_ for the _deed_. I will forgive you, however, on condition that you will for once in your life consider that though the _will_ alone may perfectly satisfy yourself, your friends would be a little more, gratified if they were sometimes to see it accompanied by the deed--and let me be the first upon whom you try the experiment If the people here are not to share the fate of their patrons, but are suffered to continue in the government of this country, I believe you will have it in your power, as I am certain it will be in your inclination, to fortify my claims upon them by recommendations from your side of the water, in such a manner as to insure to me what I have a right to expect from them, but of which I can have no certainty without that a.s.sistance. I wish the present people may continue here, because I certainly have claims upon them, and considering the footing that Lord C--- and Charles Fox are on, a recommendation from the latter would now have every weight,--it would be drawing a bill upon Government here, payable at sight, which they dare not protest. So, dear d.i.c.k, I shall rely upon you that will _really_ be done: and, to confess the truth, unless it be done, and that speedily, I shall be completely ruined, for this d.a.m.ned annuity, payable to my uncle, plays the devil with me. If there is any intention of recalling the people here, I beg you will let me know it as soon as possible, that I may take my measures accordingly,--and I think I may rely upon you also that whoever comes over here as Lord L----t, I shall not be forgot among the number of those who shall be recommended to them.
"As to our politics here, I send you a newspaper,--read the resolutions of the volunteers, and you will be enabled to form some idea of the spirit which at present pervades this country. A declaration of the independency of our Parliament upon yours will _certainly_ pa.s.s our House of Commons immediately after the recess; government here dare not, cannot oppose it; you will see the volunteers have pledged their lives and fortunes in support of the measure. The grand juries of every county have followed their example, and some of the staunchest friends of government have been, much against their inclinations, compelled to sign the most spirited Resolutions.
"A call of the House is ordered for the first Tuesday after the recess, and circular letters from the Speaker worded in this remarkable manner, "that the members do attend on that day as _they tender the rights of Ireland_." In short, nothing will satisfy the people but the most unequivocal a.s.sertion of the total independence of the Irish legislature. This flame has been raised within this six weeks, and is entirely owing either to the insidious design or unpardonable inattention of the late administration, in including, or suffering to be included, the name of Ireland in no less than five British statutes pa.s.sed last sessions. People here were ignorant of this till Grattan produced the five Acts to the House of Commons, one of which Eden had been so imprudent as to publish in the Dublin gazette. Previous to this the general sense of the country was, that the mere question of right should be suffered to sleep, provided the _exercise_ of the power claimed under it should never again be resorted to in a single instance.
"The sooner you repeal the 6th of G. I. the better; for, believe me, nothing short of that can now preserve union and cordiality between the two countries.
"I hope my father and you are very good friends by this. I shall not be able to send you the remaining 50_l_. till October, as I have been disappointed as to the time of payment of the money I expected to receive this month. Let me entreat you to write to me shortly a few words. I beg my love to Mrs. S. and Tom.
"I am, dear d.i.c.k,
"Your very affectionate brother,
"C. F. SHERIDAN."
The expectations of the writer of this letter were not disappointed. The influence of Mr. Sheridan, added to his own claims, procured for him the office of Secretary of War in Ireland,--a situation, which the greater pliancy of his political principles contrived to render a more permanent benefit to him than any that his Whig brother was ever able to secure for himself.
The death of the Marquis of Rockingham broke up this shortlived Ministry, which, during the four months of its existence, did more perhaps for the principles of the Const.i.tution, than any one administration that England had seen since the Revolution. They were betrayed, it is true, into a few awkward overflowings of loyalty, which the rare access of Whigs to the throne may at once account for and excuse:--and Burke, in particular, has left us a specimen of his taste for extremes, in that burst of optimism with which he described the King"s message, as "the best of messages to the best of people from the best of kings." But these first effects of the atmosphere of a court, upon heads unaccustomed to it, are natural and harmless--while the measures that pa.s.sed during that brief interval, directed against the sources of Parliamentary corruption, and confirmatory of the best principles of the Const.i.tution, must ever be remembered to the honor of the party from which they emanated. The exclusion of contractors from the House of Commons--the disqualification of revenue-officers from voting at elections--the disfranchis.e.m.e.nt of corrupt voters at Cricklade, by which a second precedent [Footnote: The first was that of the borough of Sh.o.r.eham in 1771.] was furnished towards that plan of gradual Reform, which has, in our own time, been so forcibly recommended by Lord John Russell--the diminution of the patronage of the Crown, by Mr. Burke"s celebrated Bill [Footnote: This Bill, though its circle of retrenchment was, as might be expected, considerably narrowed, when the Treasury Bench became the centre from which he described it, was yet eminently useful, as an acknowledgment from ministerial authority of the necessity of such occasional curtailments of the Royal influence.]--the return to the old const.i.tutional practice [Footnote: First departed from in 1769. See Burke"s powerful exposure of the mischiefs of this innovation, in his "Thoughts on the Causes of the present Discontents."]
of making the revenues of the Crown pay off their own inc.u.mbrances, which salutary principle was again lost in the hands of Mr. Pitt--the atonement at last made to the violated rights of electors, by the rescinding of the Resolutions relative to Wilkes--the frank and cordial understanding entered into with Ireland, which identifies the memory of Mr. Fox and this ministry with the only _oasis_ in the whole desert of Irish history--so many and such important recognitions of the best principles of Whiggism, followed up, as they were, by the Resolutions of Lord John Cavendish at the close of the Session, pledging the ministers to a perseverance in the same task of purification and retrenchment, give an aspect to this short period of the annals of the late reign, to which the eye turns for relief from the arbitrary complexion of the rest; and furnish us with, at least, _one_ consoling instance, where the principles professed by statesmen, when in opposition, were retained and sincerely acted upon by them in power.
On the death of the Marquis of Rockingham, Lord Shelburne, without, as it appears, consulting any of the persons attached to that n.o.bleman, accepted the office of first Lord of the Treasury; in consequence of which Mr. Fox, and the greater number of his friends--among whom were Mr. Burke and Mr. Sheridan--sent in their resignations; while General Conway, the Duke of Richmond, and one or two other old allies of the party, remained in office.
To a disposition so social as that of Mr. Fox, the frequent interruption and even loss of friendships, which he had to sustain in the course of his political career, must have been a sad alloy to its pleasure and its pride. The fable of the sheep that leaves its fleece on the bramble bush is but too apt an ill.u.s.tration of the fate of him, who thus sees himself stripped of the comforts of friendship by the tenacious and th.o.r.n.y hold of politics. On the present occasion, however, the desertion of his standard by a few who had followed him cordially in his ascent to power, but did not show the same alacrity in accompanying his voluntary fall, was amply made up to him by the ready devotion, with which the rest of the party shared his fortunes. The disinterestedness of Sheridan was the more meritorious, if, as there is every reason to believe, he considered the step of resignation at such a moment to be, at least, hasty, if not wholly wrong. In this light it was, indeed, viewed by many judicious persons at the time, and the a.s.surances given by the Duke of Richmond and General Conway, of the continued adherence of the cabinet to the same principles and measures, to which they were pledged at the first formation of the ministry, would seem to confirm the justice of the opinion. So much temper, however, had, during the few months of their union, been fermenting between the two great ma.s.ses of which the administration was composed, that it would have been difficult, if not impossible, for the Rockingham party to rally, with any cordiality, round Lord Shelburne, as a leader--however they might still have been contented to co-operate with him, had he remained in the humble station which he himself had originally selected. That n.o.ble Lord, too, who felt that the sacrifice which he had considerately made, in giving up the supremacy of station to Lord Rockingham, had, so far from being duly appreciated by his colleagues, been repaid only with increased alienation and distrust, could hardly be expected to make a second surrender of his advantages, in favor of persons who had, he thought, so ungraciously requited him for the first. In the mean time the Court, to which the Rockingham party was odious, had, with its usual policy, hollowed the ground beneath them, so as to render their footing neither agreeable nor safe. The favorite object in that quarter being to compose a ministry of those convenient ingredients, called "King"s friends,"
Lord Shelburne was but made use of as a temporary instrument, to clear away, in the first plane, the chief obstacles to such an arrangement, and then, in his turn, be sacrificed himself, as soon as a more subservient system could be organized. It was, indeed, only upon a strong representation from his Lordship of the impossibility of carrying on his government against such an Opposition, without the infusion of fresh and popular talent, that the royal consent was obtained to the appointment of Mr. Pitt--the memory of whose uncompromising father, as well as the first achievements on his own youthful shield, rendered him no very promising accession to such a scheme of government, as was evidently then contemplated by the Court.
In this state of affairs, the resignation of Mr. Fox and his friends was but a prompt and spirited antic.i.p.ation of what must inevitably have taken place, under circ.u.mstances much less redounding to the credit of their independence and disinterestedness. There is little doubt, indeed, that with the great majority of the nation, Mr. Fox by this step considerably added to his popularity--and, if we were desired to point out the meridian moment of his fame, we should fix it perhaps at this splendid epoch, before the ill-fated Coalition had damped the confidence of his friends, or the ascendancy of his great rival had multiplied the number of his enemies.
There is an anecdote of Mr. Burke, connected with this period, the credibility of which must be left to the reader"s own judgment. It is said that, immediately upon the retirement of Mr. Fox, while Lord John Cavendish (whose resignation was for a short time delayed by the despatch of some official business) was still a minister, Mr. Burke, with a retrospect to the sweets of office which showed that he had not wholly left hope behind, endeavored to open a negotiation through the medium of Lord John, for the purpose of procuring, by some arrangement, either for himself or his son, a Tellership then in the possession of a relative of Lord Orford. It is but fair to add that this curious anecdote rests chiefly upon the authority of the latter n.o.bleman.
[Footnote: Unpublished Papers.] The degree of faith it receives will, therefore, depend upon the balance that may be struck in our comparative estimate between the disinterestedness of Burke and the veracity of Lord Orford.
At the commencement of the following session that extraordinary Coalition was declared, which had the ill-luck attributed to the conjunction of certain planets, and has shed an unfavorable influence over the political world ever since. Little is, I believe, known of the private negotiations that led to this ill-a.s.sorted union of parties; but, from whichever side the first advances may have come, the affair seems to have been dispatched with the rapidity of a Siamese courtship; and while to Mr. Eden (afterwards Lord Auckland) is attributed the credit of having gained Lord North"s consent to the union, Mr. Burke is generally supposed to have been the person, who sung the "Hymen, oh Hymenae" in the ears of Mr. Fox.
With that sagacity, which in general directed his political views, Mr.
Sheridan foresaw all the consequences of such a defiance of public opinion, and exerted, it is said, the whole power of his persuasion and reasoning, to turn aside his sanguine and uncalculating friend from a measure so likely to embarra.s.s his future career. Unfortunately, however, the advice was not taken,--and a person, who witnessed the close of a conversation, in which Sheridan had been making a last effort to convince Mr. Fox of the imprudence of the step he was about to take, heard the latter, at parting, express his final resolution in the following decisive words:--"It is as fixed as the Hanover succession."
To the general principle of Coalitions, and the expediency and even duty of forming them, in conjunctures that require and justify such a sacrifice of the distinctions of party, no objection, it appears to me, can rationally be made by those who are satisfied with the manner in which the Const.i.tution has worked, since the new modification of its machinery introduced at the Revolution. The Revolution itself was, indeed, brought about by a Coalition, in which Tories, surrendering their doctrines of submission, arrayed themselves by the side of Whigs, in defence of their common liberties. Another Coalition, less important in its object and effects, but still attended with results most glorious to the country, was that which took place in the year 1757, when, by a union of parties from whose dissension much mischief had flowed, the interests of both king and people were reconciled, and the good genius of England triumphed at home and abroad.
On occasions like these, when the public liberty or safety is in peril, it is the duty of every honest statesman to say, with the Roman, "_Non me impedient privatae offensiones, quo minus pro reipublicae salute etian c.u.m inimicissimo consentiam._" Such cases, however, but rarely occur; and they have been in this respect, among others, distinguished from the ordinary occasions, on which the ambition or selfishness of politicians resorts to such unions, that the voice of the people has called aloud for them in the name of the public weal; and that the cause round which they have rallied has been sufficiently general, to merge all party t.i.tles in the one undistinguishing name of Englishman. By neither of these tests can the junction between Lord North and Mr. Fox be justified. The people at large, so far from calling for this ill- omened alliance, would on the contrary--to use the language of Mr. Pitt --have "forbid the banns;" and though it is unfair to suppose that the interests of the public did not enter into the calculations of the united leaders, yet, if the real watchword of their union were to be demanded of them in "the Palace of Truth," there can be little doubt that the answer of each would be, distinctly and unhesitatingly, "Ambition."
One of the most specious allegations in defence of the measure is, that the extraordinary favor which Lord Shelburne enjoyed at court, and the arbitrary tendencies known to prevail in that quarter, portended just then such an overflow of Royal influence, as it was necessary to counteract by this double embankment of party. In the first place, however, it is by no means so certain that the n.o.ble minister at this period did actually enjoy such favor. On the contrary, there is every reason to believe that his possession of the Royal confidence did not long survive that important service, to which he was made instrumental, of clearing the cabinet of the Whigs; and that, like the bees of Virgil, he had left the soul of his own power in the wound which he had been the means of inflicting upon that of others. In the second place, whatever might have been the designs of the Court,--and of its encroaching spirit no doubt can be entertained,--Lord Shelburne had a.s.suredly given no grounds for apprehending, that he would ever, like one of the chiefs of this combination against him, be brought to lend himself precipitately or mischievously to its views. Though differing from Mr. Fox on some important points of policy, and following the example of his friend, Lord Chatham, in keeping himself independent of Whig confederacies, he was not the less attached to the true principles of that party, and, throughout his whole political career, invariably maintained them. This argument, therefore,--the only plausible one in defence of the Coalition,--fails in the two chief a.s.sumptions on which it is founded.
It has been truly said of Coalitions, considered abstractedly, that such a union of parties, when the public good requires it, is to be justified on the same grounds on which party itself is vindicated. But the more we feel inclined to acknowledge the utility of party, the more we must dread and deprecate any unnecessary compromise, by which a suspicion of unsoundness may be brought upon the agency of so useful a principle--the more we should discourage, as a matter of policy, any facility in surrendering those badges of opinion, on which the eyes of followers are fondly fixed, and by which their confidence and spirit are chiefly kept alive--the more, too, we must lament that a great popular leader, like Mr. Fox, should ever have lightly concurred in such a confusion of the boundaries of opinion, and, like that mighty river, the Mississippi, whose waters lose their own color in mixing with those of the Missouri, have sacrificed the distinctive hue of his own political creed, to this confluence of interests with a party so totally opposed to it.
"Court and country," says Hume, [Footnote: Essay "on the Parties of Great Britain."] "which are the genuine offspring of the British government, are a kind of mixed parties, and are influenced both by principle and by interest. The heads of the factions are commonly most governed by the latter motive; the inferior members of them by the former." Whether this be altogether true or not, it will, at least, without much difficulty be conceded, that the lower we descend in the atmosphere of party, the more quick and inflammable we find the feeling that circulates through it. Accordingly, actions and professions, which, in that region of indifference, high life, may be forgotten as soon as done or uttered, become recorded as pledges and standards of conduct, among the lower and more earnest adherents of the cause; and many a question, that has ceased to furnish even a jest in the drawing-rooms of the great, may be still agitated, as of vital importance, among the humbler and less initiated disputants of the party. Such being the tenacious nature of partisanship, and such the watch kept upon every movement of the higher political bodies, we can well imagine what a portent it must appear to distant and unprepared observers, when the stars to which they trusted for guidance are seen to "shoot madly from their spheres," and not only lose themselves for the time in another system, but unsettle all calculations with respect to their movements for the future.
The steps by which, in general, the principles in such transactions are gradually reconciled to their own inconsistency--the negotiations that precede and soften down the most salient difficulties--the value of the advantages gained, in return for opinions sacrificed--the new points of contact brought out by a change of circ.u.mstances, and the abatement or extinction of former differences, by the remission or removal of the causes that provoked them,--all these conciliatory gradations and balancing adjustments, which to those who are in the secret may account for, and more or less justify, the alliance of statesmen who differ in their general views of politics, are with difficulty, if at all, to be explained to the remote mult.i.tude of the party, whose habit it is to judge and feel in the gross, and who, as in the case of Lord North and Mr. Fox, can see only the broad and but too intelligible fact, that the leaders for whom both parties had sacrificed so much--those on one side their interest, and those on the other, perhaps, their consciences--had deserted them to patch up a suspicious alliance with each other, the only open and visible motive to which was the spoil that it enabled them to part.i.tion between them.
If, indeed, in that barter of opinions and interests, which must necessarily take place in Coalitions between the partisans of the People and of the Throne, the former had any thing like an equality of chance, the mere probability of gaining thus any concessions in favor of freedom might justify to sanguine minds the occasional risk of the compromise.
But it is evident that the result of such bargains must generally be to the advantage of the Crown--the alluvions of power all naturally tend towards that sh.o.r.e. Besides, where there are places as well as principles to be surrendered on one side, there must in return be so much more of principles given up on the other, as will const.i.tute an equivalent to this double sacrifice. The centre of gravity will be sure to lie in that body, which contains within it the source of emoluments and honors, and the other will be forced to revolve implicitly round it.
The only occasion at this period on which Mr. Sheridan seems to have alluded to the Coalition, was during a speech of some length on the consideration of the Preliminary Articles of Peace. Finding himself obliged to advert to the subject, he chose rather to recriminate on the opposite party for the anomaly of their own alliances, than to vindicate that which his distinguished friend had just formed, and which, in his heart, as has been already stated, he wholly disapproved. The inconsistency of the Tory Lord Advocate (Dundas) in connecting himself with the patron of Equal Representation, Mr. Pitt, and his support of that full recognition of American independence, against which, under the banners of Lord North, he had so obstinately combated, afforded to Sheridan"s powers of raillery an opportunity of display, of which, there is no doubt, he with his accustomed felicity availed himself. The reporter of the speech, however, has, as usual, contrived, with an art near akin to that of reducing diamonds to charcoal, to turn all the brilliancy of his wit into dull and opake verbiage.
It was during this same debate, that he produced that happy retort upon Mr. Pitt, which, for good-humored point and seasonableness, has seldom, if ever, been equalled.