from the meeting of Parliament in November, 1783, to its dissolution in the following March, may be constitutionally regarded as an appeal by the King from the existing House of Commons to the entire nation, as represented by the constituencies; and their verdict, as is well known, ratified in the most emphatic manner all that had been done. And we may assert this without implying that, if the single act of empowering Lord Temple to influence the peers by the declaration of the King's private feeling had been submitted by itself to the electors, they would have justified that. The stirring excitement of the three months' contest between the great rivals led them to pronounce upon the transaction as a whole, and to leave unnoticed what seemed for the moment to be the minor issues-the moves, if we may borrow a metaphor from the chess-table, which opened the game; and it may be observed that, though, on the 17th of December, Pitt resisted Mr. Baker's resolution with his utmost energy, in the numerous debates which ensued he carefully avoided all allusion to Lord Temple's conduct, or to the measure which had led to the dismissal of his predecessors, farther than was necessary for the explanation of the principles of his own India Bill. It may even be surmised that, if he had been inclined to recognize Lord Temple's interference as warrantable, the breach between that peer and himself, which occurred before the end of the week, would not have taken place, since it seems nearly certain that the cause of that breach was a refusal on the part of Pitt to recommend his cousin for promotion in the peerage, a step which, at such a moment, would have had the appearance of an approval of his most recent deed,[94] but which he could hardly have refused, if it had been done with his privity. The battle, as need hardly be told, was first fought among the representatives of the people in the House of Commons; for there was only one occasion on which the opinion of the Lords was invited, when they declared in favor of Pitt by a decisive majority.[95] But in the Lower House the contest was carried on for more than two months with extraordinary activity and ability, by a series of resolutions and motions brought forward by the partisans of the coalition, and contested by the youthful minister. In one respect the war was waged on very unequal terms, Pitt, who had been but three years in Parliament, and whose official experience could as yet only be counted by months, having to contend almost single-handed against the combined experience and eloquence of Lord North, Fox, and Burke. Fortunately, however, for him, their own mismanagement soon turned the advantage to his side. They were too angry and too confident to be skilful, or even ordinarily cautious. The leaders on both sides made professions in one respect similar; they both alike denied that a desire of office influenced either their conduct or their language (a denial for which Pitt's refusal of the Treasury, a year before, gained him more credit than could be expected by Fox after his coalition with Lord North), and both alike professed to be struggling for the constitution alone, for some fundamental principle which each charged his antagonist with violating; Fox on one occasion even going so far as, in some degree, to involve the King himself in his censures, declaring not only that 'the struggle was, in fact, one between Pitt himself and the constitution,' but that it was also one 'between liberty and the influence of the crown,' and 'between prerogative and the constitution;' and that 'Pitt had been brought into power by means absolutely subversive of the constitution.'[96] But no act of which he thus accused the minister or the King showed such a disregard of the fundamental principle of the constitution of Parliament as was exhibited by Fox himself when, in the very first debate after the Christmas recess, he called in question that most undoubted prerogative of the crown to dissolve the Parliament, and, drawing a distinction which had certainly never been heard of before, declared that, though the King had an incontestable right to dissolve the Parliament after the close of a session, 'many great lawyers' doubted whether he had such a right in the middle of a session, a dissolution at such a period being 'a penal' one. Professing to believe that an immediate dissolution was intended, he even threatened to propose to the House of Commons 'measures to guard against a step so inimical to the true interests of the country,' and made a more direct attack than ever on the King himself, by the assertion of a probability that, even if Pitt did not contemplate a dissolution, his royal master might employ 'secret influence' to overrule him, and might dissolve in spite of him,[97] an imputation which Lord North, with a strange departure from his customary good- humor, condescended to endorse.[98] There could be no doubt that both the doubt and the menace were of themselves distinct attacks on the constitution; and they were, moreover, singularly impolitic and inconsistent with others of the speaker's arguments, since, if the nation at large approved of his views and conduct, a dissolution- which would have placed the decision in its hands-would have been the very thing he should most have desired. On another evening, though he admitted as a principle that the sovereign had the prerogative of choosing his ministers, he not only sought to narrow the effect of that admission by the assertion that 'to exercise that prerogative in opposition to the House of Commons would be a measure as unsafe as unjustifiable,'[99] but to confine the right of deciding the title of the ministers to confidence to the existing House of Commons. He accused Pitt of 'courting the affection of the people, and on this foundation wishing to support himself in opposition to the repeated resolutions of the House passed in the last three weeks.' Had he confined himself to urging the necessity of the ministers and the House of Commons being in harmony, even though such a mention of the House of Commons by itself were to a certain extent an ignoring of the weight of the other branches of the Legislature, he would have only been advancing a doctrine which is practically established at the present day, since there has been certainly more than one instance in which a ministry has retired which enjoyed the confidence of both the sovereign and the House of Lords, because it was not supported by a majority in the House of Commons. But when he proceeded to make it a charge against the minister that he trusted to the good-will of the people to enable him to disregard the verdict of the House of Commons, he forgot that it was only as representing the people that the House had any right to pronounce a verdict; and that, if it were true that the judgment of the people was more favorable to the minister than that of the House of Commons, the difference which thus existed was a condemnation of the existing House, and an irresistible reason for calling on the constituencies to elect another.
Pitt, therefore, had no slight advantage in defending himself against so rash an assailant. 'He did not shrink,' he said, 'from avowing himself the friend of the King's just prerogative,' and in doing so he maintained that he had a title to be regarded as the champion of the people not less than of the crown. 'Prerogative had been justly called a part of the rights of the people, and he was sure it was a part of their rights which they were never more inclined to defend, of which they were never more jealous, than at that hour.'[100] And he contended that Fox's objections to a dissolution betrayed a consciousness that he had not the confidence of the nation. At last, when the contest had lasted nearly two months, Fox took the matter into his own hands, and, no longer putting his partisans in the front of the battle, on the 1st of March he himself moved for an address to the King, the most essential clause of which 'submitted to his Majesty's royal consideration that the continuance of an administration which did not possess the confidence of the representatives of the people must be injurious to the public service.' ... And, therefore, that 'his Majesty's faithful Commons did find themselves obliged again to beseech his Majesty that he would be graciously pleased to lay the foundation of a strong and stable government by the previous removal of his present ministers.' In the speech with which he introduced this address he put himself forward as especially the champion of the House of Commons. He charged the Prime-minister with an express design 'to reduce the House to insignificance, to render it a mere appendage to the court, an appurtenance to the administration.' He asserted the existence of a systematic 'design to degrade the House, after which there was not another step necessary to complete the catastrophe of the constitution.' And on this occasion he distinguished the feelings of the King from those which influenced the minister, affirming his confidence 'that the King's heart had no share in the present business.'[101]
Pitt, on the other hand, in reply, affirmed that he was called on by duty 'to defend the rights of the other branches of the Legislature; the just and constitutional prerogative of the sovereign,' upon which the Opposition was seeking to encroach, without even having shown a single reason to justify such invasion. He freely admitted that, if the House of Commons or either of the other branches of the Legislature 'disapproved of an administration on proper grounds, it would not be well for that administration to retain office.' But in the present instance he contended that 'no ground for disapprobation had been shown.' The existing administration 'had, in fact, by an unaccountable obstinacy and untowardness of circumstances, been deprived of all opportunity' of showing its capacity or its intentions. 'If any accusations should be made and proved against it, if any charges should be substantiated, it would, indeed be proper for the ministers to resign; and if, in such a case he were afterward to continue in office, he would suffer himself to be stigmatized as the champion of prerogative, and the unconstitutional supporter of the usurpation of the crown. But till this period arrived, he should reckon it his duty to adhere to the principles of the constitution, as delivered to us by our ancestors; to defend them against innovation and encroachment, and to maintain them with firmness.' 'The constitution of this country,' he presently added, 'is its glory; but in what a nice adjustment does its excellence consist! Equally free from the distractions of democracy and the tyranny of monarchy, its happiness is to be found in its mixture of parts. It was this mixed government which the prudence of our ancestors devised, and which it will be our wisdom to support. They experienced all the vicissitudes and distractions of a republic; they felt all the vassalage and despotism of a simple monarchy. They
