Such being the feelings of the late minister and of the present minister, a rupture was inevitable; and there was no want of persons bent on making that rupture speedy and violent.Some of these persons wounded Addington's pride by representing him as a lacquey, sent to keep a place on the Treasury bench till his master should find it convenient to come.Others took every opportunity of praising him at Pitt's expense.Pitt had waged a long, a bloody, a costly, an unsuccessful war.Addington had made peace.Pitt had suspended the constitutional liberties of Englishmen.Under Addington those liberties were again enjoyed.
Pitt had wasted the public resources.Addington was carefully nursing them.It was sometimes but too evident that these compliments were not unpleasing to Addington.Pitt became cold and reserved.During many months he remained at a distance from London.Meanwhile his most intimate friends, in spite of his declarations that he made no complaint, and that he had no wish for office, exerted themselves to effect a change of ministry.
His favourite disciple, George Canning, young, ardent, ambitious, with great powers and great virtues, but with a temper too restless and a wit too satirical for his own happiness, was indefatigable.He spoke; he wrote; he intrigued; he tried to induce a large number of the supporters of the government to sign a round robin desiring a change; he made game of Addington and of Addington's relations in a succession of lively pasquinades.The minister's partisans retorted with equal acrimony, if not with equal vivacity.Pitt could keep out of the affray only by keeping out of politics altogether; and this it soon became impossible for him to do.Had Napoleon, content with the first place among the Sovereigns of the Continent, and with a military reputation surpassing that of Marlborough or of Turenne, devoted himself to the noble task of making France happy by mild administration and wise legislation, our country might have long continued to tolerate a government of fair intentions and feeble abilities.Unhappily, the treaty of Amiens had scarcely been signed, when the restless ambition and the insupportable insolence of the First Consul convinced the great body of the English people that the peace, so eagerly welcomed, was only a precarious armistice.As it became clearer and clearer that a war for the dignity, the independence, the very existence of the nation was at hand, men looked with increasing uneasiness on the weak and languid cabinet which would have to contend against an enemy who united more than the power of Louis the Great to more than the genius of Frederick the Great.It is true that Addington might easily have been a better war minister than Pitt, and could not possibly have been a worse.But Pitt had cast a spell on the public mind.The eloquence, the judgment, the calm and disdainful firmness, which he had, during many years, displayed in Parliament, deluded the world into the belief that he must be eminently qualified to superintend every department of politics, and they imagined, even after the miserable failures of Dunkirk, of Quiberon, and of the Helder, that he was the only statesman who could cope with Bonaparte.This feeling was nowhere stronger than among Addington's own colleagues.The pressure put on him was so strong that he could not help yielding to it; yet, even in yielding, he showed how far he was from knowing his own place.His first proposition was, that some insignificant nobleman should be First Lord of the Treasury and nominal head of the administration, and that the real power should be divided between Pitt and himself, who were to be secretaries of state.Pitt, as might have been expected, refused even to discuss such a scheme, and talked of it with bitter mirth."Which secretaryship was offered to you?" his friend Wilberforce asked."Really," said Pitt, "I had not the curiosity to inquire." Addington was frightened into bidding higher.He offered to resign the Treasury to Pitt, on condition that there should be no extensive change in the government.But Pitt would listen to no such terms.Then came a dispute such as often arises after negotiations orally conducted, even when the negotiators are men of strict honour.Pitt gave one account of what had passed; Addington gave another: and though the discrepancies were not such as necessarily implied any intentional violation of truth on either side, both were greatly exasperated.
Meanwhile the quarrel with the First Consul had come to a crisis.
On the 16th of May, 1803, the King sent a message calling on the House of Commons to support him in withstanding the ambitious and encroaching policy of France; and, on the 22d, the House took the message into consideration.
