The general election of 1780 turned on the continuance of the American war. A majority was returned against the ministry; but the king was so unwilling to abandon his policy of coercing the colonies, that he kept Lord North in power till the beginning of 1782. In February of that year Lord North was forced to resign, an address to the king praying for the discontinuance of the war having been carried by a small majority. A second Rockingham Ministry then sprang into being, in which Charles James Fox was Foreign Secretary and Burke was Paymaster of the Forces. The latter, however, was not admitted to the Cabinet. Burke swept away the per quisites of his office, thus effecting a considerable saving to the nation, but condemning future paymasters to live on a much smaller income. The Rockingham Ministry granted to Ireland legislative independence. As the result of an agitation headed by the eloquent Henry Grattan, freedom of trade had been granted to it by Lord North's Government in 1779. The success of the American colonies emboldened the Irish leader to push his claims further. He proposed a Declaration of Right, demanding the repeal of the Law of Poynings (or Statute of Drogheda, 1494), by which the British Privy Council had power to amend or to suppress Irish bills; and of the statute of 1719 (6 George the First), which enabled the British Parliament to legislate for Ireland. Grattan's resolutions having been carried unanimously in both Houses of the Irish Parliament, both of these statutes were repealed in London with the help of the government. The free Parliament which continued from 1782 till the Union (1801) is known as Grattan's Parliament. 1782 When Rockingham died-only four months after taking office the Cabinet dissolved, and the Shelburne Ministry took its place (July 10, 1782), William Pitt the younger being called to fill the onerous post of Chancellor of the Exchequer. Little more at that time than twenty-three years of age, he had already been sitting in Parliament for eighteen months. He was born at Hayes, in Kent, May 28th, 1759. After enjoying a careful training at home, he went to Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, where his precocious scholarship excited much wonder. A short stay in France was followed by a course of legal study, which qualified him for admission to the bar in 1780. In less than a year he took his seat in the Commons for the borough of Appleby, and displayed an eloquence that awed and dazzled even that distinguished assembly. Pitt had very early identified himself with the subject of parliamentary reform, a subject which began at this time. to engage attention. His maiden speech (February 1781) had been made in support of Burke's motion for "economical reform." In May of next year he moved for a committee of inquiry into the system of electing members of Parliament. His motion was lost, but only by twenty votes; and resolutions were passed by which revenue officers were disfranchised, and contractors under government were excluded from the House of Commons. April 1783 On the Shelburne Ministry devolved the task of completing the treaty with the United States. Though the country was pledged to peace, the treaty was everywhere unpopular. Fox and the moderate Whigs joined the Tories and drove the ministry from office. The Coalition Ministry was then formed by the Duke of Portland. It included North and Fox, formerly bitter opponents, as well as Burke and Sheridan. The chief subject that engaged the attention of this ministry was the government of India. When Parliament assembled in the following November, Fox brought in two Bills on the subject. In the one Bill he proposed to vest the territorial government of India in the hands of seven directors, to be appointed at first by the Parliament, but afterwards at intervals of four years by the Crown, and to place the commercial Dec. 19, 1783 government of that golden dependency in the hands of nine assistant-directors. The other Bill aimed at the suppression of tyranny, and the regulation of the powers exercised by the Governor-General and Council. Burke supported the measures with all the might of his magic eloquence; while Pitt opposed them with all the energy of youth and the vigour of aspiration. Long the battle raged. Fox carried the first Bill through the Commons in triumph, but it was lost on the second reading in the Lords, the king having conceived or received the idea that the passing of the measure into law would place all Indian power in the hands of the ministry. Thus the coalition broke down. At twelve one night (Dec. 18), a royal messenger demanded the seals of office from North and Fox, and on the next day Pitt was appointed First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer. Fox naturally became leader of the opposition, which assumed a portentous contrast to the handful thinly scattered on the ministerial benches. The coalition did not die without a struggle. But Pitt, backed by the king, won his way inch by inch against the majorities dwindling every night, until the dissolution of Parliament completed the ruin of Fox's party. One hundred and sixty of his retainers lost their seats in the election scramble that ensued, retiring with the poor consolation of living in history as "Fox's Martyrs." Pitt's overwhelming majority secured his supremacy during the remainder of his life. One of the first uses Pitt made of his majority was to settle the government of India. This he did in 1784 by a Bill erecting the Board of Control, which consisted of six 1784 privy councillors appointed by the Crown, the principal Secretaries of State, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. This board, which continued till the Company was abolished in 1858, was an Indian commission sitting in London which had supreme authority over the government of India and the affairs of the Company. In the following year Pitt intro duced a Bill for parliamentary reform, but it was rejected by a large majority. With his measures of financial reform he was more successful. In 1787 he concluded a commercial treaty with France. 1785 Warren Hastings finally quitted India in 1785, and he left it in a state of unexampled peace. At first he was received at home with marked favour; but by-and-by murmurs of detraction began to be heard, and eventually he was impeached before the House of Lords. The chief charges against him were, that he had hired out British troops to crush certain free native states; that he had extorted large sums of money from native princes-in particular from the rajah of Benares and the princesses of Oudh; that, to this end, he had used oppression, and even torture; and that he had supported his authority by other unlawful means. The impeachment was moved in the House of Commons by Burke in a magnificent speech. Fox and Sheridan expended their most brilliant eloquence in assailing him. Pitt could not deny that he had acted tyrannically. The impeachment was accordingly voted. The trial commenced in 1788. It lasted seven years, and in the end Hastings was acquitted. But the trial had ruined him, and he received a pension from the East India Company which enabled him to pass the close of his life in comfort. He lived till 1818. Hastings was succeeded as governor-general by Lord Cornwallis, under whom the war against Tippoo Saib was SO vigorously prosecuted that in 1792 he was forced to submit. A few years later, however, a change in the government encouraged the rajah to resume hostilities. In 1799 a powerful army was despatched to Mysore under General Harris. Seringapatam was stormed by Sir David Baird, and Tippoo was slain. Colonel Arthur Wellesley (afterwards the great Duke of Wellington), who had taken a prominent part in the campaign, was then appointed Governor of Mysore. CHAPTER XV. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. Causes of the Revolution-Effect in England-The regency-CanadaQuarrel of Burke with Fox-War with France-Threatened invasionSt. Vincent-Nelson-The Mutiny-Camperdown-Irish Rebellion--Vinegar Hill-The Nile-Acre-Abercromby-The Irish Union-The Addington Cabinet. THE 1789 HE French Revolution, which began in 1789, was the greatest event of the eighteenth century. During its continuance, the history of Britain is to a great extent merged in the general history of Europe. In France, a long course of tyrannical oppression and of reckless extravagance on the part of the Court, ending in serious national embarrassment and an intolerable weight of taxation, had resulted in rankling discontent. Minister after minister tried to grapple with the financial difficulties, and failed. The StatesGeneral were then called (1789). The Commons members, or Third Estate (“Tiers État "), constituted themselves a National Assembly. Then the Paris mob stormed the Bastille, and the Revolution began. The ancient Bourbon monarchy was overturned; the king and the queen-Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette were guillotined; the Christian faith was trampled under foot, and a goddess of Reason was set up for worship: all France was drenched in blood. The ferment quickly spread to Britain; but the great concessions made to the Parliament and the people at the Revo |