had long fubfifted between a great perfonage and the two moft active members of the miniftry. The ground of the difference we have understood to be the military arrangements; and it is faid to have proceeded to fuch an extent as to determine Mr. Pitt to embrace the first opportunity of proving his ftrength in the cabinet, and of either holding the reins with the fame uncontrolled authority at which his father afpired, or of refigning a fituation no longer compatible with his feelings.

Whatever of credit we may at, tach to these different reports, the oftenfible ground of refignation was the unfortunate queftion of Catholic emancipation, as it has been called; a question which we cannot but with had never been agitated. In his ardour for accomplishing the projected union, Mr. Pitt, it is faid, had engaged to the Irish catholics to achieve for them their object, in cafe the act of union fhould meet with no oppofition on their parts; and he took one of the earlieft opportunities of bringing it forward in the cabinet council. Two parties viewed the measure with abhorrence and with dread. The English clergy feared the increase of popery; and the Irish proteftants were apprehenfive for themselves, fhould they ever have to encounter a popish judge upon the bench, fupported by a popish jury, fummoned by a popish Theriff. Through what channel his majefty was influenced to oppose the measure, we are ignorant; but it is generally underftood that through his interference the plan of the minifter was defeated, and this was immediately followed by his refignation, and that of most of his colleagues.

Of the character of this long ad

miniftration an impartial judg ment will be formed by pofterity. The retainers of a minifter may erect ftatues, and pour out the grateful incenfe of adulation before that idol which has been the tutelar deity of their fortunes; but it is the page of hiftory which alone will erect a durable monument, and which will confecrate the name of a minifter to honour and immortality. To Mr. Pitt's adminiftration the impartial hiftorian cannot accord the praife of politi cal confiftency, of extended views, of liberal principles, and an enlarged and beneficial fyftem of policy. Mr. Pitt entered upon his political career too early in life, and with a degree of popularity which was calculated to intoxicate a young and inexperienced mind. Early involved in the vortex of public bufinefs, his talents wanted the fevere exercife of ftudy to improve and mature them. He was deficient in fome of the rudimental knowledge of a statesman; he had not contemplated with a nice attention those great examples which might have ferved as a model for his conduct in times of difficulty, nor had he accurately weighed and confidered the delicate chain of political interefts on which the fafety of Europe depends. Thus thrown prematurely into public life, gifted by nature with extraor dinary talents, among the first of which we may account a fluent, copious, and impreffive eloquence, be yet was an unfinished politician. He would have excelled as an affociate, though he was perhaps unequal to the fituation of a principal; he was calculated for an admirable partifan, though he wanted the knowledge and capacity of a general. His meatures therefore displayed the impetuofity but not

the

the vigour of youth; they had all the ftratagem, but not the judgment, of the experienced ftates man. They were calculated to excite admiration rather than to enfure approbation; and, while men were aftonjfhed at the boldnefs of the defign, they fometimes beheld with difappointment a poverty of execution. He entered upon undertakings of the greateft magnitude without fufficient information, and he abandoned them because he had not calculated upon the difficulties that were to be encountered. In every thing his object was to be diftinguished; in every thing he must be a prominent character. Thus the ftatesman was loft in the projector; and in too eagerly purfuing fame, he loft that greatness to which, with more fober counfels, he might have attained.

Yet the errors of Mr. Pitt were rather errors of judgment than of principle. The little and factious calumny which would afcribe to him a deliberate plan to over throw the liberties of his country is to be despised. He difliked liberty only when it thwarted his views; and he fported occafionally with the conftitution of his country, only to ferve the little 'purposes of party, the exigencies of the moment. He is charged, with equal injuftice perhaps, with having extended the fyftem of parliamentary corruption. It does not appear that fuch a charge is well founded on the contrary, the influence which he employed appears to have been of a more open and direct nature than that which was eftablished either by, Walpole or lord North. He lavifhed the honours of the peerage, it is true, with an unfparing hand, and fome new offices were created. But the fyftem of bribery under the co

lour of participating in the loan was laid afide; nor does it appear, on the whole, that the penfion lift was immoderately enlarged.

So inapplicable indeed is the charge of purfuing defpotifm on a fyftem, that the great misfortune of this adminiftration was, that they were totally without any plan or fyftem whatever. It was a temporifing make-fhift adminiftration, which purfued no measures whatever with confiftency. Genius, like virtue, yields not to times, or humours, or circumftances, but makes them all ultimately fubfervient to its own enlarged and liberal fyftem of policy; but Mr. Pitt's adminiftration was beft characterised by a favourite phrafe of his own, exifting circumftances. His firft political project was a parliamentary reform, but he discovered that exifting circumftances would not admit it. He undertook to extinguish the national debt; he concluded by doubling it. He prided himself upon being the minifter of peace; he foon experienced an inordinate paffion for war. Thus, one part of his adminiftration was a contradiction of another; one fyftem ferved as a practical refutation of the preceding; and it is a well-known fact, that a measure of the highest national importance, which had been ordered in the afternoon, has been revoked the fucceeding morning.

The fame inconfiftency is obfervable in the causes, or rather excufes, for the late war. At one time it was a war voluntarily undertaken in the true spirit of antient chivalry "for religion, monarchy, and focial order;" at another, we were forced into it by the aggrelfion of our adverfaries. At one period it was carried on to procure "indemnity for the paft, and fecurity for the future;" at another, for the exprefs purpose of A 3 reftoring

reftoring the houfe of Bourbon. In the negotiation at Paris, the fine qua non was the restoration of the Netherlands to the emperor of Germany; in the answer to the overture of Bonaparte, it was the re-establishment of monarchy in France. Contrary to the policy of all wife ftatesmen, who embrace the moment of good fortune to fecure the most advantageous terms, our minifters were haughty and infolent in fuccefs, and abject in ill-fortune; they negotiated only when their allies were beaten off the field.

The war, rafhly provoked, was weakly conducted. It was the undoubted policy of Great Britain to have maintained, if poffible, during the continental diftractions, a dignified neutrality. The longer we could abftain from interfering in the difpute, the longer our finances could be preferved unimpaired, the better it must have been for the country at large. Hiftory would have inftructed any man converfant in it, that a state of anarchy, fuch as France exhibited at the period to which we allude, could not long endure. Contending factions, like the armed men of Cadmus, muft have fuccefively deftroyed each other; and if our interference could at any time be ufeful in reftoring order, it would have been at the time when the nation fhould be fick of conteft, of blood, and of atrocity. An external coalition for an indefinite end, an end which moft Frenchmen concluded naturally could be only the dismemberment of the country, ferved internally to unite the nation; and a maxim of Mazarine, illuftrated by a vulgar example, might have inftructed modern po

liticians in the folly and inefficacy of the undertaking.

When great statesmen however, urged by ambition, or propelled by circumftances, undertake a project of this nature, they have been always careful to calculate the force of the contending parties. This, the event proved, was neg lected in the prefent inftance. If unable by their own powers to fubjugate the country fo circumftanced, or if even doubtful of their force, they have endeavoured to act in concert with fome of the great factions, which divide the nation itself. This courfe of po

licy

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was evidently neglected; the coalefced powers formed league only with the outcafts of the nation, a few miferable exiles, who were neither refpectable for talents nor for character; perfons held in deteftation by the people at large, and formidable only to the party with whom they affociated.

If a war with France was inevitable, the mode in which this was carried on was the most injudicious that could be devised. Even the recent conteft with America might have convinced the British miniftry, and their allies, how nugatory is the attempt to make an impreffion on the interior of a country which is totally adverse to its invaders. In the famous fucceffion war, a war only exceeded in abfurdity by that in which we have been recently engaged, the great earl of Peterborough informed his employers, that with the forces under his command he could march through Spain almoft without oppofition, but that he was not able to retain in fubjection a fingle province. The example of the crafty Catharine

might have inftructed our minifters in the mode of conducting the war. She was equally with ourselves at war with France, yet the neither expended a fhilling nor loft a man. From the moment of the victory of the 1st of June, Great Britain was fecure from the risk of invafion. On our natural element we were without controul, we were every where victorious. Where then was the policy of expending with a lavifh hand uncounted millions in fubfidizing feeble or faithlefs allies, or in idle expeditions, which could only end, as they did, in discomfiture and difgrace?

The plea for engaging in the war from the proceedings of the feditious focieties at home, is almost too puerile to deferve refutation. We have uniformly afferted that the corresponding fociety, and its affiliated clubs, were contemptible both as to numbers and character. The public never fympathized either in their projects, or the means of promoting them: the former were too vifionary and metaphyfical to engage the mafs of the people; the latter were, from their violence and abfurdity, calculated only to produce difguft. The multitudes who attended their public meetings were drawn together by no other motive than an idle curiofity; and perhaps the majority of the hearers would have been among the most active opponents of their meafures. It was nevertheless right that these meetings fhould be fuppreffed; they were inconfiftent with the peace of a well-ordered community; and this part of the proceedings of adminiftration had our approbation: but we could never discover the fmalleft connexion between this measure of prudence and fafety, and the French war; and the remark of the

republican minifter Le Brun, in reply to lord Grenville's reprefentation on this topic, appeared to us unanswerable:"If you have bad citizens among you, have you not laws to punish them?"

It has been fuppofed by men of confiderable judgment, that the alarm manifefted by ministers on this occafion was the ftratagem of a deep policy, and not the impulse of fentiment. In this opinion we do not concur: we believe them to have acted ferioufly under the in fluence of fear; but it was a fear unbecoming Englishmen and ftatef men. Whatever were their defigns, the number of the feditious was grofsly exaggerated. The men in buckram confifted of a few idle fchemers affembled at a pothoufe; and fome feditious expreffions chalked upon the walls excited a difmay almoft equal to the prophetic hand-writing which predicted the downfal of the empire of Babylon.

The character of Mr. Pitt's adminiftration then has been grofsly mistaken by both parties. He was neither the knight-errant of defpotifm, nor the cool and crafty politician. His proceedings were more the effect of impulfe than of medita tion; and when, fix months before the war, he predicted a seven years continuance of peace, we have no doubt but he was fincere.On another part of his public character we fhall perhaps differ no lefs widely from our contemporaries. He is extolled as a profound finan cier. The fact however has been rather afferted than proved; and when fufficient proof fhall be brought, we truft we fhall be found open to conviction. If, as has been afferted, of three plans for the liquidation of the national debt prefented by the late Dr. Price, hs

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made