Black as black can be
CHARLES STUART
The Fox-North Coalition John Cannon (am 65s)
The political crisis of 1782-84, which ended the first phase of George III's reign, laun- ched Pitt on his long ascendancy and con- demned Fox to a lifetime of opposition, has long fascinated historians. For many years there were Pittite and Foxite versions of the story which generally agreed in frowning on George III. More recently, particularly with the help of Professor Aspinall's monumental work on the later correspondence of that much abused monarch, a more balanced view has been evolved. Pitt has lost his in- nocent purity and .become more credible in the process; Fox's political miscalculations have been freed of the accompanying chorus of moral disapproval; even George III has escaped from Whiggish castigation. With this moderating process there has come a certain writing-down of the ideals and prin- ciples at issue—'badges of difference' was how Richard Pares saw them. And, as a result, the crisis of 1782-84 has tended to become another and more intense example of the struggle between 'ins' and 'outs'. It is now largely regarded as George II regarded the struggles of the mid 1740s . . . 'I know what this is; it is contention for power'.
Mr Cannon in his detailed and well- founded study will have none of this. The struggle in these years, he says, was 'not merely for power but between rival views of the constitution'. He transfers Professor But- terfield's idea of a quasi-revolutionary situa- tion from 1780 to 1783 and adds to it the concept of rivalry between crown and nobility. He is, besides, an • unashamed partisan so that on occasion his work reads like a contemporary Foxite squib. And if Fox is his hero who can do no wrong, George III, Pitt and Shelburne are his villains whose every move was base and cun- fming. In this respect he is like great Agrippa in the nursery rhyme: `Into the ink he dips them all Into the ink-stand one, two, three, Till they are black as black can be.'
!Shelburne, for him, is 'a sphinx without a ' secret', a man incapable of working frankly and honestly with anyone. Pitt, in his turn, is condemned for deserting Shelburne 'with unseemly haste'; for showing 'distressingly irresolute' conduct towards the King which placed him 'in an impossible situation'; and, finally, for telling a deliberate lie to the Com- mons, 'the lie of a master, perfect of its kind, superb in its insolence'. As for George III, `no constitutional defence of his action is possible'.
Nor are other historians of this period spared. Mr Cannon treats them as Elijah treated the priests of Baal—get not one escape'. There are sharp raps for Namier and Pares and Harlow among those no longer with us; for Brooke and Aspinall on this side of the Atlantic and for Barnes and Norris on the other. Even that stalwart Foxite, Steven Watson, gets a backhander or two. All of this makes for lively reading, though not, perhaps, for a feeling of calm judgment. For, on the whole, Mr Cannon's enthusiasm leads him to exaggerate the unprecedented nature of George III's conduct. For example, in defence of the Whig claim of 1782 that the Cabinet should guide the King in his choice of first minister on the death of Rockingham, he cites George II's conduct in 1754 on the death of Henry Pelham. Certainly on that occasion the King asked the Cabinet to recommend a successor, but his request was regarded as a dangerous innovation as Hardwicke made clear when he wrote that this was a matter which 'should only be decided' in the royal closet. Indeed on the previous occasion when a Prime Minister had died in office, in 1743, George II had ap- pointed a successor while he was in Germany. Similarly, on the issue of Pitt's re- taining office early in 1784 in defiance of the votes of the Commons, Mr Cannon accepts Fox's view that this was 'totally without precedent', and cites Walpole's resignation in 1742 as an example of the correct and accepted procedure. Yet, in 1721, when ' Walpole was establishing himself after the South Sea Bubble, he was defeated eight times and still survived.
But these exchanges of precedent are really of little moment. The plain fact was that Fox obtained office by 'forcing the closet'; this, Mr Cannon admits, was his only resort in face of the King's hostility. But the King played him at his own game and, with the help of Temple, pushed him out. Naturally, Fox then raised loud cries of con- stitutional impropriety, loud enough to frighten Temple into resignation (a point on which Mr Cannon takes up a contemporary Foxite view). But these cries were no more than a part of the political battle. The fact that some of Fox's heated claims have since turned out to be constitutional practice is no more than an ironic coincidence. He did not bother himself much about them in 1788 when he expected office, or in 1806 when he got it. In short, he was simply fising every weapon at his disposal, just as George III and Pitt were against him. But in 1784 they won and he lost.
This, says Mr Cannon, emboldened George III to take a stand against Pitt over Roman Catholic emancipation in 1801; 'sympathy for Pitt' he adds, 'does not come easily'. But Pitt asked for none; he made no outraged cries; he just left office. Sympathy for Fox is equally misplaced, and he, for his part, did not seek it. After all, as Lord Beaverbrook would have put it, Fox knew that 'he had taken a pot-shot at Santa Claus and missed'.
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