So began Pitt's Hundred Days; for his second Administration can only be compared to that second impotent reign of Napoleon's, after their triumphant dictatorships.

His new Cabinet was deplorable. So null was it that it was called "the new Administration composed of William and Pitt "; for, though some of its members afterwards attained eminence under the shade of Pitt, they displayed no such promise.

There was Melville indeed, but Melville was in the House of Lords; and his intimacy with Pitt was much less close than in the former Cabinet, presumably since he had accepted a peerage from Addington and undertaken to be his emissary to Walmer. He was, moreover, to be the means of inflicting on his chief a mortal wound. There was Harrowby, who twice afterwards refused the Premiership; and Hawkesbury, who held it for fifteen years as Lord Liverpool; but the first soon retired from illness, while the other had so far displayed little promise, and was indeed something of a butt. Castlereagh was Pitt's only Cabinet colleague in the House of Commons, and he in debate was disastrous. And there was of course the ordinary domestic furniture of Pitt's cabinets; the Portlands and Montroses and Westmorlands, the Camdens and the Mulgraves.

There was also Pitt's brother, Chatham, an underrated figure. He was, no doubt, indolent and extravagant; as a general, he was a conspicuous failure; he was useless as the head of a department; he had no trace of the oratorical abilities of his father or his brother; but, as a minister in Cabinet, he was of singular value. Eldon, who was shrewd, and in such a matter neither paradoxical nor biassed, gave it as his deliberate opinion that "the ablest man I ever knew in the Cabinet was Lord Chatham. He sat apparently inattentive to what was going on, but when his turn came to deliver his opinion, he toppled over all the others."

As a wretched general, a wretched administrator, a mute senator, and yet a Cabinet minister, Chatham represented to the world a glaring example of Pitt's partiality. They could not know those qualities of counsel that preserved him, as they have many indifferent orators, in the Cabinet. Men forget that judgment is at least as much wanted in a government as agile fence; that the possession of eloquence by no means implies the possession of the other requisites of government; and that, for instance, any minister would prefer as a Cabinet colleague Godolphin to St. John, or Althorp to Brougham.

There have been orators like Pulteney, who have shrivelled at the first contact with power. There have been statesmen like Cromwell, who could not frame an intelligible sentence. Pitt's second Government was endowed with neither a Cromwell nor a Pulteney; but, curiously enoug h, although so universally derided, it contained no I ess than four future Prime Ministers -- Portland, Perceval, Liverpool, and Canning -- while Harrowby might, had he chosen, have made a fifth.

Pitt took his seat in the House of Commons as Prime Minister on the 18th of May 1804. That same day his supreme foe, the First Consul, was proclaimed Emperor of the French. Shortly afterwards Livingston, the American minister in Paris, escorted by Fox and Grey, brought Pitt a vague and dubious overture for peace, which came to nothing.

This was the last of the rare occasions on which Pitt and Fox met in the same room. The Minister's military and financial measures (the latter including, as usual, another of the shocking demands of £ 500,000 to pay off debt on the civil list) he carried by majorities, varying from forty to fifty, in the same House which had furnished him in the previous session with the modest contingent of thirty-three followers. The session closed without incident on the 31st of July. In the recess he continued to discharge his military duties; and, in view of the army that Napoleon had assembled at Boulogne for the invasion of England, no precaution could be superfluous.

His political preoccupations were scarcely less urgent. He resolved to gratify the King and increase his parliamentary support by the admission of Addington. Their mutual feelings were softened, and they returned to something of their early intimacy. Addington became Viscount Sidmouth and President of the Council. A place was also found in the Cabinet for his principal adherent, that Earl of Buckinghamshire who had married Eleanor Eden, Pitt's only love. Another domestic incident occurred, which was curious if not important. The Archbishop of Canterbury had long been dying, and Pitt was determined that his tutor, secretary, and friend, Bishop Tomline of Lincoln, should be the next Primate. The King was equally determined that the succession should not fall to that too acquisitive prelate.

Having received early news of the Archbishop's death, George III hurried across to the Deanery at Windsor, the residence of Bishop Manners Sutton. The Bishop was at dinner; and was informed that there was a person outside, who wished to see him and would not take a denial. He went out and found the King, who had come to offer him the Primacy. The business was settled in a moment, and at the front door; the Sovereign went off chuckling at having outwitted Pitt. It is said, however, that, when they met, language of unprecedented strength passed between King and Minister. It cannot, though, be doubted that the King was right.

The royal speech, at the opening of the session in January 1805, announced that we were at war with Spain: one of those measures, founded rather on secret knowledge than oil open rupture, which were then not uncommon, and which were rendered necessary by the multiplicity of occult policies and subterranean agreements then prevalent in Europe. The British Ministry were aware that a secret alliance had been concluded between Spain and France, and determined to strike the first blow.

Fox, who had been silent for the last four years, and was to be silent ever afterwards on the question, thought fit now to urge complete Catholic Emancipation as pressing and indispensable; but was easily defeated. The Budget provided for enormous expenses. It became necessary to find forty-four millions for the current year. The army figured for eighteen millions and a half, the navy for fourteen millions and a half, the Ordnance for close on five millions; and five millions were taken for probable subsidies, though little or none of this last sum was spent.

To meet these war estimates, Pitt proposed a new loan of twenty millions. Besides, therefore, continuing the existing war taxes, he had to find another million for interest. For this he principally relied, in the spirit of modern finance, on an increase in the death duties.

The supreme event of the session was the successful attack upon Lord Melville. That statesman was now first Lord of the Admiralty, where he displayed his wonted vigour and ability. But he had previously held for many years the office of Treasurer to the Navy, to which, it was afterwards remarked, he had always clung with strange persistence. A commission of naval inquiry had been sitting for three years, and now presented a report on Lord Melville's conduct as Treasurer. It showed that his paymaster had used the public balances for his private purposes. Although the public had not thereby sustained any loss, the Commissioners rightly visited this proceeding with the severest censure.

It was also admitted by Lord Melville that he had sometimes, as a confidential minister of the Crown, advanced monies from these balances for the purposes of secret service. The Opposition alleged that he had used these sums to his own profit; but of this charge there was never the slightest proof, nor indeed any probability. Still, he had shown blamable laxity in a matter which requires the nicest precision of scruple.

Whitbread brought forward in the House a series of resolutions condemning Melville's conduct. Pitt would have wished to meet them with a negative. But Addington hated Melville, and would consent to no stronger amendment than a reference to a Select Committee. Even that motion was not carried. It was a case in which the House of Commons vindicated its independence. It passed beyond party leaders and party considerations, and sought unbiassed guidance. The speech of Wilberforce was, therefore, eagerly looked for; he was one of Pitt's dearest friends, but one also whom, in a matter of public morals, friendship could not sway.

As he rose, Pitt bent forward and fixed an eagle glance of inquiry upon him. Wilberforce felt all that that mute appeal implied, but did not waver. He declared that he must vote for Whitbread. Not in his Slave Trade triumph did be bold a prouder position.

The numbers were equal. The Speaker, as be announced them, turned white as ashes, for the responsibility of decision devolved upon him. After a painful silence of many 'minutes, he gave the casting vote against the Government. Then arose a shout and turbulence of victory such as this generation has once at least witnessed, when senators behaved like schoolboys, and passion ran uncontrolled.

There were many shouts. "We have killed the fox," shouted one sturdy sportsman with some confusion of idea. Pitt pressed his hat on his head, and it was seen that this was to conceal the tears trickling down his cheeks. Some unmannerly Whigs pressed up to see how he bore his friend's political death. But a little band of his younger followers rallied round him, and thus unconsciously encompassed he moved out of the House. It was the greatest blow that he had ever received.

Some have ascribed his death to Ulm, and some to Austerlitz; but, if the mortal wound was triple, the first stab was the fall of Dundas. "We can get over Austerlitz," he said to Huskisson at Bath, "but we can never get over the Tenth Report."

Melville of course resigned at once. He was succeeded by an octogenarian member of his board, Sir Charles Middleton. Addington, who wanted the place for one of his followers, retired in dudgeon; and, though this difference was patched up, his secession was only deferred.

After the Easter recess, the attack was renewed. The report was referred to a Select Committee. Whitbread moved an address to the Crown, praying that Melville should be removed from the Privy Council. Pitt at first resisted; but at the request of Melville himself erased his name before the motion could be put. As he made this announcement to the House he almost broke down. Traces of this emotion, hitherto so rare in him, were not, indeed, uncommon during the short remainder of his life.

The report of the Committee was unfavourable, and, after Melville had addressed the House of Commons from the bar, an impeachment was resolved upon. He was ultimately acquitted, but the divisions on the question of impeachment, in which Addington's friends voted strenuously against Pitt, produced Sidmouth's final resignation.

An ex-premier is usually found, by any Cabinet in which he may serve as an ordinary member, to be a fleeting and dangerous luxury. Addington was no exception to the rule.

The fall of Melville was chiefly felt in Scotland. There he had long reigned supreme, with general popularity and good- nature, by the exercise of a double patronage. While he had Scotticised India, he had orientalised Scotland. He had imported into India a splendid staff of Scottish adminstrators; he had imported into Scotland the absolutism of a Guicowar or a Nizam. When he fell, the air was cleared, and men, who had sat in darkness under his shadow, saw the light once more.

The Prime Minister's arrangements to supply the places of Sidmouth, Buckinghamshire, and Melville were only temporary. He still clung to the hope of inducing the King to consent to the admission of Fox and Grenville and their friends. With that object he set out for Weymouth, where for hours he urged upon his sovereign every plea and argument for such an arrangement. But the King was obstinate. It was not necessary, he said; Pitt could do well enough without them.

He knew, in fact, that in the last resort he could always rely on Pitt's pride; that Pitt would never resign on account of gathering difficulties or hostile coalitions. But, had be yielded now, he might have saved Pitt's life. With a melancholyforeboding, theMinister said, a fortnight before his death: "I wish the King may not live to repent, and sooner than he thinks, the rejection of the advice which I pressed on him at Weymouth."

For the burden fell now solely on the enfeebled shoulders of the dying Premier: the brilliant chiefs of opposition might have relieved him of much. As it was, "if Pitt has the gout for a fortnight," said Rose, "there is an end of us." And so it proved.

The Minister was thus at bay, but never had he shown a richer conception or a greater energy of resource. He had determined to oppose to Napoleon the solid barrier of the European concert. For that purpose he had been maturing a gigantic alliance, which should employ the fleets and treasure of England, and the vastest armies that Russia, Prussia, and Austria could put into the field. He commenced with Russia. On the 11th of April 1804, atreaty was concluded at St. Petersburg. Five hundred thousand men were to be arrayed against France. Great Britain was to contribute ships and men and money. On the 9th of August, Austria signified her adherence. This was the Third Coalition. Prussia, ruled by covetous incapacities, wavered; and was wavering when the Coalition was crushed. So she escaped that fall; but a worse fate awaited her.

At this moment (August 1805), Napoleon was still bent on striking a mortal blow at England. He only awaited the fleet which was to give him command of the Channel for the fatal twelve hours. Daily he gazed intensely at the horizon, till the tidings came that his admiral had retreated into Cadiz. There was no time to be lost, for he was well aware of the new league.

War Between Austria and France

He instantly moved his collected legions to Germany. The Empire which possessed the Archduke Charles preferred to oppose to him General Mack; a strategist of unalloyed incompetency, and unvaried failure.

In a few marches Napoleon cut off Mack from Austria, and surrounded him at Ulm; and the first event in the history of the Third Coalition was the absolute surrender of thirty thousand of their choicest troops.

This was on the 19th of October. At the end of October, and in the first days of November, there were rumours of it in London. Pitt almost peevishly contradicted them. But on Sunday, the 3d of November, came a Dutch paper, which Pitt brought to Malmesbury to translate, and which told the worst. He went away with a look in his face which never again left it. But his spirit did not quail.

On the 5th of November a despatch was on its way to Vienna, in which Pitt made a supreme appeal to Austria not to flinch. He had already, he said, sent Lord Harrowby to Berlin "to urge the early activity of the Prussian armies. There seems at present every reason to hope that this mission will be effectual.... Great as have been the pecuniary efforts which His Majesty has made for the common cause, he is ready still to extend them to such a farther amount as may enable those Powers to bring an active force of from two hundred to two hundred and fifty thousand men; and His Majesty has no doubt of being enabled himself to augment his own active force....to not less than sixty thousand men."

With objects so paramount in view, with such vast means in reserve, these efforts could not fail. And in a glowing sentence, so like one of Pitt's perorations that one can almost hear his voice in it, he says that, even should the enemy plant his standards on the walls of Vienna, he is sure "that the ancient spirit of Austria would still remain unshaken and undismayed"; and that Napoleon would still "have to encounter the concentrated energy of a great and loyal nation and the united efforts of powerful allies."

A few days afterwards, the news was eclipsed by the tidings of Trafalgar. Nelson had attacked with an inferior force the combined French and Spanish fleets, consisting of thirty- three ships of the line and seven frigates.

Of these no less than twenty struck their flag. But even this consummate achievement was overbought by the death of England's greatest warrior. It is for this reason, perhaps, that Trafalgar is inscribed as a victory in the Museum of Arms at Madrid unto this day.

The nation was profoundly moved by the double intelligence, but triumph predominated. The minister himself, once so equable, when roused at night to read the despatches so full of joy and sorrow, could not resume his rest. The day afterwards, he was present at the annual dinner of the Lord Mayor. The populace had forgotten Ulm, and could think only of Trafalgar.

Once more, and for the last time, they received him with acclamations, and drew his chariot in triumph to the Guildhall. There his health was drunk as the saviour of Europe. Pitt replied in the noblest, the tersest, and the last of all of his speeches. It can here be given in its entirety.

"I return you many thanks for the honour you have done me. But Europe is not to be saved by any single man. England has saved herself by her exertions, and will, as I trust, save Europe by her example."

That pageant was in some sort a State funeral, for he was never seen in public again.

Austerlitz and Peace

A month afterwards. (December 7) he set out for Bath. Austerlitz, the battle of the Emperors, had been fought on the 2d. One Emperor was in flight, the other sullenly sustained defeat; their armies were scattered; a peace was being negotiated; amid the shattered ruins of the Coalition, Pitt alone remained. But even in the wreck of his life, his intrepid foresight survived. Nothing, he said, but a war of patriotism, a national war, could now save Europe, and that war should begin in Spain. Melville and Ulm had borne heavily on Pitt; Austerlitz killed him.

He was at Bath when he received the news. Tradition says that he was looking at a picture gallery when he heard the furious gallop of a horse. "That must be a courier," he exclaimed, "with news for me."

When he had opened the packet he said, "Heavy news indeed," and asked for brandy. He hurriedly swallowed one or two drams; had he not, says an eye-witness, he must have fainted. He then asked for a map, and desired to be left alone.

He had gout flying about; the shock of the tidings threw it back on some vital organ. From this day he shrank visibly. His weakness and emaciation were painful to witness. Still, he did not abate his high hopes, or his unconquerable spirit. He wrote cheerfully to his friends. He was better, but wanted strength: Bath was of no further use; he would return to the house which he had hired at Putney -- a mansion still existing, and locally known as "Bowling Green House." vThere, in a spacious and sunny room, from which one may still look out on Pitt's green lawns and avenue of limes, he was destined to die. On the 9th of January he set out home. So feeble was he, that it took three days to compass the journey. He arrived at his villa on the 12th. As he entered it, his eye rested on the map of Europe. "Roll up that map," he said; "it will not be wanted these ten years."

Death of Pitt

On the 14th Wellesley, just returned from his great proconsulate, had a long interview: the last, for no one again saw Pitt but his immediate family, among whom Rose and Tomline may be included, and his physicians. He fainted indeed, while Wellesley was in the room. That old friend felt it his duty on leaving Putney to go to Lord Grenville, and warn him that Pitt was at the point of death. Wellesley found him drafting resolutions of censure, and concerting the fiercest opposition to the Minister. On learning the news Grenville broke into a passion of grief. It is difficult to test the temperature of tears, but it is easy to believe that these were both bitter and sincere.

Party hostilities were at once suspended. There was, indeed, nothing left to fight against. Fox displayed a generous emotion: "Mentem mortalia tangunt," he said.

The address to the Crown was agreed to, and the House adjourned. As the Speaker and members were proceeding with this address to the palace on the 23d (January 1806), they learned that Pitt had died early that morning.

From the time that he saw Wellesley, he had gradually declined. He could take little or no nourishment. Early on the morning of Wednesday the 22d, Tomline had thought it his duty to warn his old pupil that death was imminent, and to offer the last sacrament.

Pitt declined, as he had not strength; but he joined earnestly in prayer. He threw himself, he said, on the mercy of God and trusted that the innocence of his life might plead for him: the same thought which had solaced the last moments of the Emperor Julian. He then bade a solemn farewell to Hester Stanhope, the niece who had kept house for him, and who was to develop so fierce an eccentricity. To her he gave his blessing; "Dear soul," he said, "I know she loves me."

All Wednesday night he was delirious. His wandering mind revolved round the mission of Harrowby, whom he had sent, as has been said, to fix the fickle energies of the Court of Berlin, the last hope of Europe. He constantly asked the direction of the wind.

"East, that will do, that will bring him quick," he murmured. At midnight the end was near; at half-past four it came. A short time previously, with that strange recovery which so often precedes death, he said with a clear voice, "O my country! How I leave my country!" After that last note of anguish he neither spoke nor moved again.

A motion was at once brought forward to provide a State funeral, and a public monument in Westminster Abbey; it was agreed to by 258 to 89 votes. Fox, in spite of a personal appeal from Grenville, deemed it his duty to oppose it. Such an opposition was in the highest degree distasteful to a nature eminently generous. But, after a parliamentary opposition of twenty years, he could not stultify himself by paying honour to Pitt as an "excellent statesman." No one can blame such a course, though abstention had been perhaps less painful and more dignified.

He had, however, an opportunity of showing the purity of the principle on which he proceeded. It was proposed to vote £ 40,000 to pay Pitt's debts, to award life pensions of twelve hundred a year to Lady Hester Stanhope, and of six hundred a year to each of her two sisters.

"Never in my life," said Fox, "did I give a vote with more satisfaction than I shall do this night in support of this motion." No wonder such a man had such friends.

A month after his death Pitt was laid in the Abbey by his father's side, amid a splendid pomp of public grief. "The statue of the father," said Wilberforce with fine feeling, "seemed to look with consternation at the vault that was opening to receive his favourite son."

"What sepulchre," exclaimed Wellesley, who was also present, "embosoms the remains of so much excellence and so much glory?"

The Ministry, as Rose had predicted, crumbled instantly to pieces. Hawkesbury was content with the Cinque Ports as his share of the great inheritance. Portland was not thought of. Castlereagh had the courage, but neither weight, nor standing, nor speaking power. The Sovereign appealed to them in vain; they were unanimously of opinion that their headless body contained no principle of vitality.

The King, without hope or resource, succumbed helplessly to fate. So was formed the ministry of "all the Talents," and, it may be added, all the incongruities. Fox and Addington, Grenville and the Lord Chief Justice of England, were the strange chiefs of this dubious fellowship. It is not now possible to discover the burning principles which had impelled these eminent men to fight Pitt to the death; for they at once abandoned the Catholics, and proceeded with the war. In any case, their Administration, after an inglorious year, came to a guileless end. Then succeeded a long government of which Portland was the first nominal head; and twenty years of much glory without, and utter darkness within.

Chapter XV: Character and Position of Pitt