ith ease, would be found too heavy
for the strength of the nation. Those apprehensions might not perhaps
have been easily quieted by reason. But Pitt quieted them by a juggle.
He succeeded in persuading first himself, and then the whole nation,
his opponents included, that a new sinking fund, which, so far as it
differed from former sinking funds, differed for the worse, would, by
virtue of some mysterious power of propagation belonging to money, put
into the pocket of the public creditor great sums not taken out of the
pocket of the tax-payer. The country, terrified by a danger which was no
danger, hailed with delight and boundless confidence a remedy which was
no remedy. The minister was almost universally extolled as the greatest
of financiers. Meanwhile both the branches of the House of Bourbon
found that England was as formidable an antagonist as she had ever been.
France had formed a plan for reducing Holland to vassalage. But England
interposed; and France receded. Spain interrupted by violence the trade
of our merchants with the regions near the Oregon. But England armed;
and Spain receded. Within the island there was profound tranquillity.
The King was, for the first time, popular. During the twenty-three years
which had followed his accession he had not been loved by his subjects.
His domestic virtues were acknowledged. But it was generally thought
that the good qualities by which he was distinguished in private
life were wanting to his political character. As a Sovereign, he was
resentful, unforgiving, stubborn, cunning. Under his rule the country
had sustained cruel disgraces and disasters; and every one of those
disgraces and disasters was imputed to his strong antipathies, and
to his perverse obstinacy in the wrong. One statesman after another
complained that he had been induced by royal caresses, intreaties,
and promises, to undertake the direction of affairs at a difficult
conjuncture, and that, as soon as he had, not without sullying his
fame, and alienating his best friends, served the turn for which he
was wanted, his ungrateful master began to intrigue against him, and
to canvass against him. Grenville, Rockingham, Chatham, men of widely
different characters, but all three upright and high-spirited, agreed
in thinking that the Prince under whom they had successively held the
highest place in government was one of the most insincere of mankind.
His confidence was reposed, they said, not in those known a