Sheridan

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE COALITION KICKED forerunners; that Pitt's Treasury bench also presented the same spectacle of incongruous union.1 Once more he and Fox were thrown on their beam-ends, and twenty-two years had to elapse before they could resume office. But though the bell had tolled for the Coalition's funeral, it had...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE COALITION KICKED forerunners; that Pitt's Treasury bench also presented the same spectacle of incongruous union.1 Once more he and Fox were thrown on their beam-ends, and twenty-two years had to elapse before they could resume office. But though the bell had tolled for the Coalition's funeral, it had not yet been buried. A First Minister daring to govern in the teeth of an enormous majority in the House of Commons was a case that might well inspire hope and redouble their energy. If only they could prevent the King, or rather Pitt, from dissolving (though this was the constitutional course2), they might yet be revenged by making government impossible. The fallen angels had still a future: all was not lost. It is supposed that the old ministry must be reinstated. 1 Speech of Censure on Ministers, February 3, 1784, Speeches, Vol. I., p. 67; and cf. Wraxall, Vol. III., p. 287. 1 Lord Shelburne had so stated it some years before. Lord Somers's authority to the contrary could only apply to repeated dissolutions by the Crown, and the real recourse was to the nation. Cf. Lord J. Russell in Fox's Corr., Vol. II., pp. 229?331. CHAPTER III THE FIGHT WITH PITT (January, 1784?March, 1785) The Lion and the Unicorn were fighting for the Crown. A First Minister defying the Lower House and standing for the Lords and the nation?a House of Commons contradicting the country?such was the position when Parliament assembled after a brief Christmas recess. The constituent limb of the body politic was out of gear with the representative. Pitt had succeeded through backstairs influence, and yet Fox dreaded an appeal to the people. That is his worst impeachment. If the King had abused his prerogative in arbitrarily dismissing ministers, Fox had been equally high-handed in...