and when at last Pitt laid his scheme before him, as he thought for the first time, he met with an invincible opposition. The King declined to discuss a proposition which thus tended to destroy "the groundwork of our happy Constitution," and he would do no more than promise that, if Pitt would “stave off the only question whereon he feared they could never agree, he would

certainly abstain from talking on the subject."

There, briefly, is the whole matter. At open variance with the King, what could Pitt do but resign? resign? As Lord Rosebery most admirably says, "what war is to kings, resignation is to ministers it is the ultima ratio." Pitt had determined to give a measure of relief to the Catholics. He had been prevented by treachery from approaching his King in his own way and at his own time. He

had been confronted with an opinion inflexible as his own, and he believed it incompatible with his pride and dignity to yield. Many a Minister has resigned with far less provocation, and that Pitt had no thought beyond Catholic Emancipation is clear from his intimate conversation and correspondWhen he spoke and wrote to Rose or Wilberforce he uttered no word of place or power.1 Single-minded, now

ence.

1 Lord Sidmouth had no great love for Pitt, and yet he put no sinister meaning to Pitt's resignation, as is evident from the following conversation with Croker :

"I asked whether the Catholic question "-thus Croker wrote in 1838-" was not rather the colour than the cause of Pitt's resignation, and whether his real object was not to have peace made, and then to return to power. Lord Sidmouth said no; that the Catholic question was the real, and, he believed, the sole cause of Pitt's retirement. 'In fact, I cannot call it retirement, for the King positively dismissed him,' when Pitt in the closet declared that he could not recede from his proposition for Emancipation. He added some details (from

as always, he accepted his defeat and resigned his generalship. And thus was brought to an unhappy conclusion a period of office, of which our annals show no rival in length of time, in magnanimous devotion, in splendid achievement. The King, knowing that it was not in his power to reward so faithful a servant, addressed a letter to "my dear Pitt," and by this unique form, upon a unique occasion, showed that if he were obstinate he was yet a king.

the King) of Pitt's last interview on this occasion, and concluded by saying that the King's dismissal of Pitt (though kind in manner) was decisive in tone, and took him (Pitt) quite by surprise."

CHAPTER VI.

THE LAST YEARS.

PITT's resignation, though its motive is clear, was none the less deplorable. He left the service of his country at a moment of crisis, and he left it for an insufficient reason. It is true that, having once urged Catholic Emancipation upon the King, he could not have drawn back. His office and his independence forbade submission. But need he have put the King's forbearance to the test? The claims of the Catholics were not pressing. As we have seen, no scruple of honour was involved: the

It

Minister had merely expressed sympathy; he had given no pledge. Politics is not, like mathematics, an exact science. The justice of a measure is an imperfect excuse for bringing it forward. was Pitt's own favourite doctrine that opportunity was the essence of administration. None knew better than he that what is profitable to-day may be dangerous to-morrow, and the hazardous question of Emancipation might have been deferred until the time of peace.

When so much remained to do, it was idle to indulge in controversial legislation. Jacobinism still held Europe in its grip, and would, if it could, have fastened upon England. There was but one man competent to fight Bonaparte, and that was Pitt, and we cannot look back upon the events of 1801 without a pitiful regret. Moreover, though the charges of extrava