yet nothing could get him to depart from the ground he took, that nothing less than a moral certainty of a majority in the House of Commons could make him undertake the task; for that it would be dishonourable not to succeed if attempted; all I could obtain was that he should again try, but as fixed a declaration that if he cannot meet with what he thinks certainty, he shall decline. I have therefore directed the Chancellor to attend after the drawing-room, to see, if he declines, what is the next best step; for I can never think of putting myself into the chains of a desperate faction."[1]
While the King was engaged in searching for a Minister, Pitt decided, with the concurrence of Shelburne, to push on the Bill which proposed to regulate intercourse with the United States, pending the conclusion of the commercial treaty which Oswald and Strachey were to have negotiated. The measure was one of obvious urgency, and was framed in concurrence with the liberal principles which had actuated Jay and Oswald in their conversations on the subject at Paris, and it relieved the commerce between the United States and England of the burden of the Navigation Acts. The introduction of it however was the signal for opposition from the Whigs, nor was it able to make any material progress.[2] Meanwhile no success had attended the endeavours of the King to form a Ministry. "It is no fault of mine," he wrote to Shelburne, "that no leader in the House of Commons is yet appointed; the laying myself at the feet of any party is a step I can never stoop to; want of zeal has till now prevented others, but I am not without hopes soon to be able to name a proper one."[3]
In this dilemma the King on March the 9th, after seeking advice in various quarters,[4] summoned Lord Ashburton, for whom he had conceived a strong regard during the short period of their official connection. Of
- ↑ The King to Shelburne, February 27th, 1783.
- ↑ Parliamentary History, xxiii. 602, 640, 724. Lindsay, History of Merchant Shipping, ii. 346. Ultimately another Bill was brought in by Fox merely repealing the Prohibitory Acts, and passed into law. Parliamentary History, xxiii. 728, 894.
- ↑ The King to Shelburne, March 6th, 1783.
- ↑ Life of Lord Kenyon, by the Hon. G. T. Kenyon, 99, and see infra, 320.
