How strong this feeling was in the public mind appeared signally on one great occasion.In the autumn of 1788 the King became insane.The opposition, eager for office, committed the great indiscretion of asserting that the heir apparent had, by the fundamental laws of England, a right to be Regent with the full powers of royalty.Pitt, on the other hand, maintained it to be the constitutional doctrine that, when a Sovereign is, by reason of infancy, disease, or absence, incapable of exercising the regal functions, it belongs to the Estates of the realm to determine who shall be the vicegerent and with what portion of the executive authority such vicegerent shall be entrusted.Along and violent contest followed, in which Pitt was supported by the great body of the people with as much enthusiasm as during the first months of his administration.Tories with one voice applauded him for defending the sick-bed of a virtuous and unhappy Sovereign against a disloyal faction and an undutiful son.Not a few Whigs applauded him for asserting the authority of Parliaments and the principles of the Revolution, in opposition to a doctrine which seemed to have too much affinity with the servile theory of indefeasible hereditary right.The middle class, always zealous on the side of decency and the domestic virtues, looked forward with dismay to a reign resembling that of Charles II.The palace, which had now been, during thirty years, the pattern of an English home, would be a public nuisance, a school of profligacy.To the good King's repast of mutton and lemonade, despatched at three o'clock, would succeed midnight banquets, from which the guests would be carried home speechless.To the backgammon board at which the good King played for a little silver with his equerries, would succeed faro tables from which young patricians who had sate down rich would rise up beggars.The drawing-room, from which the frown of the Queen had repelled a whole generation of frail beauties, would now be again what it had been in the days of Barbara Palmer and Louisa de Querouaille.Nay, severely as the public reprobated the Prince's many illicit attachments, his one virtuous attachment was reprobated more severely still.Even in grave and pious circles his Protestant mistresses gave less scandal than his Popish wife.That he must be Regent nobody ventured to deny.
But he and his friends were so unpopular that Pitt could, with general approbation, propose to limit the powers of the Regent by restrictions to which it would have been impossible to subject a Prince beloved and trusted by the country.Some interested men, fully expecting a change of administration, went over to the opposition.But the majority, purified by these desertions, closed its ranks, and presented a more firm array than ever to the enemy.In every division Pitt was victorious.When at length, after a stormy interregnum of three months, it was announced, on the very eve of the inauguration of the Regent, that the King was himself again, the nation was wild with delight.On the evening of the day on which His Majesty resumed his functions, a spontaneous illumination, the most general that had ever been seen in England, brightened the whole vast space from Highgate to Tooting, and from Hammersmith to Greenwich.On the day on which he returned thanks in the cathedral of his capital, all the horses and carriages within a hundred miles of London were too few for the multitudes which flocked to see him pass through the streets.A second illumination followed, which was even superior to the first in magnificence.Pitt with difficulty escaped from the tumultuous kindness of an innumerable multitude which insisted on drawing his coach from Saint Paul's Churchyard to Downing Street.This was the moment at which his fame and fortune may be said to have reached the zenith.His influence in the closet was as great as that of Carr or Villiers had been.His dominion over the Parliament was more absolute than that of Walpole of Pelham had been.He was at the same time as high in the favour of the populace as ever Wilkes or Sacheverell had been.Nothing did more to raise his character than his noble poverty.It was well-known that, if he had been dismissed from office after more than five years of boundless power, he would hardly have carried out with him a sum sufficient to furnish the set of chambers in which, as he cheerfully declared, he meant to resume the practice of the law.His admirers, however, were by no means disposed to suffer him to depend on daily toil for his daily bread.The voluntary contributions which were awaiting his acceptance in the city of London alone would have sufficed to make him a rich man.But it may be doubted whether his haughty spirit would have stooped to accept a provision so honourably earned and so honourably bestowed.
To such a height of power and glory had this extraordinary man risen at twenty-nine years of age.And now the tide was on the turn.Only ten days after the triumphal procession to Saint Paul's, the States-General of France, after an interval of a hundred and seventy-four years, met at Versailles.
The nature of the great Revolution which followed was long very imperfectly understood in this country.Burke saw much further than any of his contemporaries: but whatever his sagacity descried was refracted and discoloured by his passions and his imagination.More than three years elapsed before the principles of the English administration underwent any material change.
