The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria

Chapter 597: COALITION BETWEEN PITT AND ADDINGTON.

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About This Book

The volume traces British political, parliamentary, and military developments from the accession of George III through the early nineteenth century, chronicling changes of ministry and cabinet, debates over colonial taxation and the American conflict, parliamentary controversies involving figures such as Wilkes and Warren Hastings, questions of Catholic relief and slave-trade abolition, and responses to the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, including major naval and continental campaigns, the union with Ireland, and domestic legislation on finance, civil liberties, and parliamentary reform.

COALITION BETWEEN PITT AND ADDINGTON.

At the close of this year Pitt felt his ministerial condition to be one of extreme difficulty. Under these circumstances he was compelled to make peace with Addington, who had carried with him a considerable force to the mixed opposition. It is said that the king insisted upon this reconciliation; and it appears to be proved, not only by expressions used by Pitt himself in hisletters to Wilberforce, but from the fact that Addington was raised to the peerage as Viscount Sidmouth of Sidmouth. He was brought into the cabinet as president of the council, in the room of the Duke of Portland, who resigned office on account of age and infirmity. At the same time Lord Mulgrave was appointed secretary of state for the foreign department, in the place of Lord Harrowby, who was suffering from a severe illness; and the Earl of Buckinghamshire took Lord Mulgrave’s post, as chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.