Burt A. The Evolution of the British Empire and Commonwealth From the American Revolution
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How
the
American
Revolution
Released
a
British
Revolution
5
established.
Indeed
it
ceased
to
develop
and
began
to
degenerate
with
the fall
of
Walpole.
During
the
next
forty
years,
which
brings
us
to
the
end
of
the
American
Revolution,
the
degeneration
passed
through
two
stages.
Both
were marked
by
the
use of
political
jobbery
modern
politicians
prefer
to
call it
patronage
to
control
parliament
and,
through parlia-
ment,
to
run
the
government.
It
had been
used
before,
but never
so
thoroughly
as
during
this
period,
when
parliament
virtually
lost its
independence.
For the first
two
decades,
a
small number of
baronial
Whig
families ruled
the
land. The
ministries
they
formed had
only
nominal
heads,
sometimes
improperly
called
prime
ministers,
and
were
as
inefficient
as
they
were
corrupt.
When
at
last
the
country
stood
in
dire
need
of
a
strong
and able
man to direct
the
war
that smashed
the
old French
Empire,
an
overwhelming
tide of
public opinion
forced
the
admission of the elder William
Pitt into the
cabinet.
Yet one
of
the
old crowd was still
nominal
head
of
the cabinet and
real
manager
of
the whole business
of
patronage.
The
second
stage
began
with the
accession
of
George
III in
1760,
and
it
was worse than the first.
He turned
things
upside
down.
Instead
of
being
the
puppet
of
his
ministers,
he made
them
his
puppets.
The
Whig
bosses had shown him how to do
it
by
patronage.
That was the
key
to
power,
and
by
law
it
belonged
to
him. He
took
it
back from
the hands
into which
his
predecessors
had
allowed
it to
fall,
and
he
used
it
to
break
the
Whig
oligarchy
and
to
put
himself
in their
place.
By
a most shameless distribution of rewards
and
punishments,
George
III built
up
his own
party
in
parliament.
It was
composed
of
Tory
remnants
and
Whig
refuse,
and was
known
as the
King's
Friends
"as
if
the
body
of the
people
were
the
king's
enemies,"
said
one of
the
leading
writers
of
the
day.
With this
block of votes
at his
command,
the
king
could
turn
out
of
office
any ministry
he
did
not
like.
None
suited
him
exactly
until
he
got
Lord
North to
form
a
government
for
him in
1770,
the
government
against
which
America
appealed
to
arms,
the
government
that
fought
and
lost the American
wai:.
Now
we are
in a
position
to
examine
the
British revolution that
came
at
the
end of the
war. The
war
shattered
George
Ill's
system
of
personal
direction
and
control,
and
it freed
parliament.
This was of
more
momentous
significance
than it
seems,
unless we
remember how
the
British
constitution
was
formed.
Unlike
the
American
Constitution,
the British
constitution
was
not
6
CHAPTER
ONE:
die conscious
creation
of
any
body
of
men,
nor
was
it
ever
set
forth
in
a written
document
and
so
it
is
spelled
without
a
capital.
The
British
constitution
was
an
unconscious
growth,
and
a
slow
one,
taking
its
shape
from
the force
of
circumstances
like
a
tree,
which
accommo-
dates its roots
and
branches
to
the
room
it
finds
in
soil and air.
No
law
established
the
cabinet
or the
office
of
prime
minister;
no law
has
ever
defined
them
or
their
powers;
no
law
has ever
said
they
must
be
responsible
to
parliament.
They
just
grew
to
be
what
they
are.
And
so
is it
with
the
constitution
as
a
whole,
which
is
simply
what
worked
and
continued to
work.
But
it did
not
always
work
as
it
does
now.
George
Ill's
personal
system,
though
a
complete
perversion
of
what
we
know
as
parliamentary
and
cabinet
government,
was
working
so
well that it
might
have
been
established
as the
permanent
constitution
if
the
colonies
had not
revolted,
or if
their resistance
had
been
crushed.
Then Britain
might
have
settled
down
to
be
ruled
by
the
king draped
in the robes of
parliament,
instead of
by
parliament
draped
in
the
robes of the
king.
It
is
difficult
for
us to
imagine
that
this
might
have
occurred,
be-
cause
our
whole
thinking
is so
deeply
colored
by
the established fact.
But
we
should not
forget
that
government
by
the
people
has
been,
and
still
is,
a rather rare
exception
in the
world.
The
eighteenth
century
was
an
age
of
absolute
monarchy.
It is true
that since that
time,
during
the
hundred
years
between the fall of
Napoleon
and
the
outbreak
of
the
First World
War,
parliaments
at
last became
fashionable;
but even
then
they
were
commonly
used to cover the
nakedness of
irrespon-
sible
power.
The
Prussian
diet,
the
German
reichstag,
the
Russian
duma,
and
the
Japanese
diet
were
striking examples.
And
after the
First
World
War,
a
new
generation
of
dictators arose who
shamelessly
scorned to
wear
anything
but a
bare
minimum
of
clothing
and some-
times
discarded
even
that.
We
who have
been
born
and
nurtured in
freedom
are
apt
to think
of
ourselves as
following
the
rule
rather than
the
exception,
or
to
thank
God we are
not
as
other men
when we
see
the
difference. In
this,
we are
just
like the
British
and
for that
matter
like
other
peoples
too.
But
to
return
to
the
point
of our
discussion,
the
liberty
gained
when
one
king
lost his
head
and a
second his
throne
was
finally
secured
when
a
third
lost
his
colonies;
and
so
the
British
owe
a
tremendous
debt
to
their
American
cousins,
whose
ancestors
precipitated
this
British
revolution.
If
some
British
are
inclined
to
forget
it,
so
are
many
How
the
American
Revolution
Released a British Revolution 7
of
us
inclined
to
forget
an
enormous
debt over which the American
Revolution
has
cast
a
veil
the
debt
we
owe
to earlier
generations
of
Englishmen
who,
from
the
days
of
Magna
Carta,
slowly
and
painfully
evolved the
tradition of
self-government
and
personal
liberty
that
was
transplanted
to
American soil
by
English
colonists.
There
is
something
deeply
satisfying
in the
sight
of British
liberty
being
unintentionally
rescued
by
its
American
offspring.
The
significance
of this British revolution becomes
more
apparent
when
we
look
at it
more
closely
and
follow it
through.
Though
many
people
in
Britain,
notably
Edmund
Burke and
Charles
James
Fox,
warmly
sympathized
with the
American
cause
from
the
very
beginning
as
did
many
Americans with the British cause
the
king
and
his
policy
were
by
no means
unpopular
at
home
until after
the
war
began
to turn
against
the British
at
Saratoga.
Indeed
it
is
very
probable
that
if
a
democratic
election could have been
held
at
any
time
between
1770
and
1777,
Lord
North would
have
lost
none of
his
large
majority
in
parliament.
At it
was,
he
could
count
on the votes
of
members
who
were
neither
bought
nor coerced the not inconsiderable
body
of inde-
pendent
country
gentlemen
who would
support
any
administration
that was not too
obviously incompetent.
They
were
quite
content
with
the
royal management
of
parliament
and
direction
of
the
government.
Of
course
the
Whigs,
who formed
the
opposition,
did not like it
at
all;
but
they
were
a
divided
and
discouraged minority.
Such
was
the
situation until
growing
failure
in
the
conduct of
the
war discredited
the
government,
as it would
have discredited almost
any government.
The
Whigs
helped
by
a
furious
and
sustained
attack
upon
the
royal policy
for
causing
as well as
mismanaging
the
war;
and
outside
parliament
something
that
had
never been
seen in the
coun-
try
before
public
meetings
were
held
to demand
reform
that
would
cut
at
the
roots
of
the
king's
evil
system,
and
to thank
the
politicians
who
had
tried to
prevent
or
arrest the
American war.
In
the
spring
of
1780,
a
Whig
member
of
the House of
Commons
moved
"that
the
influence
of
the Crown
has
increased,
is
increasing,
and
ought
to
be
diminished,"
and
the resolution
was carried.
The
coun-
try
gentry
were
deserting
to
the
opposition.
In the
following September
the
king
suddenly
dissolved
parliament
to
repair
his
shaking
majority;
and
he
spent
at
least
twice
as much
money
on the
ensuing
election,
so
he
told
his
minister,
as
he
had on
any
other.
Nor was
this all he
spent.
Windsor
was
persuaded
not to re-elect
Admiral
Keppel,
a mem-
8
CHAPTER
ONE
:
ber
of
the
opposition,
after
George
III visited
a
local
silk merchant's
shop
and
there
announced:
"The
queen
wants
a
gown,
wants
a
gown.
NoKeppel!
NoKeppel!"
Lord North
hung
on
for another
year
and
a
half,
subordinating
his
own
judgment
to
that
of
the
king;
but he
knew
he
was
losing
the
political
battle as
well as the
war. When the
news
of
Yorktown
hit
him,
he
behaved as if he
had been
shot
throwing
up
his
arms
and
repeat-
edly
crying,
"Oh,
God! It is
all
over."
It
was
nearly
all over for
him
and his
royal
master.
They
suffered
a
worse
defeat,
if that
were
possi-
ble,
early
in
March
1782,
when
the
House of Commons
adopted
a
resolution
branding
as
enemies of
the
country
all who should
advise
or
attempt
the
further
prosecution
of the war in America.
A
fortnight
later
North
resigned,
and
with
him
fell
the
king's
personal system
of
government.
It
was the
third
time
the
royal power
had
fallen,
and
now
its
revival
was
made
impossible.
This
was
the
work of the
Whigs,
upon
whom
George
III had
to
call to
form
a
ministry.
The
party
that had
once
taught
him
how to
rule
had
since been
taught by
him
that this
was
not
the
way
to rule.
It
was
too
dangerous,
and
they
promptly passed
three
much-needed
reforms.
One
was
a law
excluding government
contrac-
tors from
the
House
of
Commons,
where
North
had
bought
too
many
votes
with
fat
government
jobs.
A
second
limited
the
pension
list
and
abolished
a
large
number
of
salaried
offices that
required
no
real
duties
other
than
voting
for
the
government.
"Placemen,"
as
those
who
held
them
were
called,
occupied
a
quarter
of the
seats in
the
lower
house.
The
third
reform
disfranchised
revenue
officers,
who
had
been
required
to
vote for
government
candidates
under
pain
of
dismissal a
serious
thing
when
they
formed
almost a
sixth
of
the
limited
electorate
and
could
swing
the
election
in
about
seventy
constituencies.
These
three
measures
effectively
ended the
flagrant
corruption
that
had
perverted
the
parliamentary
system
of
government.
The
reform
of
the
system
itself,
to
make
it
more
representative
of
the
nation,
was
also
considered at
this
time.
There
was
a
certain
public
demand
for
it,
expressed
by
renewed
public
meetings
and
by
quite
a
number
of
petitions
to
the
House
of
Commons;
and
within
parliament
it
had
strong
advocates
among
the
Whigs,
But
the
majority
of
that
party
were
opposed
to
it,
and a
succession
of
what
might
be
called
political
accidents
put
it
off
for
half
a
century.
Yet
the
failure
to
change
the
basis
on
which
the
House
of
Commons
was
elected
did
not
prevent
How
the American Revolution
Released
a
British
Revolution
9
an
interesting
and
most
important
development
in
the
government
of
the
country.
The slow
growth
of
the
British
constitution,
which
had
only begun
to
take
its
modern
shape
in
Walpole's
day
and
then had
been
twisted
out
of all
recognition,
soon
revived.
The
constitution,
however,
pos-
sessed
no
more
than
the
potentialities
of
what
it has
since come
to
be.
Though
the
king
had lost
his
controlling power,
he still
exercised
more
than
a
little
influence,
which
was
recognized
as
quite
proper;
and
the
problem
of how
to
carry
on the
government
had
yet
to
be
worked
out
by
experience.
The
legal
theory
did not
fit
the facts.
If
we
could
go
back and
question
intelligent
Englishmen
of that
day
about their constitution
we should
get
many
astonishing
answers.
They
would tell
us
that
it was the
freest
and best
in the
world,
and
that
its
supreme
virtue
lay
in
its
mixture
of the
three
historic
principles
underlying
all
government:
monarchy,
aristocracy
(the
House
of
Lords),
and
democracy
(the
House
of
Commons).
They might
also
tell us
something
that would
sound
strangely
familiar
about
the
bal-
ance and
separation
of
powers.
America
got
the
idea
from Montes-
quieu,
the
most
penetrating
political
philosopher
of
eighteenth
century
France,
who took
it
from
the
English
and
thought
it was the
essence
of
their form
of
government.
They
still
believed
it was.
But
if we
asked them
to
explain
it,
we should
find
ourselves
suspecting
that it
was
very
like
a divine
mystery
to
them;
and so
it was.
Indeed,
not
until
well
on in
the nineteenth
century
were
the facts
of
cabinet
government
so
firmly
established
that a
recognizable
theory
of its func-
tioning
was
at
last
formulated.
So
we come
to
a conclusion
that
has
startled
many
people:
the British
constitution,
though
compounded
of
ancient
elements,
is
really
more
modern
than
the
American,
which,
by
the
way,
is much
older
than
any
other
in the
world
today.
Political
confusion
followed
the
fall of
the
king's
political
system.
For.two
years
it
continued,
until
a
decisive
general
election
cleared
it
up.
Then at
long
last
the
development
of
parliamentary
government
was
resumed
under
the
leadership
of
a most
remarkable
young
man,
who
definitely
established
the office
of
prime
minister,
gave
the
cabinet
a
solidity
it
had
never
possessed,
and
based
his
power
upon
a
well-
organized
parliamentary
majority
supported
by public
opinion.
This man
was William
Pitt the
younger.
From
his earliest
years
he had
been
carefully
trained
by
his
illustrious
father
for a
parlia-
mentary
career,
and this was
his
consuming
ambition.
While still
a
10
CHAPTER
ONE:
lad
in his teens
he
haunted
the
gallery
of
the House
of
Commons,
and
he was
already
master of
its
ways
when,
at
the
age
of
twenty-one,
family
influence
provided
him
with
a
seat
in it.
That
was
in
January
1781,
and almost
at
once
his
genius
elevated
him
above
his fellows.
After
his first
speech,
one of
his
seniors called
him
"a
chip
of the old
block,"
which
immediately
drew
from
one
of
the
greatest
members
the
retort: "He is not
a
chip
of the old block:
he
is the
old
block
itself!"
Aligned
with his late father
s
friends
in
opposition,
he
denounced
the
American war
as
"most
accursed, wicked,
barbarous,
cruel, unnatural,
unjust,
and
diabolical."
In the
summer of
1782,
when
only
twenty-
three,
he
became chancellor
of the
exchequer
and
government
leader
in the House of
Commons.
As
no
administration
could
remain
long
in
office
during
this
period
of
confusion,
he
was out
again
in
the
spring,
but
only
for a few months.
In December
1783,
when
the
king
dismissed
the
next
ministry,
a
strange
and
unpopular
coalition
of
Fox and
North,
he
called
upon
this
young
man of
twenty-four
to
form
a
government.
Pitt at once
accepted
though
it
meant
severing
his connection with most of
the
Whigs
and
facing
a
hostile
majority
in
the House of
Commons
with
the brilliant
Charles
James
Fox to lead them.
They
regarded
Pitt's
taking
office
as
"a
boyish
freak"
and
laughed
at his
"mince-pie
administration
which
would
end
with the
Christmas
holidays,"
but
they
underestimated
his
courage
and his
ability.
He
fought
them almost
single-handed,
for
all
the other
members
of
his
cabinet
were
in the
House
of
Lords,
where
he
had a
safe
majority;
and
the
way
he
conducted
himself
won
the
admiration
of the
country
as
well as
the
eternal
gratitude
of
the
king,
who
loathed Fox as the
inspired
child
of the
devil.
In the
general
election
that was
held
in
the
spring
of
1784,
the
nation
rallied back
of
Pitt,
giving
him
a
thumping majority;
and
"Fox's
Martyrs"
became
a
byword
of
derision.
For
seventeen
more
years
Pitt
remained in
office
longer
than
any
successor.
When
he
resignejl,
it
was over a
difference
not
with
parliament
but
with
the
king,
whose
will he
would not
cross;
and
then,
after
an
interval
of
three
years,
public opinion
thrust
him
back
into
office.
He
died,
still
in
office,
at
the
early
age
of
forty-six.
What a
record!
Is it
any
wonder
that
no
other man
had
more,
if
as
much,
to
do
with
shaping
the
constitution?
Pitt
shaped
the
constitution
without,
of
course,
being
conscious
of
doing
so
by
working
it
as it
had
never
been
worked
before,
and
get-
ting
better
results.
Until
his
day
only
one
minister
had
ever
made
himself
the
real
master
of
his
colleagues,
and he
had
been
turned
out
of
office
with
curses
for
having
monopolized
such
power.
During
the
How the
American
Revolution
Released
a British
Revolution
1
1
forty years
that
elapsed
between
the
fall of
Walpole
and the accession
of
the
younger
Pitt,
the
title
of
prime
minister
gathered respectability,
but the men to
whom
it
was
given
did
not
rule.
Lord
North refused
the
title.
Pitt
accepted
it,
and
he
soon
packed
it
full of
meaning.
He
made the
office
a
permanent
institution.
Thenceforth the
cabinet
was
not
just
a
collection
of ministers
picked
from
parliament
to
manage
the
executive
departments
of
government,
each more
or
less
independent
of the
others;
it was an
organic body
that was
coordinated
by
its
head,
the
prime
minister. Far from
being
divided,
as
in the
United
States,
all
power
was
concentrated,
and
responsibility
for its
exercise
was
focused
in this
one
man.
As the
real
head
of
the
executive,
he
was
responsible
for
the
administration
of
the
laws. And he
could
never
plead
that the
laws
tied his
hands,
for he
was
also
the real
leader
of the
legislature
and as such he was
respon-
sible for
the
making
of the
laws.
Conversely,
he
could
never excuse
himself as the
leader
of the
legislature
for
any
faulty
application
of
a
law without
condemning
himself
as
head of the
executive.
Many
Americans have
found
it
difficult to
understand
how
such a
strange system
could work
just
as
many
an
Englishman
has wondered
how it
was
possible
to
get
anything
done under the American
system
with its
separation
of
powers,
its
divided
responsibility,
and
its
depend-
ence
on the
interpretation
of
the courts. Here we
hit
upon
another
striking
and
most
fundamental difference between the
two
constitu-
tions. When
explained,
it removes a common
American obstacle
to an
understanding
of
the
British
system.
No act
of
the British
parliament
is
ever
subjected
to
judicial
review. That
would
be unthinkable
to
the
people
of
Britain. Their
courts
naturally
have to
interpret
the law
as
enacted
by parliament,
but
they
can
never
question
its
constitutional
validity.
The
nation assembled
in
parliament
is
absolutely
supreme.
It
can
do
anything
except
make a
man a
woman or a
woman
a
man,
as
the
old
saying goes.
Its nominal head is the
king,
but its effective
head
is the
prime
minister.
Hence
his enormous
power.
Another
peculiar
feature of
the British
system,
which
further
ex-
plains
the
position
of
the
prime
minister,
is
that
general
elections are
not held
at
fixed
intervals
as in America.
At
any
time
parliament
can
be
dissolved,
which
means
that a new
House of Commons
has
to
be
elected before
parliament
can
sit
again.
There
is, however,
a
legal
limit
to
the
life of
any parliament,
and
it is set
by
its
own
act.
For
almost
two
centuries it was seven
years,
being
reduced
to the
present
limit
of
five
years
in 1911. Two
parliaments
have since
extended
their
own
lives
in the two World
Wars,
because
the British did not wish to
12
CHAPTER
ONE:
be
upset
by
a
general
election
in
wartime
but
the
seven
years
of the
older
law
were
never
exceeded
until
the Second
World
War.
From
Pitt's
day
it has
been
the
rule for
the
prime
minister,
acting
through
the
king,
to dissolve
parliament
whenever
he
sees
fit,
and this
contributes
greatly
to the
smooth
working
of the
British
system.
It
gives
the
prime
minister
a
disciplinary
check
upon
members
of
the
House
of
Commons,
for at
any
time
he
can
turn
them
all
out to face
their electors.
Pitt,
however,
had
little
if
any
occasion
to
crack this
whip,
which had
always
been
in
the
hands
of
the
king.
At
first
glance
it looks
like
a
dangerous
weapon
in the
hands
of
the
prime
minister,
but it is
not,
for
the House
has a
corresponding
check
upon
him.
By
refusing
to follow
him,
the Commons
can
force
him
out
of office
unless
he,
by appealing
to the
people
in
a
general
election,
can
get
a
new
house
that
will
follow him.
In
practice,
this balance
of checks
makes for
greater
and more con-
tinuous
responsibility
all
round,
and
preserves
the
essential
harmony
between
executive and
legislature.
Though
the
prime
minister is thus
all-powerful,
and
though
he
holds
office for
an
indefinite
period
with-
out ever
being
elected to
it
by
the
people,
he
can be removed at
any
time
and
not
just
at
stated intervals.
Some
of
Pitt's successors
have
not
been able to last
a
year.
Pitt
never
lost
the
public
confidence
given
him in
the
spring
of
1784,
but
he
recognized
that
this was not
enough
to
maintain
him
in
power.
He
freely
admitted that he
also
had to have the
royal
confi-
dence,
a
condition
that did
not
pass
away
until
the
Reform
Bill
of
1832.
Rarely,
however,
did the
king
interfere,
as
he
did
when
he
caused
Pitt's one
resignation
by
opposing
the
grant
of
the
franchise
to
Roman
Catholics.
What
kept
the
royal
influence
to
a
minimum
was
practical
necessity;
and,
as
we
shall
see in a
later
chapter,
practical
necessity
finally
eliminated it.
This
was
characteristically
British.
A
cheap
wit
once
said
that
statesmen
can
be
distinguished
from
politicians
by
the fact
that the
former
are
dead. It
is
doubtful if
this
was
any
truer
in
Pitt's
day
than
it
is
in
ours.
He
was a
great
statesman
and a
consummate
politician.
Though
he
entered
public
life
as
a
Whig,
his
position
as
prime
minister
rested
upon
the
support
of
the
Tory
party,
which
he
recreated in
1784.
No
longer
did
it
stand,
as
it
had
done,
for
the
controlling
power
of
the
Crown;
and
not
yet
had
it
become
what
the
French
Revolution
made
it,
a
party
of
blind
reaction.
Pitt
was
by
nature
a
reformer.
When
he
came
into
power
he
was
already
known
as the
most
hopeful
champion
of
parliamentary
reform,
How
the
American Revolution
Released a
British Revolution
13
and
as
such
he won
the
votes of
many
independent
electors
in
the
spring
of
1784.
But the
politician
in him doubted
whether
he
could
persuade
parliament
to reform its
electoral
system,
even
if
he made
this
the
issue in
a new
general
election;
and
so,
after
an
ineffectual
effort
to introduce
reform in the
following
year,
he
dropped
the
subject.
Another
reform that
he
espoused,
with much
greater
persistence,
was
the abolition of
the slave trade.
It
was
Pitt
who directed
Wilber-
force,
his
old
Cambridge
friend
and
fellow
member
of
the
Commons,
to
lead
the cause and
thereby
win fame.
It
was
Pitt's
parliamentary
committee
whose
investigations
lifted
the lid
off
the traffic
and let
loose
an
awful
smell.
This
helped
him
to
pass
an
act
curbing
the abuses
of
the
trade;
and
it
inspired
several
bills,
including
one
of
his
own,
to
suppress
it
entirely.
He
dared
not
make
it
a
government
measure,
on
which
he
would
stand
or
fall,
for
the West
Indian
planters'
influence
was too
strong
in
parliament
and even
in the
cabinet.
As
it
was,
his
pressing
for
this
reform
alienated
quite
a
number
of
his
followers.
It
was
not
until
1807,
the
year
after
his
death,
that
the
cause
finally
triumphed.
Pitt
was also
a firm
believer
in the
gospel
according
to Adam
Smith.
In
1785
he
strove,
though
unsuccessfully,
to establish
free
trade
with
Ireland,
a
subject
that
we shall
discuss
by
itself;
and
in the
following
year
he
concluded
with France
a
treaty
that
went
very
far
in this direc-
tion
and
he
jammed
the
implementing
legislation
through parliament,
stirring
bitter
cries
that still
have
a familiar
ring.
But
the
great
fame of
Pitt the
reformer
springs
from
a
Herculean
task
that he
achieved.
He
found
the
administration
of
the
country
a
veritable
Augean
stable,
and
he
cleansed
it. Public
funds
to the amount
of
40,000,000
had
not
been
accounted
for.
Officials
had
continued
from
year
to
year,
and died
or otherwise
departed,
without
closing
their
accounts,
which
were
audited
loosely
or
not
at
all.
This was
only
one
manure
pile
he
removed.
The
tariff
was
a
tangled
mess,
a
single
article
being
burdened
with
numerous
customs
duties,
each
of
which
was
paid
into a
separate
fund,
requiring
multiple
bookkeeping,
He
swept
away
this
hopeless
com-
plexity
and
confusion
by
imposing
a
single
duty
to be
paid
into one
consolidated
fund,
on
which
the
national
debt
was
secured.
Hence the
British
abbreviation
"consols"
for
government
bonds.
Wholesale
smuggling
was
robbing
the
country
of
2,000,000
a
year,
when
the
revenue
was
only
14,000,000.
Tea
was
already
a
national
institution,
and
more
than
half of it
never
saw
a customs
14
CHAPTER
ONE
officer,
except
when he
drank
it,
so
small
was the
risk
and so
great
the
profit
of
importing
it
illegally.
This ceased to
pay
when
Pitt
passed
a
"hovering
act"
for the
confiscation
of
suspected
vessels
within
four
leagues
of
the coast and when he cut
the
tea
duty
from
119
per
cent
to 12.5
per
cent;
and then
the
many
things
that
had floated
in
with
the
illicit tea
had to come the
proper
way,
encouraged
by
Pitt's
reduc-
tion of other
excessive
duties.
By
these
and
a
host
of
other drastic
reforms,
Pitt
substituted an
annual
surplus
of
1,000,000
for
an
annual
deficit of
3,000,000;
he
increased
the
revenue
to
22,000,000,
with
scarcely any
addition
to the
cost
of
collection;
he
restored
the
public
credit,
which
had
fallen
so
low
that
government
bonds were
quoted
at 56
in
1783;
and he
helped
Britain
to
recover from
the strain
of the last war
and
prepare
for the
much
more
terrible
strain
of the next
one,
which
killed
him.
Pitt
also
purified
public
life
by
purging
it of
many
means
of
cor-
ruption
that
the
reforming
Whigs
had
left
untouched.
For
example,
he
abolished
a
whole
batch
of
sinecures
that he
accumulated
by
not
filling
them
when
they
fell
vacant.
Such
measures
cut
down
the
patronage
that
was at
the
government's
disposal,
and
anyone
who
has
even
dabbled in
politics
knows
that
patronage
has
its
uses
as
well as
its
abuses.
The
politician
therefore
had to
find
some
substitute.
Pitt
found
this
substitute
in
the
generous
distribution
of
peerages
and
lesser
honors,
for
which he
has
been
criticized.
Though
dukes
did
not
fall
to the
Gilbertian
low
of
"two a
penny,"
all
honors
were
more
or
less
cheapened.
We
may
dismiss
as
of
no
consequence
the
con-
ferring
of
minor
honors
for
political
ends;
but
we
cannot
ignore
the
creation
of
peers
for
that
purpose,
because it
gave
them
seats
in
the
House
of
Lords
and
so
affected
that
body.
Pitt
increased
its
size
by
more
than
half,
he
reduced
the
average
of
its
intelligence,
and
he
completely
transformed
its
character.
He
found
it a
Whig preserve
and
he
left it
a
Tory
stronghold.
It
has
never
recovered
from
what
he
did
to it.
Looking
back
over
this
British
revolution
that
the
American
Revolu-
tion
precipitated,
we
see a
new
form
of
government
evolving
that
was
not
to
be
limited
to
that
country.
It
has
since
been
copied
by
freedom-
loving
people
in
other
lands,
and
nowhere
more
successfully
than
in
the
British
colonial
empire.
But
before
we
examine
what
die
Ameri-
can
Revolution
did
to
this
empire,
it
will
be
well to
notice
another
contemporary
revolution
that
was
to
transform
the
mother
country
and
the
new
empire
that
grew
in
the
nineteenth
century.