The Fitzwilliam episode

Abstract

The French revolution split the English whigs over profound issues of principle. One section, of which Fox was the most prominent member, viewed the revolution, at least in its earlier stages, with considerable sympathy and argued that the war with France could have been avoided. The other section accepted Burke’s interpretation of the revolution and at the beginning of 1793 supported the government’s intervention in the European war. And from the middle of 1792 the possibility of a coalition between this latter section and Pitt was in the air. One factor which delayed the formation of a coalition government was the attitude of the duke of Portland, ‘the natural leader’ of the whig party. Portland, who combined pride of birth with a sense of duty, some political shrewdness and strong opinions which he expressed, when writing, with considerable fluency, seems to have inspired genuine respect and even affection amongst those who worked with him. But he was hesitant, and in the early nineties, while accepting Burke’s views on the revolution, he did not wait to split his party. The existence of the whig party, ‘a union of persons of independent minds and fortunes formed and connected together by their belief in the principles by which the revolution of 1688 was founded’, was essential, he believed, to the welfare of the country. The whig party ‘which alone is entitled to be distinguished by the name of party’, he asserted, ‘must be as eternal as I conceive the constitution of this country to be’.