licitous wedding of elevated thought or
vigorous argument to noble diction. By the side of his serried yet
persuasive periods the efforts of Fox seemed ragged, those of Burke
philosophic essays, those of Sheridan rhetorical tinsel. And this
harmony was not the effect of long and painful training. His maiden
speech of 26th February 1781 displayed the grace and forcefulness which
marked his classic utterance at the Lord Mayor's banquet ten weeks
before his death.

Precocious maturity also characterized his financial plans, which
displayed alike the shrewd common sense of those of Walpole and the
wider aims of Adam Smith. Before his twenty-sixth year Pitt laid the
basis of a system which, whatever its defects, ensured the speedy
recovery of national credit and belied the spiteful croakings of foreign
rivals. Four days after his death, Fox freely admitted that the
establishment of the Sinking Fund had been most beneficial; and this
belief, though we now see it to be ill-founded, certainly endowed the
nation with courage to continue the struggle against the overgrown power
of France. Scarcely less remarkable is his record of legislative
achievement. His India Bill of 1784, his attempt to free Anglo-Irish
trade from antiquated shackles, his effort to present to Parliament a
palatable yet not ineffective scheme of Reform, raise him above the
other law-givers of the eighteenth century in the grandeur of his aims
if not in his actual achievements. By the India Bill of 1784 he
reconciled the almost incompatible claims of eastern autocracy and
western democracy. If he failed to carry fiscal and Parliamentary
Reform, it was due less to tactical defects on his part than to
prejudice and selfishness among those whom he sought to benefit.

On the other hand, his intense hopefulness often led him to overlook
obstacles and to credit all men with his own high standard of
intelligence and probity, a noble defect which not seldom marred his
diplomatic and military arrangements during the Great War. At no point
have I slurred over his mistakes, his diffusion of effort over too large
an area of conflict, and his perhaps undue trust in doubtful allies.
But, even so, as I have shown, a careful examination of all the
available evidence generally reveals the reasons for his confidence; and
failures due to this cause are far less disastrous, because less
dispiriting to the nation, than those which are the outcome of
sluggishness or cowardice. O