Editing Charles James Fox (section)

== Opposition: 1783–1797==
[[File:William Pitt the Younger at Westminster.gif|thumb|upright=1.25|Pitt facing Fox in [[Anton Hickel]]'s ''[[The House of Commons, 1793–94]]'']]

One of Pitt's first major actions as prime minister was, in 1785, to put a scheme of parliamentary reform before the Commons, proposing to rationalise somewhat the existing, decidedly unrepresentative, electoral system by eliminating thirty-six [[rotten boroughs]] and redistributing seats to represent London and the larger counties. Fox supported Pitt's reforms, despite apparent political expediency, but they were defeated by 248 to 174.<ref>{{harvnb|Reid|1969|p=214}}</ref> Reform would not be considered seriously by Parliament for another decade.

In 1787, the most dramatic political event of the decade came to pass in the form of the [[Impeachment of Warren Hastings]], the [[Governor of Bengal]] until 1785, on charges of corruption and extortion. Fifteen of the eighteen Managers appointed to the trial were [[Foxites]], one of them being Fox himself.<ref>{{harvnb|Mitchell|1992|p=76}}</ref> Although the matter was really Burke's area of expertise, Fox was, at first, enthusiastic. If the trial could demonstrate the misrule of [[British India]] by Hastings and the [[East India Company]] more widely, then Fox's India Bill of 1784 – the point on which the [[Fox-North Coalition]] had been dismissed by the King – would be vindicated.<ref>{{harvnb|Mitchell|1992|p=77}}</ref> The trial was also expedient for Fox in that it placed Pitt in an uncomfortable political position. The premier was forced to equivocate over the Hastings trial, because to oppose Hastings would have been to endanger the support of the King and the East India Company, while to support him openly would have alienated country gentlemen and principled supporters like [[William Wilberforce|Wilberforce]].<ref>{{harvnb|Mitchell|1992|p=78}}</ref> As the trial's intricacies dragged on (it would be 1795 before Hastings was finally acquitted), Fox's interest waned and the burden of managing the trial devolved increasingly on Burke.

===The Regency Crisis===

[[File:A-voluptuary.jpg|thumb|A [[James Gillray|Gillray]] [[caricature]] of the [[George IV of the United Kingdom|Prince of Wales]], an ally of Fox]]

In late October 1788, George III descended into a bout of mental illness. He had declared that Pitt was "a rascal" and Fox "his friend".<ref name="Mitchell 1992, p. 80">{{harvnb|Mitchell|1992|p=80}}</ref> The King was placed under restraint, and a rumour went round that Fox had poisoned him.<ref name="Mitchell 1992, p. 80"/> Thus the opportunity revealed itself for the establishment of a regency under Fox's friend and ally, the [[George IV of the United Kingdom|Prince of Wales]], which would take the reins of government out of the hands of the incapacitated George III and allow the replacement of his "minion" Pitt with a Foxite ministry.

Fox, however, was incommunicado in Italy as the crisis broke; he had resolved not to read any newspapers while he was abroad, except the racing reports.<ref name="Mitchell 1992 232">{{harvnb|Mitchell|1992|p=232}}</ref> Three weeks passed before he returned to Britain on 25 November 1788, and then he was taken seriously ill (partly due to the stress of his rapid journey across Europe). He would not recover entirely until December 1789. He again absented himself to [[Bath, Somerset|Bath]] from 27 January to 21 February 1789.<ref>{{harvnb|Mitchell|1992|p=81}}</ref>

When Fox did make it into Parliament, he seemed to make a serious political error. In the Commons on 10 December, he declared that it was the right of the Prince of Wales to install himself as regent immediately. It is said that Pitt, upon hearing this, slapped his thigh in an uncharacteristic display of emotion and declared that he would "unwhig" Fox for the rest of his life. Fox's argument did indeed seem to contradict his lifelong championing of Parliament's rights over the Crown. Pitt pointed out that the Prince of Wales had no more right to the throne than any other Briton, though he might well have a better claim to it as the King's firstborn son. It was Parliament's constitutional right to decide who the monarch could be.

There was more than naked thirst for power in Fox's seemingly hypocritical Tory assertion. Fox believed that the King's illness was permanent, and therefore that George III was, constitutionally speaking, dead. To challenge the Prince of Wales's right to succeed him would be to challenge fundamental contemporary assumptions about property rights and [[primogeniture]]. Pitt, on the other hand, considered the King's madness temporary (or, at least, hoped that it would be), and thus saw the throne not as vacant but as merely temporarily unoccupied.<ref>{{harvnb|Mitchell|1992|p=82}}</ref>

While Fox drew up lists for his proposed Cabinet under the new Prince Regent, Pitt spun out the legalistic debates over the constitutionality of and precedents for instituting a regency, as well as the actual process of drawing up a [[Regency Bill]] and navigating it through Parliament. He negotiated a number of restrictions on the powers of the Prince of Wales as regent (which would later provide the basis of the [[Regency Act 1811]]), but the bill finally passed the Commons on 12 February. As the Lords too prepared to pass it, they learned that the King's health was improving and decided to postpone further action. The king soon regained lucidity in time to prevent the establishment of his son's regency and the elevation of Fox to the [[Prime Minister of Great Britain|premiership]], and, on 23 April, a service of thanksgiving was conducted at [[St Paul's]] in honour of George III's return to health.<ref>{{harvnb|Reid|1969|p=245}}</ref> Fox's opportunity had passed.

===French Revolution ===
[[File:Prise de la Bastille.jpg|thumb|The [[Storming of the Bastille]] on 14 July 1789]]

Fox welcomed the [[French Revolution]] of 1789, interpreting it as a late [[Continental Europe|Continental]] imitation of Britain's [[Glorious Revolution]] of 1688. In response to the [[Storming of the Bastille]] on 14 July, he famously declared, "How much the greatest event it is that ever happened in the world! and how much the best!"<ref name="MI"/> In April 1791, Fox told the Commons that he "admired the new constitution of France, considered altogether, as the most stupendous and glorious edifice of liberty, which had been erected on the foundation of human integrity in any time or country."<ref>{{harvnb|Reid|1969|p=266}}</ref> He was thus somewhat bemused by the reaction of his old Whig friend, [[Edmund Burke]], to the dramatic events across the [[English Channel|Channel]]. In his ''[[Reflections on the Revolution in France]]'', Burke warned that the revolution was a violent rebellion against tradition and proper authority, motivated by [[Utopia]]n, abstract ideas disconnected from reality, which would lead to anarchy and eventual dictatorship. Fox read the book and found it "in very bad taste" and "favouring Tory principles",<ref>{{harvnb|Mitchell|1992|p=113}}</ref> but avoided pressing the matter for a while to preserve his relationship with Burke. The more radical Whigs, like [[Richard Brinsley Sheridan|Sheridan]], broke with Burke more readily at this point.

Fox instead turned his attention – despite the politically volatile situation – to repealing the [[Test Act|Test]] and [[Corporation Act|Corporation]] Acts, which restricted the liberties of [[English Dissenters|Dissenters]] and Catholics. On 2 March 1790, Fox gave a long and eloquent speech to a packed House of Commons.
[[File:A Birmingham toast, as given on the 14th of July, by the - Revolution Society (BM 1851,0901.538).jpg|thumb|''A Birmingham toast, as given on the&nbsp;14&nbsp;July'': Fox is caricatured by [[James Gillray|Gillray]] as toasting the anniversary of the [[Storming of the Bastille]] with [[Joseph Priestley]] and other Dissenters (23 July 1791)]]

{{blockquote|Persecution always says, 'I know the consequences of your opinion better than you know them yourselves.' But the language of toleration was always amicable, liberal, and just: it confessed its doubts, and acknowledged its ignorance ... Persecution had always reasoned from cause to effect, from opinion to action, [that such an opinion would invariably lead to but one action], which proved generally erroneous; while toleration led us invariably to form just conclusions, by judging from actions and not from opinions.<ref name="Reid 1969, p. 261">{{harvnb|Reid|1969|p=261}}</ref>}}
Pitt, in turn, came to the defence of the Acts as adopted
{{blockquote| by the wisdom of our ancestors to serve as a bulwark to the Church, whose constituency was so intimately connected with that of the state, that the safety of the one was always liable to be affected by any danger which might threaten the other.<ref name="Reid 1969, p. 261"/>}}

Burke, with fear of the radical upheaval in France foremost in his mind, took Pitt's side in the debate, dismissing [[Nonconformist (Protestantism)|Nonconformists]] as "men of factious and dangerous principles", to which Fox replied that Burke's "strange dereliction from his former principles ... filled him with grief and shame". Fox's motion was defeated in the Commons by 294 votes to 105.<ref>{{harvnb|Reid|1969|p=262}}</ref>

Later, Fox successfully supported the [[Roman Catholic Relief Act 1791]], extending the rights of British Catholics. He explained his stance to his Roman Catholic friend, [[Charles Butler (lawyer)|Charles Butler]], declaring:{{blockquote|the best ground, and the only ground to be defended in all points is, that ''action'', not ''principle'' is the object of law and legislation; with a person's principles no government has any right to interfere.<ref>{{harvnb|Reid|1969|p=260}}</ref>}}

On the world stage of 1791, war with Great Britain was threatened more with Spain and [[Russian Empire|Russia]] than [[revolutionary France]]. Fox opposed the bellicose stances of Pitt's ministry in the [[Nootka Sound]] crisis and over the Russian occupation of the [[Ottoman Empire|Turkish]] port of [[Ochakiv]] on the [[Black Sea]]. Fox contributed to the peaceful resolution of these entanglements and gained a new admirer in [[Catherine the Great]], who bought a bust of Fox and placed it between [[Cicero]] and [[Demosthenes]] in her collection.<ref name="MI"/> On 18 April, Fox spoke in the Commons – together with [[William Wilberforce]], Pitt and Burke – in favour of a measure to [[Abolitionism in the United Kingdom|abolish the slave trade]], but – despite their combined rhetorical talents – the vote went against them by a majority of 75.<ref>{{harvnb|Reid|1969|p=267}}</ref>

[[File:The-Hopes-of-the-Party-Gillray.jpeg|thumb|In ''The Hopes of the Party'' (1791), [[James Gillray|Gillray]] caricatured Fox with an axe about to strike off the head of George III, in imitation of the French Revolution.]]
On 6 May 1791, a tearful confrontation on the floor of the Commons finally shattered the quarter-century friendship of Fox and Burke, as the latter dramatically crossed the floor of the House to sit down next to Pitt, taking the support of a good deal of the more conservative Whigs with him. Officially, and rather irrelevantly, this happened during a debate on the particulars of a bill for the government of Canada.<ref>{{harvnb|Reid|1969|p=269}}</ref> Later, on his deathbed in 1797, Burke would have his wife turn Fox away rather than allow a final reconciliation.

=== "Pitt's Terror" ===
[[File:Tree of liberty.jpg|thumb|''The Tree of LIBERTY, – with, the Devil tempting John Bull'' (1798): Fox is caricatured by [[James Gillray|Gillray]] as [[Satan]], tempting [[John Bull]] with the rotten fruit of the opposition's Tree of liberty.]]

Fox continued to defend the French Revolution, even as its fruits began to collapse into war, repression and the [[Reign of Terror]]. Though there were few developments in France after 1792 that Fox could positively favour,<ref>{{harvnb|Mitchell|1992|p=124}}</ref> Fox maintained that the old monarchical system still proved a greater threat to liberty than the new, degenerating experiment in France. Fox thought of revolutionary France as the [[lesser of two evils]] and emphasised the role of traditional despots in perverting the course of the revolution: he argued that [[Louis XVI]] and the French aristocracy had brought their fates upon themselves by abusing the [[French Constitution of 1791|constitution of 1791]] and that the [[First Coalition|coalition of European autocrats]], which was currently dispatching its armies against France's borders, had driven the revolutionary government to desperate and bloody measures by exciting a profound national crisis. Fox was not surprised when Pitt and the King brought Britain into the war as well and would afterwards blame the pair and their prodigal European subsidies for the long-drawn-out continuation of the [[French Revolutionary Wars]]. In 1795, he wrote to his nephew, [[Henry Vassall-Fox, 3rd Baron Holland|Lord Holland]]:

{{blockquote|Peace is the wish of the French of Italy Spain Germany and all the world, and Great Britain alone the cause of preventing its accomplishment, and this not for any point of honour or even interest, but merely lest there should be an example in the modern world of a great powerful Republic.<ref>{{harvnb|Mitchell|1992|p=162}}</ref>}}
Rather ironically, while Fox was being denounced by many in Britain as a [[Jacobin (politics)|Jacobin]] traitor, across the [[English Channel|Channel]] he featured on a 1798 list of the Britons to be transported after a successful French invasion of Britain. According to the document, Fox was a "false patriot; having often insulted the French nation in his speeches, and particularly in 1786."<ref>{{harvnb|Mitchell|1992|p=159}}</ref> According to one of his biographers, Fox's "loyalties were not national but were offered to people like himself at home or abroad".<ref name="MI"/> In 1805 [[Francis Horner]] wrote, "I could name to you gentlemen, with good coats on, and good sense in their own affairs, who believe that Fox...is actually in the pay of France".<ref>{{harvnb|Horner|1843|p=323}}</ref>

But Fox's radical position soon became too extreme for many of his followers, particularly old Whig friends like the [[William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland|Duke of Portland]], [[William FitzWilliam, 4th Earl FitzWilliam|Earl Fitzwilliam]] and the [[Frederick Howard, 5th Earl of Carlisle|Earl of Carlisle]]. Around July 1794 their fear of France outgrew their resentment towards Pitt for his actions in 1784, and they [[crossed the floor]] to the Government benches. Fox could not believe that they "would disgrace" themselves in such a way.<ref name="MI"/> After these defections, the Foxites could no longer constitute a credible parliamentary opposition, reduced, as they were, to some fifty MPs.<ref>{{harvnb|Mitchell|1992|p=136}}</ref>

Fox, however, still insisted on challenging the repressive wartime legislation introduced by Pitt in the 1790s that would become known as "Pitt's Terror". In 1792, Fox had seen through the only piece of substantial legislation in his career, the [[Libel Act 1792]] ([[32 Geo. 3]]. c. 60), which restored to juries the right to decide what was and was not libellous, in addition to whether a defendant was guilty. [[E. P. Thompson]] thought it "Fox's greatest service to the common people, passed at the eleventh hour before the tide turned toward repression."<ref>{{harvnb|Thompson|1963|p=135}}</ref> Indeed, the act was passed by Parliament on 21 May, the same day as a [[Royal Proclamation Against Seditious Writings and Publications|royal proclamation against seditious writings]] was issued, and more libel cases would be brought by the government in the following two years than had been in all the preceding years of the eighteenth century.{{citation needed|date=September 2022}}

Fox spoke in opposition to the [[Speech from the throne|King's Speech]] on 13 December 1793, but was defeated in the subsequent division by 290 to 50.<ref>{{harvnb|Mitchell|1992|p=132}}</ref> He argued against war measures like the stationing of [[Hessian troops]] in Britain, the employment of royalist French émigrés in the British army and, most of all, Pitt's [[Habeas Corpus Suspension Act 1794|suspension]] of [[habeas corpus]] in 1794. He told the Commons that:
{{blockquote|We had no invasion to fear but an invasion of the constitution.<ref>{{harvnb|Mitchell|1992| p=133}}</ref>}}

In 1795, the King's carriage was assaulted in the street, providing an excuse for Pitt to introduce the infamous Two Acts: the [[Seditious Meetings Act 1795]], which prohibited unlicensed gatherings of over fifty people, and the [[Treasonable Practices Act]], which greatly widened the legal definition of [[treason]], making any assault on the constitution punishable by seven years' transportation. Fox spoke ten times in the debate on the acts.<ref name="Mitchell 1992, p. 140">{{harvnb|Mitchell|1992|p=140}}</ref> He argued that, according to the principles of the proposed legislation, Pitt should have been transported a decade before in 1785, when he had been advocating parliamentary reform.<ref>{{harvnb|Watson|1960|p=360}}</ref> Fox warned the Commons that:
{{blockquote|if you silence remonstrance and stifle complaint, you then leave no other alternative but force and violence.<ref name="Mitchell 1992, p. 140"/>}}
He argued that "the best security for the due maintenance of the constitution was in the strict and incessant vigilance of the people over parliament itself. Meetings of the people, therefore, for the discussion of public objects were not merely legal, but laudable."{{citation needed|date=September 2022}}
[[File:Charles James Fox by Joseph Nollekens 1792.jpg|thumb|right|[[Marble]] [[Bust (sculpture)|bust]] of Fox by [[Joseph Nollekens]], 1792. [[Yale Center for British Art]]]]
Parliament passed the acts. But Fox enjoyed a swell of extra-parliamentary support during the course of the controversy. A substantial petitioning movement arose in support of him, and on 16 November 1795, he addressed a public meeting of between two- and thirty-thousand people on the subject.<ref name="Mitchell 1992, p. 140"/> However, this came to nothing in the long run. The Foxites were becoming disenchanted with the Commons, overwhelmingly dominated by Pitt, and began to denounce it to one another as unrepresentative.<ref name="Mitchell 1992, p. 141">{{harvnb|Mitchell|1992|p=141}}</ref>