Pitt was beaten upon the question of the election at Westminster. Lord North and his friends gained an equal victory on the question of parliamentary reform. Moderate and restrained in its application, it attacked nevertheless the principle of close boroughs, and intended to increase the representation of the cities. Fox voted for the measure, although it did not meet his entire approval. The day had not yet arrived when the force of public opinion would compel the members of the House of Commons to vote against their own rights and titles. Pitt felt this, and did not pursue his project. After a brilliant and obstinate discussion, and in consequence of the national and parliamentary jealousies of Ireland, he was also compelled to withdraw the bill regarding commercial intercourse between the two countries.
Fox declared himself the irreconcilable enemy of free exchange. The Irish Parliament was unnecessarily alarmed regarding its legislative independence. "I do not wish to barter English commerce against the slavery of Ireland," said Mr. Grattan, "that is not the price I wish to pay; that is not the merchandise I wish to buy."
The defeat of his liberal measures in favor of Ireland, was a great disappointment to Mr. Pitt: he had just carried, with great success, his bill for the establishment of a sinking fund placed under control of Parliament. At the end of the session of 1786, which is memorable for the opening of the great and celebrated trial of Warren Hastings, the minister was engaged in negotiating a commercial treaty with France. Scarcely had Parliament re-assembled, when the measure was violently attacked. "I do not contend," said Fox, "that France is, and ought to remain, the irreconcilable enemy of England, and that it is impossible to experience a secret desire of living amicably with that kingdom. It is possible, but scarcely probable. I not only doubt her good intentions toward us, at this time, but I do not believe in them. France is naturally the political enemy of Great Britain; in concluding with us a commercial treaty, she wishes to tie our hands, and so prevent us from forming an alliance with any other power."
Pitt judged better and more accurately those international questions which were destined so soon to disturb the peace of the world. In advance, and protesting in the name of eternal justice against the violent struggle that the unloosing of human passions would compel him to sustain against revolutionary France, whether anarchical or absolute, he declared, with indignation, that his mind revolted against the idea that any nation could be the unalterable foe of another; it had no foundation in experience or history; it was a libel on the constitution of political society; and situated as England was, opposite France, it was highly important for the good of the two countries to put an end to that constant enmity that has falsely been said to be the foundation of the true sentiments of the two nations. { 348} The treaty, he insisted, tended to improve the facilities for prosecuting war and at the same time also retarded its approach. The treaty was signed, notwithstanding the bitter reproaches of Sir Philip Francis, who accused Pitt of destroying with his hands the work of his illustrious father. "The glory of Lord Chatham is founded on the resistance he made to the united power of the House of Bourbon. The present minister has taken the opposite road to fame, and France, the object of every hostile principle in the policy Lord Chatham's, is the _gens amicissima_ of his son."