The electoral contest was prolonged at Westminster for forty days. The Prince of Wales appeared on the hustings as a partisan of Fox, and the first ladies of the Whig party, the beautiful Duchess of Devonshire at their head, lavished their smiles upon the electors, for their votes. The majority for the great orator was left a matter of doubt; fraudulent practises had, it was charged, been employed, and the High Sheriff Corbet refused to make an official proclamation of the result, without a Parliamentary investigation. Fox was nevertheless assured of a seat. Sir Thomas Dundas had already named him for the borough of Kirkwell, of which he had the disposal.
Before the dissolution, the king had strengthened in the House of Lords the number of the partisans of Mr. Pitt, by three elevations to the peerage; following the elections, he manifested anew his firm resolution to support his minister by creating seven new peers. Henceforth the sovereign and the country were in accord; the opening of the session proved clearly the ascendancy of the minister.
The great financial measures which Pitt had prepared were voted by large majorities: they were new as well as daring. The imposts upon tea and alcohol were lowered, in the hope of destroying contraband trade. New imposts and a new loan, largely offered to the public, re-established the equilibrium of the budget. "However painful may be my task to-day," said the minister, "the necessity of the country forbidding all hesitation, I confide in the good sense and patriotism of the English people. As minister of the finances, I have adopted this motto: To conceal nothing from the public." The bill upon the administration in India passed without great effort, as well as the measure of Dundas for the restitution to the legitimate owners, of all the property confiscated during the rebellion of 1745. The proposition of Alderman Sawbridge for parliamentary reform was rejected. Pitt remained faithful to his convictions: he voted on that occasion with the minority, promising to renew the question himself during the next session.
Parliament met on the 25th of January, 1785. Its first business was to consider the alleged frauds in the election of Fox at Westminster. The constitutional authority was insufficient, and the two parties employed every resource of chicanery. The illustrious adversaries freely made use of reproaches and insults. Fox at this time was large and robust; his black hair always in disorder, yet profusely powdered; cordial and frank with his friends, greatly enjoying life, ever ready for all material or intellectual pleasures, brilliantly and powerfully eloquent, without care or preparation; attacking each adversary in his turn, and solely occupying himself in demolishing him. { 346} Pitt's health was delicate; he was tall and slim, a little lofty in his manners as well as in his mind; confiding with his intimate friends, but reserved and cold with most of his partisans. He had from infancy studied the art of eloquence; not that sweeping and impassioned eloquence that distinguished Lord Chatham, and that the illustrious father sought to impart to his young son, as when placing him before him on a table, he cried: "Do you see the scoundrels who are there before you, and who wish to hang you? Defend thyself, William, defend thyself!" The eloquence of Pitt was naturally powerful. Lucid, forcible, convincing, perfect in expression as well as in arrangement, it left in the minds of his contemporaries the impression of an incontestable superiority over the most brilliant orators of his time, over Burke himself as well as over Sheridan.