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Cabinet Politics and Executive Policy-Making Procedures, 1794–1801

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2014

Richard E. Willis
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Extract

Current knowledge of politics during the coalition government headed by William Pitt between July, 1794 and March, 1801 resembles a fen set amid drained lands, in that neither ministerial relations within the executive nor the internal affairs of the opposition have attracted much recent attention. For the government, such attention has been directed toward questions of foreign policy and of the motives and effects of the domestic repression. For the Foxites, a relative paucity of materials and the fact of the 1797 secession have conspired substantially to halt scholarly concern at 1794. I have elsewhere attempted to redress somewhat the latter state of affairs. In this essay I propose to deal with two interrelated topics of wartime politics during Pitt's government; the nexus of allegiances among the ministers, and some procedural aspects of executive decision-making. The first, centering upon the specific question of the degeneration of the Portland Whigs, also throws some additional light on the formation of the coalition ministry; the second, attending to restrictions on participation and information and their effects on the subtle dialectic between George III and his ministers, can further explicate the fall of the government.

Type
Research Article
Information
Albion , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , Spring 1975 , pp. 1 - 23
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1975

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References

1 Willis, Richard E., “Fox, Grenville, and the Recovery of Opposition, 1801-1804,” Journal of British Studies, Vol. II. (1972), 24–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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8 Dundas came close to wrecking the proposed arrangements because of his loss of colonial patronage, but was mollified by retaining that of Scotland. Sec Dundas to Pitt. 9 July 1794, Register House, GD 51/1/17/24/1.

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30 Aspinall, Arthur, The Cabinet Council 1783-1835 (London, 1952), pp. 214–217.Google Scholar

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32 This leaves aside the influence derived from the monarch's control over appointments to household offices and to numerous positions annexed to the properties of the monarchy, as well as that derived from his very pervasive authority in military and ecclesiastical preferment, as these powers bear only indirectly on executive policy-making.

33 Dodd has claimed that Pitt had established that principle with the removal of Lord Chancellor Thurloe. but several years later George III was found, for example, discussing foreign affairs with Portland and Catholic emancipation with Grenville. Dodd, A. H., The Growth of Responsible Government from James I to Victoria (London, 1956), p. 149.Google Scholar

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40 It occurred only twice between 1793 and 1801.

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