g36 ANNUAL REGISTER, 1806. . 
the resignation, and the religion, 
cwhich marked his last moments. 
With a manner somewhat reserved 
and distant, in what might be termed 
his public deportment, no man was 
ever better qualified to gain, or 
more successful in fixing the attach- 
ment of his friends, than Mr. Pitt. 
They saw all the powerful ener. 
gies of his character softened into 
the most perfect complacency and 
sweetness of disposition, in the 
circles of private life, the pleasures 
of which no one more cheerfully 
enjoyed, or more agreeably pro- 
moted, when the paramount du- 
ties he conceived himself to owe 
to the public, admitted of his 
mixing in them that indignant 
severity with which he met and 
subdued what he considered un- 
founded opposition ; that keenness 
of sarcasm with which he repelled 
and withered (as it might be said) the 
powers of most of his assailants in 
debate, were exchanged, in the so- 
ciety of his intimate friends, for a 
kindness of heart, a gentleness of 
demeanour, and playfulness of good 
humour, which none ever witnessed 
without interest, or participated 
without delight. His mind which, 
in the grasp and extent of its .capa- 
city, seized with a quickness almost 
intuitive, all the most important 
relations of political power and 
political economy, was not less up- 
commonly susceptible of all the light 
and elegant impressions, which form 
the great charm of conversation of 
cultivated minds. ia 
‘¢ This sensibility.to the enjoy- 
ments of private friendship, greatly 
enhanced the sacrifice he made of 
every personal indulgence and com+ 
fort, to a rigid performance of duty 
to the public ; that duty, for the last 
year of his life, was, indeed, of the 
Lomo 
most. laborious and unremitting 
kind. The strength of his attach= 
ment to hie. sovereign, and the are | 
dour of his zeal for the welfare of 
his country, led him. to forego, not 
only every pleasure and amtisement, 
but almost every pause and relaxa- 
tion of business, necessary to the § 
preservation of health, till it was 9 
too late, in a frame like his, alas ! 
for the preservation of life! That 
life he sacrificed to his country ; not 
certainly, like another most valuable 
and illustrious servant of the public, 
(whose déath has been deeply and 
universally lamented) amidst those 
animating circumstances in which 
the incomparable hero often ven- 
tured it in battle, and at last resigned 
it for the most splendid .of all his un. 
exampled victories, but with that 
patriotic self-devotedness which 
looks for a reward only in ifs own 
consciousness of right, and in its 
own secret sense of virtne. 
‘¢ The praise of virtue, of honour, 
and of disinterested purity, whether 
in public or private character, need 
scarcely be claimed for his memory ; 
for those his enemies (if now he has 
any, which I am unwilling to be» 
lieve, although some are frequently 
endeavouring to depreciate his me. 
rits) will not venture to deny ; and 
his country, in whose cause they 
were exercised to the last, will 
know how to value and . record 
them. That they should be so 
valued and recorded, is important 
on every principle of justice to the 
individual, and benefit to the com 
munity. ‘To an upright minister in _ 
Great Britain, zealous for the inte- 
rest and honour of his country, 
there is no reward or profit, eme, 
lument or patronage, which can be 
esteemed a compensation for the 
labours, the privations, the anxie- 
eRe ties, 
