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THE PITT FAMILY OF BLAND FORD ST. MARY. 167 



July and August following, the younger Fairfax and Cromwell 

 were marching to and fro in these parts, and had invested 

 the Castle of Sherborne, and succeeded in capturing Bridgwater 

 on July 23rd. 



Nine children, as we have seen, were born to John and Sarah 

 Pitt, the eldest being John, who was baptised on Septem- 

 ber 13th, 1649, the year of the King's execution. The eldest 

 daughter was Sarah, who married the Rev. Henry Willis ; 

 and after her father's death the patronage of the living was 

 settled upon her, at the time of her marriage, by her two 

 uncles, William, of Dorchester, and Robert, of Blandford, 

 who had received it in trust from their brother John, the 

 Rector. In 1674 two years after her father's death she 

 appears to have presented to the living her husband, and 

 on his death their son Robert became rector and eventually 

 patron. By him the Rev. Robert Willis the present 

 Rectory was built in 1732. On his death the patronage 

 passed to his sister, who had married John Burrough, and 

 with that family it remained till 1850. It then passed by 

 purchase into other hands. 



We come now to speak of the Rector's second son, Thomas 

 Pitt, who is the person on whom the chief interest of this 

 paper rests. He is generally known to history as Governor 

 Pitt. He was born at St. Mary's in June, 1653, and lived to 

 the age of 73 years. He would, therefore, have been seven 

 years old when the King was restored in 1660, and nearly 

 33 when Monmouth lost his cause on Sedgemoor, and 

 wandered a fugitive and outlaw over the Dorset hills. But 

 it would seem that some years before that date young Thomas 

 Pitt had begun to seek his fortune in the far East, and to find 

 occupation, profit, and excitement in the career of an un- 

 licensed trader in the Indian seas. In those days the right 

 to trade with India was the exclusive privilege of the East 

 India Company, which had obtained its first charter in 1600. 

 When we first hear of him in those seas, he apparently pos- 

 sessed several ships of his own, and was engaged in a system of 

 trade which the company considered to be in distinct violation 



