174 THE PITT FAMILY OF BLANDFORD ST. MARY. 



Towards the end of his life Lord Camelford went to live at 

 Florence, and shortly before his death in 1793 he wrote a 

 letter to his cousin the Prime Minister on a subject which has a 

 peculiar interest. It was a very cautious but kindly applica- 

 tion for help in money for the widow of the young Pretender, 

 Charles Edward, who was then at Florence in a condition of 

 absolute penury. The letter did not reach till after Lord 

 Camelford's death. Nothing apparently was done then, 

 but later in 1800 on the proposal of W. Pitt, a yearly 

 pension was granted to Cardinal York, the Pretender's 

 brother. 



Now we come to the last members of the family who held 

 the Blandford St. Mary property the second Lord Camelford 

 and his sister, who married Lord Grenville. Lord Camelford 

 was born in 1779, and therefore succeeded his father at the 

 age of 14. He seems to have been a somewhat hot-headed 

 and eccentric young man, who separated himself from the 

 politics of his family, and has left the character of a notorious 

 duellist. In January, 1800, when he had only just reached 

 his majority and taken his seat, we find him, in company 

 of five other lords, voting against an address moved by his 

 brother-in-law, Lord Grenville. The object of the address 

 was to agree with the Cabinet of Mr. Pitt, in declining to treat 

 for peace with France in an irregular fashion, and without 

 the support of England's great Continental Allies. Lord 

 Camelford, in company with the Duke of Bedford and Lord 

 Holland, was in a minority of 6 to 92. 



There is also a story of his taking part in a debate on Reform, 

 which he advocated, as his father had done, when he 

 threatened to send his negro footman into Parliament as 

 Member for one of his rotten boroughs, in order to bring 

 the whole system into contempt. A tradition, too, of a duel 

 lingers about a certain pond in the Down House grounds, 

 and he ended his life at the early age of 25 in a duel fought in 

 Hyde Park. The estates then all passed to his sister, Lady 

 Grenville, and her husband seems for a time to have ad- 

 ministered them for her, but very shortly the whole of the 



