819 



PITT, WILLIAM, EARL OF CHATHAM. 



PITT, WILLIAM, THE RIGHT HONOURABLE. 



8SO 



attempted to be set up. Suffice it to say that it was in a state of 

 confusion and embarrassment all the time it subsisted, and that Lord 

 Chatham, its nominal head, was soon withdrawn from all share in the 

 conduct of affairs by a serious illness, which, from the evidence fur- 

 nished by his recently published correspondence, clearly appears to 

 have been chiefly mental, and to have taken the form of a deep 

 hypochondria, making him shrink with horror from business and 

 from intercourse with any person beyond the circle of his own family. 

 At last, on the 15th of October 1768, he sent his friend Lord Camden 

 to the king with a resignation of his office. 



This decision, and the relief from responsibility which it brought 

 with it, probably had a beneficial effect on his health. In the session 

 of parliament which began on the 9th of January 1770, he again 

 appeared in his place, and took as prominent and active a part in 

 debate as he had ever done in his best days. One of the chief 

 questions on which he exerted himself in this and the next session was 

 that of the conduct of the House of Commons in the affair of Wilkes's 

 election for Middlesex, which he condemned vehemently and without 

 reserve, and contended to be a flagrant outrage on the first principles 

 of the constitution. He also appeared occasionally in the session which 

 began on the 21st of January 1772 ; in one speech in particular, which 

 he delivered in May that year, in support of a bill for the relief of 

 Protestant Dissenters, he showed, according to the report of the 

 debate, " as much oratory and fire as perhaps he ever did in his life." 

 But his name does not appear again in the debates till towards the 

 end of the session of 1774, on the 27th of May in which year, though 

 still labouring under a state of ill-health, which had long kept him 

 absent from the House, he spoke warmly and impressively in opposition 

 to one of Lord North's bills for subduing the resistance in America. 

 He spoke also several times on the same now all-engrossing subject in 

 the earlier part of the first session of the next parliament, which met 

 in November of this year ; but then a return of ill-health sent him 

 back for nearly two years into retirement. When he again made his 

 appearance in the House, in the end of May 1777, it was to reiterate 

 with increased earnestness his views and warnings on American 

 affairs ; and he continued to come down for the same purpose during 

 the next session as often as the little strength remaining in his racked 

 and shattered frame would permit. At last, on the 7th of April 

 1773, after he had spoken once on a motion for an address to the king 

 on the state of the nation, he attempted to rise again to notice some- 

 thing that had been said by the Duke of Richmond in reply, when he 

 dropped senseless into the arms of those beside him. He was carried 

 home to his house at Hayes, in Kent, but never again rose from his 

 bed, and died on Monday, the llth of May, in the seventieth year of 

 his age. 



All the enthusiasm which had been stirred by his name in former 

 days was revived for the moment by the death, in circumstances 

 go affecting, of the orator and stateman who for more than forty 

 years had filled so large a space in the public eye, and whose memory 

 was associated with eo much of popular principle and national glory ; 

 and to a funeral and a monument hi Westminster Abbey at the public 

 expense, were added the more substantial rewards of a grant of twenty 

 thousand pounds for the payment of his debts, and a pension of 40002. 

 ft year to his descendants. 



As to Lord Chatham's real claims, either as an orator, a minister, or 

 a patriot, we may observe in general that in each of these capacities 

 he appears to have been at best the man merely of his own time. 

 His eloquence, of the immediate effects of which there can.be no 

 question, must have partaken very much of the only half-intellectual 

 art of acting, and been indebted for its power to his voice, his eye, and 

 other mere external advantages, as much as to any higher qualities. 

 At least no report that has come down to us of any of his speeches 

 conveys an impression at all answering to their traditionary fame. 

 Earnestness and fervour there is, as well as clearness and distinctness, 

 with occasional point or happy aptness of expression ; there is 

 generally forcible reasoning, and a luminous disposition of the subject ; 

 but that is nearly all. Lord Chatham's eloquence is rarely irradiated 

 by any imaginative colouring, and is without any remarkable depth or 

 novelty of thought ; its ordinary rhetorical characteristic is tawdri- 

 ness, and its vein of reflection common-place. Indeed it is probably 

 to this last-mentioned quality that it was in great part indebted for its 

 immediate success ; it hit the popular or general understanding, as it 

 were, between wind and water. And to this effect also contributed 

 tlie thoroughly English character of Lord Chatham's mind; a proud 

 love of his country was his master-passion, and her greatness and glory 

 ever the object on which he kept his eye. He was also altogether a 

 public man amiable and beloved, indeed, in his domestic circle, and 

 both enjoying and returning very cordially the affection of his family, 

 but, as his enemies admitted, free from dissipation of every kind, and 

 having as little of vice or indolence or any otlior kind of sensuality in 

 his composition or habits aa any man of his time. On the subject of 

 bis ambition indeed it would be easy to say much, as much has been 

 said ; and some of bis letters lately published go to show that his love 

 of power was combined not only with great haughtiness of bearing 

 towards his inferiors, but also with no small degree of what would 

 now at least be called subserviency to those above Mm. But even in 

 regard to this last most unfavourable exhibition which he makes of 

 himself, something is to bo allowed for the manners and indeed 



Bioo. mv. vou IV. 



established etiquette of the age, which in all departments of social 

 intercourse exacted a degree of formality and ceremonious observance 

 which now seems extravagant and ridiculous, and if practised in the 

 present day would really indicate a much greater degree of servility 

 than it then implied. It can hardly be disputed that Chatham, what- 

 ever faults he may have had, was essentially a high-minded man, and 

 it is most reasonable, when we find him appearing otherwise in any 

 particular case, to set down the defect as one of manner rather than of 

 character. 



The Life of Lord Chatham has been written by Almon, the book- 

 seller, in 3 vols. 8vo, under the title of ' Anecdotes of the Life of the 

 Earl of Chatham ; ' and much more accurately, as well as fully, by the 

 Rev. Mr. Thackeray, in his 'History of the Earl of Chatham,' 2 vols. 

 4to. Of his own writings nothing has been given to the world except 

 a small volume of letters addressed to the son of his elder brother, 

 afterwards Lord Camelford, which were published a few years ago by the 

 late Lord Qrenville, and his ' Correspondence," in 4 vols. 8vo, 1838-40. 

 The ' Correspondence ' abounds in matter illustrative both of the life 

 of Chatham and of the political history of his time. By his wife, who 

 survived till 1803, besides two daughters, he had three sons, the 

 political distinction acquired by one of whom, the subject of the next 

 article, rivalled that of his illustrious father. 



PITT, THE RIGHT HONOURABLE WILLIAM, second son of 

 the first Earl of Chatham, was born at Hayes, in Kent, on the 28th of 

 May 1759. His elementary education was conducted at home, under 

 the immediate care of the Reverend Edward Wilson, afterwards 

 canon of Windsor, and anxiously superintended by his father, whose 

 favourite he was, and who early formed high anticipations of the 

 figure he would make in life. He was sent in 1773 to Pembroke Hall, 

 Cambridge, where his studies were principally under the direction of 

 Dr. Pretyman (who afterwards took the name of Tomline, and became 

 bishop of Winchester, and the biographer of his distinguished pupil). 

 " Although he was little more than fourteen years of age when he 

 went to reside at the university," says Bishop Tomline, "and had 

 laboured under the disadvantage of frequent ill health, the knowledge 

 which he then possessed was very considerable ; and, in particular, 

 his proficiency in the learned languages was probably greater than ever 

 was acquired by any other person in such early youth. In Latin 

 authors he seldom met with difficulty; and it was no uncommon 

 thing for him to read into English six or seven pages of Thucydides, 

 which he had not previously seen, without more thau two or three 

 mistakes, and sometimes without even one." Mr. Pitt was probably 

 very well taught when he went to the university; but this way of 

 stating the matter only shows that the bishop's own scholarship was 

 small. 



After leaving Cambridge, Mr. Pitt visited France, and studied for a 

 time at Rheims. On his return to England, being intended for the 

 profession of the law, he entered himself of Lincoln's Inn ; and he 

 was called to the bar in 1780. Bat after having gone the western 

 circuit only once or twice, he was returned to parliament for the 

 borough of Appleby, the patron of which was then Sir James Lowther 

 (afterwards Earl of Lonsdale) ; and from tbis date his original pro- 

 fession was given up for the House of Commons and a political career. 

 He took his seat on the 23rd of January 1781, and his first appearanco 

 iu debate was on the 26th of February following, on the motion for 

 the second reading of Mr. Burke's famous bill for the regulation of the 

 civil list establishments. He gave his hearty support to the measure, 

 and, says the report, " in a speech directly in answer to matter that 

 had fallen out in the course of the debate, displayed great and 

 astonishing power of eloquence. His voice is rich and striking, full of 

 melody and force ; his manner easy and elegant ; his language beauti- 

 ful and luxuriant. He gave in this first essay a specimen of eloquence 

 not unworthy the sou of his immortal parent." He afterwards spoke 

 repeatedly on the side of the opposition in the course of this and the 

 following session, before the termination of which it may be said 

 that he had taken his place with Burke, Fox, and Sheridan (the last 

 also a member of only the same standing with himself), in the front 

 rank of the debaters of the day. 



It was on the 7th of May 1782, a few weeks after the fall of the 

 North and the appointment of the second Rockiugham administration, 

 that Mr. Pitt made his first motion for the reform of the representation 

 of the people. The motion was defeated by an inconsiderable majority ; 

 but the mover continued for some years after this to advocate, if not 

 to hold, the principles or opinions which he announced on this occa- 

 sion. At this date indeed he was so zealous a friend of reform as to 

 take a leading part in some proceedings out of doors for the promotion, 

 of that object. 



The death of the Marquis of Rockingham in the beginning of July 

 having dissolved the administration of which he was the head, aud 

 that of Lord Shelburne having succeeded, Mr. Pitt was appointed to 

 office and to a seat in the cabinet as chancellor of the exchequer, 

 having just entered his twenty-fourth year. This was the administra- 

 tion to which it was left to finish the contest that had arisen out of 

 the attempt to tax the Americans, by acknowledging the independenco 

 of the United States, and concluding peace with France and Spaiu. 

 It was assailed upon these and various other grounds by the fatuous 

 coalition formed between the adherents of the two immediately pre- 

 ceding ministers, as respectively represented by Lord North and Mr. 



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