Life of the Right Honourable William Pitt

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Preface

According to the desire expressed on his deathbed by Mr. Pitt, the papers which he left were in the first instance delivered to his early friend Dr. Tomline, Bishop of Lincoln. After the decease of the Bishop and of the last Lord Chatham, these MSS. devolved to my cousin, William Stanhope Taylor, Esq., grand nephew of Mr. Pitt. When Mr. Taylor also died, the papers came into the possession of another grand nephew of "Mr. Pitt through his younger sister — Colonel John Pringle, who has in the kindest manner and without the smallest reserve placed them in my hands.

The Bishop of Lincoln, in his examination of these MSS. and in pursuance of the discretion assigned him, appears to have destroyed nearly all the letters addressed to Mr. Pitt by members of Mr. Pitt's family. Among those that now remain in the collection there is not one * a 3

VI PEEFACE.

from his mother, from either of his sisters, or from either of his brothers, until the time when his eldest brother became his Cabinet colleague. The letters addressed to him by the Bishop himself, and by several other personal friends, have also been removed.

On the other hand, there still exists the series of letters which Mr. Pitt wrote to his mother. These from the first she appears to have carefully preserved, and they were, I presume, returned to him after her death. A few blanks in the series may, indeed, here and there be traced, and some accident appears to have befallen the concluding portion. Since October, 1799, only one letter to Lady Chatham is left, bearing the date of January 5, 1802, besides another of September 17 following, to her companion, Mrs. Stapleton. There are also very confidential letters addressed by Mr. Pitt to his brother. Lord Chatham, though some are missing from the series, and though none among them bears an earlier date than 1794. Of these letters, both to his mother and his brother, which will be wholly new to the public, I have inserted the greater portion in my narrative.

I have also largely availed myself of the series

PREFACE. Yll of MS. letters addressed to Mr. Pitt by King George the Third. This is, 1 believe, quite complete, although on the other hand there are now preserved very few drafts of Mr. Pitt's own communications to the King.

There are in this collection many letters from Mr. Pitt's colleagues and other men of note in politics ; and also drafts or copies, although not equally numerous, of his letters to them.

In 1842 my much valued friend the late Duke of Rutland entrusted to me, in the original MSS., the correspondence between his father and Mr. Pitt, and gave me leave to put it into type. The copies, of which the number was fixed at one hundred, were confined to a circle of friends ; but I had the Duke's sanction to insert some considerable extracts in the Quarterly Review, No. 140, and in my own collected Essays.

In 1849 I had an opportunity, through the kindness of the late Lord Melville, to examine the papers at Melville Castle, and to take several transcripts. No letter from Mr. Pitt of an earlier date than 1794 is, so far as, I saw, there preserved. In 1852 I obtained permission from the present Lord Melville to print for private circulation the most important of these papers

Till PREFACE.

in a small volume, which I entitled " Secret Correspondence connected with Mr. Pitt's Eeturn to Office in 1804."

I may observe that the letters of Mr. Pitt to his friend before the peerage begin " Dear Dundas," while on the other side it is always " My dear Sir."

I have also obtained some communications of considerable value through the kindness of the Duke of Bedford, of Lord St. G-ermans, of Mr. Dundas of Amiston, and of other gentlemen, to whom my warm thanks are due ; and I need scarcely advert to the great interest and importance of several published collections, more especially the Malmesbury, the Buckingham, and the Oornwallis Papers, and the biographies of Lord Sidmouth and Mr. Wilberforce.

Stanhope.

Chevening, January 23, 1861.

CONTENTS OF YOL. I.

Fbefaoe Page V

Chapter I. 1759 — 1780

Birth of William Pitt — Early signs of great promise — Feeble health in boyhood — Education — At seventeen admitted M.A. at Cambridge — Study of elocution — Death of his father — Economical habits — Entered at Lincoln's Inn — Attends Parliamentary debates

— Introduction to Fox — Called to the Bar — Joins the Western Circuit — M.P. for Appleby 1

CHAPTEE II.

1781 — 1782.

Enters the House of Commons — State of parties — Attaches himself to Lord Shelbittne — Goostree's Club — Pitt's first speech — Congratulated by Pox — Vindication of his father's opinions, and statement of his own, on the American war — On the Western Circuit, and in the Court of King's Bench • — General character at the Bar — Eeadiness of debate — Speeches on Parliamentary Reform — Appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer — Lettels to his mother . . 49

Chapter III. 1782 — 1783

Acknowledgment of American independence — Proposed cession of Gibraltar — Preliminary treaties with France and Spain — Conference between Pitt and Fox — Coalition of Fox and North — Defeat of Lord Shelbume — Pitt's great speech in vindication of the Peace — Eesignation of Lord Shelburne — Pitt refuses the offer of the Treasury — Besigns ofSce of Chancellor of the Exchequer — Duke of Portland's Ministry — Pitt in private life — Again brings forward Parliamentary Eeform, but is defeated — Prince of Wales

— Marriage of Lord Chatham .. 87

^ CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

CHAPTEE IV.

Pitt's excursion to Trance — Abb^ de Lageard — Eetum to England — Fox's India Bill — Great speech of Burke — Bill passes the Commons, but is thrown out by the Lords — Dismissal of Fox and North — The Eoyal Prerogative — Pitt appointed Prime Minister

— Resignation of Lord Temple — The new Cabinet . . Page 129

CHAPTEE V.

Difficulties of Pitt's position — His India Bill — His public spirit — Fox's popularity declines — Proceedings of the " Independents " — Party conflicts in the Commons — Address to the King — Pitt attacked in his coach — Eevulsion of national feeling — Schemes of Fox — The Great Seal stolen — Dissolution of Parliament . . 169

CHAPTEE VI.

Pitt elected for the University of Cambridge, and Wilberforce for the County of York — Fox's Westminster Contest — Numerous defeats of Fox's friends — New Peerages — Meeting of Parliament — Predominance of Pitt — Disorder of the Finances — Frauds on the Eevenue — ■ Pitt's Budget • — his India Bill ■ — Westminster Scrutiny

— Eestoration of Forfeited Estates in Scotland — Letters to Lady Chatham — Promotions in the Peerage — Lord Camden President of the Council 204

CHAPTEE VII.

1784 — 1785.

Gibbon's character of Pitt — Pitt's application to business — Parallel between Pitt and Fox — The King's Speech on the opening of Parhament — Westminster Scrutiny — Success of Pitt's Financial Schemes — Eeform of Parliament — Commercial intercourse with Ireland — The Eleven Eesolutions — Pitt's Speech — Opposed by Fox and North — Petition from Lancashire against the measure — Opposition in the Irish House of Commons — Bill relinquished by the Govermnent — Mortification of Pitt 236

CONTENTS OF VOL. I. xi

CHAPTEE VIII.

1785 — 1786.

Four-and-a-half Fund — Marriage of Pitt's sister, Lady Harriot — Pitt purchases a Country Seat— Embarrassment of Lady Chatham's, and of Pitt's private affairs — The Kolliad — Captain Morris's Songs — Peter Pindar — Pitt's Irish Propositions — Contemplated Treaty of Commerce with Prance — Proposed Fortifications of Portsmouth and Plymouth — Pitt's Sinking Fund — Impeachment and Trial of Warren Hastings — New Peers Page 276

CHAPTEE IX.

1786 — 1787.

State of the Ministry — William Grenville — Lord Momington — Henry Dundas — Lord Carmarthen — Death of Frederick the Great — Margaret Nicholson's attempt on the life of George the Third — Death of Pitt's sister. Lady Harriot — Treaty of Commerce "with France — State of Ireland — Dr. Pretyman becomes Bishop of Lincoln and Dean of St. Paul's — Parliamentary Debates on French Treaty — Mr. Charles Grey — Proceedings against Hastings resumed — Unanimous testimony to Sheridan's eloquence — Pitt's measures of Financial Reform — The Prince of Wales and Mrs. Fitzherbert — Attempted Eepeal of the Test Act — ■ Settlement in Botany Bay 308

CHAPTEE X.

1787 — 1788.

State of parties in Holland — Differences respecting the French trade in ladia — Prussian troops enter Holland — Death of the Duke of Kutland — France and England disarm — Trial of Hastings — India Declaratory BiU — Budget — Claims of American Loyalists — First Steps in Parliament for the Abolition of the Slave Trade — Exertions of Wilberforce and Clarkson — Pitt's Eesolution — Sir W. Dolben's Bill — Horrors of the Middle Passage — Controversies on Slavery 339

XU CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

CHAPTEE XL

OfBcial changes and appointments — Treaties of Defensive Alliance with Holland and Pmssia — Mental alienation of the King — Pitt's measures — Prince of Wales consults Lord Loughborough — Manifestation of national sympathy — Objects of Pitt and Thurlow — Meeting of Parliament — The Kings removal to Kew — Fox's return from Italy Page 375

Appendix

Letters and Extracts of Letters from King George the Third to Mr. Pitt i— xxiii

LIFE

OF

THE EIGHT HONOURABLE

WILLIAM PITT.

CHAPTEK I.

1754—1780.

Birth ofWilliam Pitt — Early signs of great promise — Feeble heallli in boyhood — Education — At seventeen admitted M.A. at Cambridge — Study of elocution — Death of his father — Economical habits — Entered at Lincoln's Inn — Attends Parliamentary debates — Introduction to Fox — Called to the Bar — Joins the Western Circuit — M.P. for Appleby.

William Pitt the elder, best known by bis subsequent title as Earl of Cbatbam, married in 1754 Lady Hester Grenville, only daughter of Hester, in her own right Countess Temple. William Pitt, their second son, was born on the 28th of May, 1759, at Hayes, near Bromley, in Kent.

The house and grounds of Hayes, which had been pui'chased by Lord Chatham, were disposed of by his eldest son some years after his decease. So far as can be judged at present, the house has been but little altered since his time. The best bedroom is still pointed out as the apartment in which WiUiam Pitt was born; it is most probably also the apartment in which his father died.

VOL. I. B

Besides William,. Lord and Lady Chatliam liad two sons and two daughters. John, the eldest son, was born in 1756, and James Charles, the yonngest, in 1761. The daughters were Hester, born in 1755, and Harriot, born in 1,758. Lord Chatham designed his eldest son for the army, and his third for the navy, while the second, who had early given signs of great promise, was reserved for the Bar.

The year 1759, in which William Pitt was born, was perhaps the most glorious and eventful in his father's life. The impulse given to the war by that great orator and statesman was apparent in unexampled victories achieved in every quarter of the globe. In G-ermany we gained the battle of Minden, in North America we gained the battle of Quebec. In Africa we reduced Goree, and in the West Indies Guadaloupe. In the East we beat back the son of the Emperor of Delhi and the chiefs of the Dutch at Chinsura. Off the coast of Brittany we prevailed in the great naval conflict of Quiberon ; off the coast of Portugal in the great naval conflict of Lagos. " Indeed," — so Horace Walpole at the close of this year complains in a letter to Sir Horace Mann — " one is forced to ask every morning what victory there is, for fear of missing one !"

But years rolled on, and fortime changed. In 1761 Mr. Pitt on a difference with his colleagues resigned the Seals. The King on this occasion bestowed on him a pension of 3000?. a-year for three lives, and raised Lady Hester to the peerage in her own right as Baroness Chatham.

In the summer of 1765 the retired statesman went

Chap. I. LIFK OF PITT. 3

with his family to reside at Burton Pynsent, an estate of 3000Z. a-year in Somersetshire, which had been most unexpectedly bequeathed to him by an entire stranger, Sir William Pynsent.

On a sudden in July, 1766, Mr. Pitt was called back to of&ce, it may be said almost unanimously, by the public voice. But by a grievous error of his own, he determined to leave the House of Commons. He accepted together with the Privy Seal the title of Earl of Chatham.

At this period his two elder sons, and his daughter Hester, were residing at Weymouth for the benefit of their health, imder the charge of their tutor, the Eev. Edward Wilson. That gentleman reports little William as "perfectly happy" in retaiaing his father's name. Three months before he had said to his tutor in a very serious conversation, and iu reference, as it must then have been, to his mother's peerage, " I am glad I am not the eldest son; I want to speak in the House of Commons like Papa." ^

There is another story, which belongs to almost the same period, but which is of more doubtful authenticity, as depending only on distant recollection. Lord Holland tells us that the Duchess of Leinster once related to him a conversation, at which she was present, between her sister, the first Lady Holland, and her husband. Lord Holland. The lady, in remonstrating with the gentleman on his excessive indulgence to all

1 Letter to the Countess of Chat- I printed in the Chatham Coireham, dated August 2, 1766, and | spondence.

B 2 his children, and to Charles Fox ia particular, added, "I have been this morning with Lady Hester Pitt (Lady Chatham), and there is little William Pitt, not eight years old, and really the cleverest child I ever saw ; and brought up so strictly and so proper in his behavioiu-, that, mark my words, that little boy wiU be a thorn in Charles's side as long as he lives." "

As the "little boy" grew up, he evinced to all around him many other tokens of his genius and ambition. In April, 1772, during a few days' absence, we find Lady Chatham write as follows to her husband : — " The fineness of WiUiam's mind makes him enjoy with the highest pleasure what would be above the reach of any other creature of his small age. The young Lieutenant may not perhaps go quite so deep."' This young Lieutenant was Lord Pitt, the eldest son, whom William, though three years the junior, had already on all points excelled.

To the same effect there is other not more discriminating, but more disinterested testimony. In the summer of 1773 the two brothers had gone with Mr. Wilson for the sake of sea-bathing to Lyme. There Hayley the poet became well acquainted with them. In his Memoirs he describes WiUiam Pitt as "now a wonderful boy of fourteen, who eclipsed his brother in conversation." And he adds : — " Hayley often reflected on the singular pleasure he had derived from his young acquaintance ; regretting, however, that his reserve had

2 Memorials of Fox, by Lord j ' See the Chatham OoiTespond- John Eussell, vol. i. p. 25. | ence, vol, iv. p. 207.

Chap. I. LIFE OF PITT. 5

prevented his imparting to the wonderful youth the epic poem he had begun." * The very youngest critic that ever perhaps any poet chose !

But at this period William Pitt had himself become a poet. He had written a tragedy in five acts, and in blank verse, entitled ' Laurentius, King of Clarinium.' We learn by a note of Lady Chatham that it was represented for the first time at Burton Pynsent, August 22, 1772, and it was acted again in the spring of the ensuing year. There is a prologue, which was " spoken by Mr. Pitt," and of which a copy is signed in his own hand. All the parts were sustained by the five brothers and sisters, and the spectators were only their parents, with Lord and Lady Stanhope, and a very few other family friends. The manuscript of this play is stiU preserved at Chevening. I showed it to Lord Macaulay in one of the country visits — alas ! too soon concluded — which I had the great pleasure to receive from him ; and Lord Macaulay speaks of it as foUows in his excellent biographical sketch of Mr. Pitt, the last of all his published compositions : — " The tragedy is bad of course, but not worse than the tragedies of Hayley. It is in some respects highly curious. There is no love. The whole plot is political; and it is remarkable that the interest, such as it is, turns on a contest about a Kegency. On one side is a faithful servant of the Crown ; on the other an ambitious and unprincipled conspirator. At length the King, who had been missing, re-appears, resumes his power, and

■• Memoirs of William Hayley, written by Himself, vol. i. p. 127.

rewards the faithful defender of his rights. A reader who should judge only by internal evidence, would have no hesitation in pronouncing that the play was written by some Pittite poetaster, at the time of the rejoicings for the recovery of George the Third, in 1789."

But while Lord and Lady Chatham watched with no common pleasure the intellectual promise of their second son, they were frequently distressed by his delicate health. " My poor William is still ailing :" such is the constant burthen of his father's letters during his boyhood. There were great fears that so frail a plant would never be reared to fuU maturity.

It was no doubt on account of his feeble health in boyhood that little William was not sent to any public or private school. He was brought up at home by the tuition of Mr. Wilson, and imder his father's eye. Lord Chatham was indeed most careful of the education of his family. Bishop Tomline assures us that " when his Lordship's health would permit, he never suffered a day to pass without giving instruction of some sort' to his children ; and seldom without reading a chapter of the Bible with them." ^

Under Mr. Wilson, William Pitt studied the classics in Greek and Latin, and the elements of mathematics. In spite of the frequent interruptions from ill-health he made most rapid progress. He had so peculiar a discrimination in seizing at once the meaning of an author, that as Mr. Wilson once observed, he never seemed to

5 Life of Pitt, vol. i. p. 5.

Chap.. I. LIFE OF PITT. 7

learn, but only to recollect. At fourteen he was as forward as most lads at seventeen or eighteen, and was considered already ripe for college.

Without any disparagement to Mr. Wilson, it was certainly from Lord Chatham that young William profited most. Lord Chatham was an affectionate father to all his children. He took j^leasure, as we have seen, in teaching them all. But he discerned — as who would not ? — the rare abilities of WiUiam, and applied himself to unfold them with a never-failing care. From an early age he was wont to select any piece of eloquence he met with and transmit it to his son. Of this I have seen a striking instance in a note from him to Lady Chatham, which is endorsed in pencil " Ma. 1770," and which was thought to have no literary value. It was kindly presented to me ia answer to my request for autographs to oblige some collectors among my friends ; and it was designed to be cut up into two or three pieces of handwriting. But I found the note conclude with these words : " I send Domitian 'as a specimen of oratory for William." Now, " Domitian " was one of the subsidiary signatures of the author of ' Junius,' and the letter in question seems to be that of March 5, 1770." The words of Lord Chatham prove what has sometimes been disputed, that the eloquence of the author of •Junius' was noticed and admired by the best judges, even when his compositions were concealed under another name.

In the same spirit Lord Chatham used to recommend

" See Woodfall's Junius, vol. iii. p. 249.

to his son the best books as models. Thus he bid him read Barrow's Sermons, which he thought admirablycalculated to furnish the copia verhorum. Thus again he enjoined upon him the earnest study of the greatest Greek historians. Bishop Tomline says : — " It was by Lord Chatham's particular desire that Thucydides was the first Greek book which Mr. Pitt read after he came to college. The only other wish ever expressed by his Lordship relative to Mr. Pitt's studies was, that I would read Polybius with him."

But I have yet to notice what for Lord Chatham's object was his main plan of all. In 1803 my father, then Lord Mahon, had the high privilege, as a relative, of being for several weeks an inmate of Mr. Pitt's house at Walmer Castle. Presuming on that familiar intercourse, he told me that he ventured on one occasion to ask Mr. Pitt by what means he had acquired his admirable readiness of speech — his aptness of finding the right word without pause or hesitation. Mr. Pitt replied that whatever readiness he 'might be thought to possess in that respect was, he believed, greatly owing to a practice which his father had impressed upon him. Lord Chatham had bid him take up any book in some foreign language with which he was well acquainted, in Latin or Greek especially. Lord Chatham then enjoined him to read out of this work a passage in English, stopping, where he was not sure of the word to be used in English, until the right word came to his mind, and then proceed. Mr. Pitt stated that he had assiduously followed this practice. We may conclude that at first he had often to stop for awhile before he could recollect the

Chap. I. LIFE OF PITT. 9

proper word, but that lie found the difficulties gradually disappear, untU what was a toil to him at first became at last an easy and familiar task.'

To an orator the charm of voice is of very far more importance than mere readers of speeches would find it easy to believe. I have known some speakers in whom that one advantage seemed almost to supply the place of every other. The tones of WiUiam Pitt were by nature sonorous and clear ; and the further art how to manage and modulate his voice to the best advantage was instilled into him by his father with exquisite skill. Lord Chatham himself was pre-eminent in that art, as also in the graces of action, insomuch that these accomplishments have been sometimes imputed to him as a fault. In a passage of Horace Walpole, written with the manifest desire to disparage him, we find him compared to Garrick.^

To train his son in sonorous elocution Lord Chatham caused him to recite day by day in his presence passages from the best English poets. The two poets most commonly selected for this pm-pose were Shakespeare and Milton, and Mr. Pitt continued through life familiar with both. There is another fact which Lord Macaulay has recorded from tradition, and which I also remember to have heard : — " The debate in Pandemonium was, as it well deserved to be, one of his favourite passages ; and his early Mends used to talk, long after his death, of the just emphasis and -the melodious cadence with

7 Already related ty me in mj- Aberdeen Address, Marcli 25, 1858, p. 20.

^ Memoirs of George 11., vol. i. p. 479.

B 3 which they had heard him recite the incomparable speech of Belial."

Being at fom-teen so forward in his studies, William Pitt was sent to the University of Cambridge. He was entered at Pembroke Hall in .the spring of 1773, and commenced his residence in October the same year. Mr. Wilson in the first instance attended him to Cambridge, and resided with him for some weeks in the same apartments, but solely for the care of his health, and without any concern in the direction of his studies. He had been commended to the especial care of the Eev. George Pretyman, one of the two tutors of his college ; and it was not long ere that gentleman became both his sole instructor and his familiar friend.

George Pretyman, whom I have already cited and called by anticipation Bishop Tomline, was born at Bury St. Edmunds in 1750. Proceeding to Cambridge he showed not indeed any brilliant ability, but a keen and unflinching application. He made himseK an excellent mathematician, as well as an excellent scholar, and in 1772 he was the Senior Wrangler for the year. I shall have occasion to show how in after life the friendship of Mr. Pitt as Minister raised him to high honours in the Church, and above all to the Bishopric of Lincoln. In 1803 he assumed the name of Tomline, on the bequest of a large estate. , He was translated to the See of Winchester in 1820, and he died in 1827.

It was Bishop Tomline to whom, as we shall see, Mr. Pitt bequeathed his papers for examination. Some years later the Bishop evinced his attachment to the

Chap. I. LIFE OF PITT, 11

memory of his pupil and his patron by undertaking the Memoirs of his Life. This work he did not liye to finish. The first part, which was published in 1821, and which now lies before me, in three octavo volumes, extends only to the close of 1792. Great expectations had been formed on the appearance of this work. I am certainly not going beyond the truth if I say that such expectations of it were much disappointed. It does indeed impart to us an authentic and important though rather meagre account of Pitt in his earlier years. It does indeed contain some, though very few, extracts from his private correspondence. But nearly the whole remainder of this biography is a mere compilation. It gives us for the most part Pitt's measm-es from the ' Annual Eegister,' and his speeches from the Parliamentary debates. It was composed, as an Edinburgh reviewer said at the time, not by the aid of his Lordship's pen, but rather " by his Lordship's sharp and faithful scissors."'

At Cambridge William Pitt was still intent on his main object of oratorical excellence. Immediately after his arrival we fiiid him attend a course of lectures on Quintilian.' But his health at this period gave cause for great alarm. From a boy he had shot up far too rapidly to a tall, lank stripling, with no corresponding development of breadth and muscle. In the first few weeks of his college-life he was seized with a most serious iUness. For nearly two months he was confined to his rooms, and reduced to so weak a state that upon

8 EdinTsurgliEeTiew, July, 1821, [ ^ See the Chatham Correspondp. 452. I euce, vol. iv. p. 295.

12 LII'B OF PITT. Chap. I.

his convalescence he was four days in travelling to London.

Eeturning under such unfavourable circumstances, his father kept him at home for half a year. During this interval he was placed under the care of the family physician, Dr. Addington. This gentleman recommended early hours, with exercise every day on horseback, and a careful system of diet. But he further prescribed liberal potations of port-wine. It was a remedy which certainly accorded well with the young man's constitution. He took it at this time with manifest advantage, and he adhered to it through life. It was his elixir of strength amidst all his toils and cares, but perhaps in the long run with no good effect. "While it must frequently have recruited his energies, it may be suspected of combining with these toils and cares to undermine his constitution.

Alarming as it seemed at the time, the illness of Pitt in the autumn of 1773 proved in truth the turning point of his disorder. By attention to Dr. Addington's rules he much more than recovered his lost ground. In July, 1774, some weeks before the commencement of the autumn term, he was permitted to return to Cambridge — " the evacuated seat of the Muses," as Lord Chatham calls it in his somewhat affected epistolary style.* WOliam Pitt renewed at once his study of Quintilian and Thucydides, but did not pursue that study by night. " The Historic Muse " — thus he writes to his father — " captivates extremely, but at the

2 Chatham CorreBpondenoe, vol. iv. p. 364,

Chap. I. LIFE OF PITT. 13

same time I beg you to be persuaded that neither she nor any of her sisters allure me from the resolution of early hours, which has been stedfastly adhered to, and makes the academic life agree perfectly."' Nor did he at this time neglect his daily ride nor yet his daily draughts of port-wine. He had no relapse nor material check, and by slow but sure degrees gained strength. "At the age of eighteen," says his tutor, " he was a healthy man, and he continued so for many years."