in February 1735, as one of the representatives for Old Sarum. He was gifted in an eminent degree by nature with the external qualities (so to speak) of the orator. He possessed a tall and manly figure, a dignified and graceful deportment, a countenance singularly expressive, and an eye, the keenness of which often struck terror into the most able and intrepid of his opponents. "His voice was both full and clear; his lowest whisper was distinctly heard; his middle tones were sweet, rich, and beautifully varied; when he elevated his voice to its highest pitch, the House was completely filled with the volume of the sound. The effect was awful, except when he wished to cheer or animate; he then had spirit-stirring notes, which were perfectly irresistible. He frequently rose on a sudden from a very low to a very high key, but it seemed to be without effort."*

"All accounts concur in representing the effects of his oratory to have been prodigious. The spirit and vehemence which animated its greater passages their perfect application to the subject matter of debate-the appositeness of his invective to the individual assailed-the boldness of the feats which he ventured upon-the grandeur of the ideas which he unfolded-the heart-stirring nature of his appeals-are all confessed by the united testimony of his contemporaries." †

His maiden speech was delivered on Mr. Pulteney's motion, on the 29th of April, 1736, for a congratulatory address to the King on the marriage of the Prince of Wales with the Princess of Saxe Gotha. This speech produced a considerable sensation; and is applauded by Tindal as “ being more ornamented than the declamations of Demosthenes, and less diffuse than those of Cicero." It was, however, particularly distasteful to the Court. This circumstance, coupled with Mr. Pitt's forming one of the opposition to Sir Robert Walpole, procured for him his dismissal from the army within a very short time afterwards; for the vacancy made by the supercession of Cornet Pitt was filled up on the 17th of May, 1736.§ The Prince of Wales soon recompensed him for this loss by appointing him one of the grooms of his bedchamber; and Mr. Pitt now took a prominent part in opposition to Sir Robert Walpole.

In 1744, the celebrated Duchess of Marlborough died, leaving him a legacy" of £10,000, upon account of his merit in the noble defence he has made of the laws of England, and to prevent the ruin of his country." Upon this he resigned his situation in the household of the Prince of Wales.

In the same year, Mr. Pitt was proposed by the Duke of Newcastle for the office of Secretary at War; but the King's aversion to him, in conseButler's Reminiscences, vol. i. p. 139.

+ Lord Brougham's Statesmen. Lord Chatham.

Eldest son of George the Second, and father of George the Third.

§ Quarterly Review, June 1840, art. Life of Chatham." The first sound of Mr. Pitt's voice terrified Sir Robert Walpole, and he immediately exclaimed, "We must muzzle that terrible cornet of horse." Sir Robert offered to promote Mr. Pitt's rise in the army, provided he gave up his seat in Parliament.

quence of the opposition which he had offered to Hanoverian interests and influence, was insurmountable, and, with much difficulty and reluctance, his friends were persuaded to accept office without him, under an assurance from the Minister that he should at no distant day be able to remove this prejudice from his Majesty's mind. After unsuccessfully attempting to remove the King's repugnance to Mr. Pitt's admission to office, the Duke of Newcastle resigned on the 10th of February, 1746. A general resignation of the other Ministers immediately ensued. Lord Bath* was then appointed First Lord of the Treasury; but he soon discovered his inability to form an Administration, and his Majesty had no other resource than to solicit the return of his old servants. Mr. Pitt was included in the new arrangements; but, in consequence of the King's unabated dislike to him, he was obliged to put up with the subordinate post of Vice-Treasurer of Ireland, to which he was appointed on the 22nd of February, 1746. On the 6th of May following, he was presented to the office of Paymaster of the Forces, and was at the same time made a Privy Councillor.

Two circumstances connected with his tenure of the Paymastership of the Forces evince his rare integrity and disinterestedness. Instead of appropriating to his own use the interest upon the public balances, which it had been usual for Paymasters to retain in their hands, he at once paid every sum belonging to his office into the Bank of England, without appropriating a shilling to his private use. The other circumstance was his refusing to accept a fee of one-half per cent. which foreign powers had usually paid on the receipt of their subsidies, and which, from the frequent subsidies raised in those days, formed one of the great emoluments of the Pay Office.

In November 1754, Mr. Pitt strengthened his political connexions by his marriage with Hester, daughter of Richard Grenville, Esq., of Wootton, in the county of Buckingham, and sister of Viscount Cobham, afterwards first Earl Temple,t and of George and James Grenville.

The situation of affairs in the summer of 1755 threatening an early rupture between France and England, George the Second immediately set out for Hanover with the view of taking measures for the defence of that electorate. On his return to England, he brought with him a subsidiary treaty with the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel for 12,000 men; and, soon after his arrival, another with the Empress of Russia for 40,000 men was concluded. When those treaties were submitted to Parliament for ratification, on the 13th of the ensuing November, Mr. Pitt and Mr. Legge, who was at that time Chancellor of the Exchequer, opposed them; and on the 20th of that month they both received intimations that his Majesty had no

Formerly Mr. Pulteney. Vide post, p. 26, n.

The first Earl Temple was the son of Mr. Richard Grenville, by a sister of the celebrated Lord Cobham. This nobleman dying in September 1749, his titles and estates devolved upon his sister, who was soon afterwards created Countess Temple, when her son assumed the title of his uncle.

further occasion for their services. Mr. Pitt's fortune being at this time extremely small, he was prevailed upon to accept a pension of a thousand pounds a year from the Duke of Newcastle. This circumstance, however, in no measure compromised his opposition to that Minister. It probably made him take a bolder and higher tone, in order to prevent all suspicion of being influenced by such personal considerations.

In the course of the year 1756, the failure of Admiral Byng, the loss of Minorca, the capture of Oswego in America, and of Calcutta in Asia, caused great dissatisfaction with the conduct of public affairs; and in order to strengthen the administration, overtures were made to Mr. Pitt to join it. These he rejected; and the Duke of Newcastle finding it impossible to form an efficient Ministry, resigned on the 11th of November, having held the offices of Secretary of State and first Lord of the Treasury for thirty-two years. A new Ministry was now formed, in which the office of first Lord of the Treasury was given to the Duke of Devonshire. Mr. Pitt was appointed Secretary of State, and was in fact Premier, and Mr. Legge received the appointment of Chancellor of the Exchequer.

*

Nothing appalled at the embarrassed state of public affairs on his accession to office, nor at the serious disadvantage under which he lay of not possessing the confidence of the Crown, Mr. Pitt immediately adopted the most vigorous measures for repairing the disasters in which the country was involved. He despatched squadrons of men of war to the East and West Indies; sent a successful expedition to the French settlements on the coast of Africa; and adopted the happy expedient of raising two battalions of Highlanders, which had the effect of tending to reconcile the Highland clans and Scotland in general to the Hanoverian dynasty.† Under his auspices, likewise, a national militia was raised and organized, to which the internal defence of the country was committed on any menace of invasion or rebellion, instead of the foreign troops which it had been of late usual to hire on such occasions.

But the new administration under the Duke of Portland was of short duration. In consequence of Mr. Pitt's hostility to the war in Germany, the Duke of Cumberland, who had been appointed to the command of the army assembled for the protection of Hanover, refused to set out while Mr. Pitt and his friends remained in power. The King, who had been unable to overcome his aversion to Mr. Pitt, was easily persuaded to accede to the request of the Duke of Cumberland, and Mr. Pitt, Lord Temple, and Mr. Legge, were dismissed from office previous to the Duke's departure.

* The Duke of Newcastle was appointed Secretary of State in 1724, on the dismissal of Lord Carteret. He held this situation until the death of his brother, Mr. Pelham, in March 1754, when he became first Lord of the Treasury.

† Although this measure was adopted by Mr. Pitt, it did not originate with him. A similar measure was first proposed in the year 1738, by Duncan Forbes, President of the Court of Session, and met with the approval of Sir Robert Walpole, but it was opposed by all his colleagues, and the proposition therefore then fell to the ground.— Smyth's Lect. on Modern Hist. vol. ii. p. 285. Vide post, pp. 70, 159*, where Mr. Pitt alludes to his raising the Highland regiments.

Such was the popularity of Mr. Pitt and Mr. Legge, that immediately upon their dismissal, addresses of thanks, expressed in the warmest language, and the freedom of the principal corporations throughout the kingdom, contained in gold boxes, were presented to them. The country was now left for upwards of two months without any responsible government; and after several ineffectual attempts to form an administration, the Duke of Newcastle, in June 1757, again became first Lord of the Treasury; the seal of Secretary of State, with the Premiership, was delivered to Mr. Pitt; and Mr. Fox was appointed Paymaster of the Forces. The fortunes of England were now at the lowest ebb; but the brilliant successes of Mr. Pitt's administration raised the country to a most dazzling height of splendour and respect. No less than sixteen islands, settlements, and fortresses, were taken from France in America, Africa, and Asia, including all her West Indian colonies, except St. Domingo, and all her settlements in the East. The whole of Canada was likewise conquered; and the Havannah was taken from Spain. The French navy was nearly destroyed; the Spanish was rendered contemptible; our empire of the sea was established; and new sources were opened for British commerce and manufactures. Nor is it a less glorious result of Mr. Pitt's administration, that, owing to the liberal system of policy pursued by him, a people hitherto torn by internal dissensions became united; and probably scarcely one person of the rank of a gentleman, south of the Tweed, was found to dispute the right of the House of Brunswick to the throne of Great Britain, after the year 1760.*

While the negotiations for a treaty of peace between France and England were pending in the summer of 1761, they were abruptly terminated by intelligence which Mr. Pitt had received, that the alliance called the "Family Compact," had been secretly concluded between France and Spain. Fully satisfied of the hostile intentions of Spain, he was anxious to begin the attack; and at a cabinet council, held on the 18th of September, he expressed his decided opinion to his colleagues, that we ought, from prudence, as well as from spirit, to strike the first blow, and proposed at once seizing the Spanish fleets on their way to Europe. The cabinet came to no decision on Mr. Pitt's proposition on that day, nor on a second occasion when he introduced the subject. At length, early in October, all his colleagues, with the exception of Lord Temple, divided against him. Warmed by this opposition, Mr. Pitt declared that if he could not prevail in this instance, it would be the last time he would sit in that council. He thanked them for their support; said that he was called to the Ministry by the voice of the people, to whom he considered himself accountable for his conduct; and that he would not remain in a situation which made him responsible for measures he was no longer allowed to guide. He and Lord Temple then tendered their advice in writing to his Majesty; but it was rejected, and

*Hallam's Const. Hist. vol. iii. p. 340, n.

they both resigned on the 5th of October.* When Mr. Pitt attended in the royal closet upon his giving up the seals of office, George the Third expressed concern for the loss of so able a servant, and offered him any rewards which it was in the power of the Crown to bestow; but intimated his approval of the decision which had been come to by a majority of the cabinet. Mr. Pitt was much affected by the kindness and condescension of the reception which he met with from the King. "I confess, Sir," said he, "I had too much reason to expect your Majesty's displeasure. I did not come prepared for this exceeding goodness. Pardon me, Sir, it overpowers, it oppresses me:" and he burst into tears.† On the following day a pension of £3,000 a year was settled on himself, his wife, and his eldest son; and his wife was raised to the peerage by the title of Baroness Chatham, with remainder to her issue. Mr. Pitt incurred much odium by the acceptance of these favours; but, in the course of a few weeks, he quite regained his popularity.‡

When the preliminaries of peace came on for discussion in the House of Commons, in December 1762, Mr. Pitt, although he had been for some time confined to his bed with a severe attack of the gout, attended in his place, and opposed them in a speech of nearly three hours' length. Being unable to stand while addressing the House, he was allowed the unprecedented indulgence of speaking from his seat. When he had concluded, he was obliged at once to leave the House, without taking part in the division. Notwithstanding his eloquence, the treaty proposed by Ministers was sanctioned by the House; and it was definitively signed on the 11th of February, 1763.

The reader is already aware of the legacy left to Mr. Pitt by the Duchess of Marlborough, and of the motive which actuated her in making that bequest. In the early part of the year 1763, another token of a similar nature was manifested of the general estimation in which he was held. In the month of January of that year, Sir William Pynsent, a Somersetshire baronet of ancient family, and an enthusiastic admirer of the public character of Mr. Pitt, but without any personal acquaintance with him, died, leaving him the estate of Burton Pynsent, in the county of Somerset, worth nearly £3,000 a year.

* The Spanish negotiations turned out precisely as Lord Chatham had foreseen and foretold; and a declaration of war against Spain was issued on the 4th of January, 1762. † Annual Register for 1761.

"With regard to the pension and title," says Mr. Burke, "it is a shame that any defence should be necessary. What eye cannot distinguish at the first glance between this and the exceptionable case of titles and pensions? What Briton, with the smallest sense of honour and gratitude, but must blush for his country, if such a man retired unrewarded from the public service, let the motives of that retirement be what they would? It was not possible that his Sovereign could let his eminent services pass unrequited; and the quantum was rather regulated by the moderation of the great mind that received it, than by the liberality of that which bestowed it."--Annual Register for 1761.