Chatham; His Early Life And Connections - free ebook by Archibald Philip Primrose Rosebery

His Early Life and Connections

LONDON ARTHUR L. HUMPHREYS 187 PICCADILLY, W 1910 Second Impression. To BEVILL FORTESCUE OF DROPMORE AND BOCONNOC, THIS BOOK, WHICH OWES EVERYTHING TO HIM, IS GRATEFULLY DEDICATED....

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PREFACE

My first words of preface must be of excuse for some apparent lack of gratitude in my dedication. For besides my debt to Mr. Fortescue, I owe my warmest acknowledgments to Mary, Lady Ilchester, and her son, for the permission to examine some of the papers of Henry Fox; a character of great interest, whose life is yet to be written. But I hope that this will soon be presented by Lord Ilchester, whose capacity for such work is already proved. I render my sincere thanks both to him and to his mothe

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CHATHAM HIS EARLY LIFE AND CONNECTIONS CHAPTER I.

There is one initial part of a biography which is skipped by every judicious reader; that in which the pedigree of the hero is set forth, often with warm fancy, and sometimes at intolerable length. It is, happily, not necessary to enter upon the bewildering branches of the innumerable Pitts, but only to keep to one conspicuous stem. We must however record that the Pitt family was gentle and honourable; 'it had,' says one of them, 'been near two centuries growing into wealth without producing any

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CHAPTER II.

And now we come by a process of exhaustion to the subject of this book. William Pitt, the elder statesman of that name, was born in London, in the parish of St. James's, November 15, 1708. It does not now seem possible to trace the house of his nativity, but it was probably in Pall Mall, where his father then or afterwards resided. We are limited to the information that his godfathers were 'Cousin Pitt' (probably George Pitt of Strathfieldsaye) and General Stewart, after the latter of whom he wa

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CHAPTER III.

But before he launches on that troubled career, it is well to catch what glimpses we can obtain of Pitt in private life. It is the more necessary as this aspect soon disappears from sight, and his letters begin to assume that pompous and obsequious tone which we have come to believe was his natural style, but which it is obvious was assumed and affected for purposes of his own. Until he passes on to the stage, he is as bright, as livery, and as affectionate as any lad of his generation. It is be

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CHAPTER IV.

More than sixteen years elapse between this letter and the next, which takes us far beyond our present limit, but it is best to finish the story of Ann. Part of this long interval can be explained by extreme harmony, and the remainder by the reverse. The mutual devotion of William and Ann lasted, says Lord Camelford, till he became Paymaster in May 1746: then they quarrelled. Why, no one knows, or, it is to be presumed, will ever know. Horace Walpole only says that Pitt shook his sister off in a

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CHAPTER V.

In 1734 there had been a fiercely contested General Election, and Thomas Pitt had been returned for both Okehampton and Old Sarum. He elected to sit for Okehampton, and nominated his brother, William, together with his brother-in-law, Nedham, for the other borough. So, on February 18, 1735, William was returned Member for the notorious borough of Old Sarum; an area of about sixty acres of ploughed land, on which had once stood the old city of Salisbury, but which no longer contained a single hou

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CHAPTER VI.

It is here that his public career begins. His lot was cast in stirring times. For the year of his entry into Parliament was the fourteenth of Walpole's long administration, and it was not difficult to see menacing cracks in the structure. The Minister himself seems to have been aware that his position was critical; and at the general election in the previous year he had spared no exertions to secure a majority. In his own county of Norfolk, 10,000 l. had been spent in support of his candidates w

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CHAPTER VII.

During his first session of Parliament, Pitt never opened his mouth: indeed, his only public performance was to tell in a division. In 1736 he became better known. He supported an address of congratulation to the Crown on the marriage of the Prince of Wales. This formal and complimentary speech has been absurdly scrutinised because of the speaker's subsequent fame, and much has been read into it which no impartial reader can now discern. A notorious eulogy describes it as superior even to the mo

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CHAPTER VIII.

Let us consider for a moment the character of the Sovereign whom Pitt had set himself to bait. George II. was first and fundamentally a German prince of his epoch. What other could he be? And these magnates all aped Louis XIV. as their model. They built huge palaces, as like Versailles as their means would permit, and generally beyond those limits, with fountains and avenues and dismally wide paths. Even in our own day a German monarch has left, fortunately unfinished, an accurate Versailles on

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CHAPTER IX.

And now it is necessary to say a word of Continental affairs. A life of Pitt should concern itself with Pitt alone, or with the persons and events immediately relating to him. But as during this period of his life foreign policy was all in all, and Britain seemed a mere anxious appendage to the Continent, it is necessary to give a succinct sketch of the familiar but complicated sequence of events in Europe which occurred at this time, and which inspired almost all the debates in which Pitt took

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CHAPTER X.

No more of Pitt's speeches are recorded during the session, which, with the enviable ease of those days, having opened on November 16, 1742, closed on April 21, 1743. In the interval before the ensuing session an event occurred, not in itself memorable, but notable for the contest that followed. In July 1743 occurred the long-expected death of Wilmington, the nominal head of the Government. In itself this departure would not have caused a ripple on the surface of politics, but it opened a critic

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CHAPTER XI.

Soon after this memorable debate France formally declared war against March 1744. Great Britain in a document reciting the injuries sustained by France at the hands of the 'King of England, Elector of Hanover,' and faction was for the moment laid on one side, though Pitt, while supporting the Government, managed to declare that perdition would attend Carteret as the 'rash author of those measures which have produced this disastrous, impracticable war.' Still Parliament adjourned with comparative

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CHAPTER XII.

Pitt was now to inhabit the Pay Office, and he gave notice to Ann, without any previous quarrel so far as we know, that they would henceforth live apart. In any case, Pitt's accession to office thus enabled him to put a convenient period to what had probably become a fretting and irksome arrangement; but Walpole notes at this time that there is gossip about 'the new Paymaster's ménage,' possibly Grattan's tradition of 'This House to Let.' This sort of chit-chat is, however, the inevitable accomp

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CHAPTER XIII.

On the meeting of Parliament in January 1751, Lord Egmont raised on the Address the question of the peace with Spain. Pitt in reply delivered a speech of singular interest, for he disarms criticism by frankly avowing the errors of his 'young and sanguine' days, to employ his own epithets. After pointing out that the Spaniards could not be expected to give up the assertion of their right of search any more than we would renounce our claim to the right of free navigation in the American seas, he p

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CHAPTER XIV.

How did he pass these three years? It is not easy to say, for we have so little light on his private life. No prescient Boswell marked his words and habits, or indeed had much opportunity of doing so. Few men of the same eminence have lived in such retirement as he did; we only catch glimpses. In the first place, it may be said without extravagance that his principal occupation was the gout. His gout became part of the history of England. To him it was a cruel fact. It kept him constantly disabl

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CHAPTER XV.

We have seen that Pitt was to proceed to Hagley after leaving Tunbridge Wells in September 1753. From Hagley he sent a letter to Newcastle, which it must have cost him something to write. 'Some circumstances of my brother's transactions at Old Sarum render me uneasy at depending for my seat in next Parliament on that place. So I take the liberty to recur once more for your Grace's protection and friendship to provide for my election elsewhere.' [226] Newcastle seems at once to have offered his b

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CHAPTER XVI.

In the meantime all had been settled by hasty arrangements in London. Owing to Newcastle's overwhelming 'affliction,' Hardwicke tells us that he himself was compelled to step forward as a 'kind of minister ab aratro ,' and make the necessary arrangements. A faint offer of the Treasury was made to the Duke of Devonshire, which he wisely declined, and, six days after the death of Pelham, Newcastle, in spite of his overwhelming affliction, was proclaimed his successor. We do not doubt Newcastle's s

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CHAPTER XVII.

On November 14, the very day of the opening of 1754. Parliament, Pitt brought forward a bill for the relief of the Chelsea Pensioners, who, from receiving their pensions a year in arrear, fell inextricably into the hands of usurers. He was in haste to perform this useful duty, for on November 16 he was married by special licence to Lady Hester at Argyll Buildings, Dr. Ayscough officiating; and Solomon and Esther, as Lady Townshend called them, thence departed for the honeymoon to West's house of

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CHAPTER XVIII.

It was soon clear to Newcastle that Fox after all might not suffice, and that Pitt must be again approached. The King, then in Hanover and beyond Newcastle's control, was negotiating new treaties of subsidy on behalf of his German dominions; one with Hesse-Cassel for a contingent of 12,000 men to act in defence of Hanover or Great Britain, the other with Russia for an army of 40,000 men for the defence of Hanover. It was terrible for the Duke to contemplate what Pitt might say and do with regard

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CHAPTER XIX.

This blank though important space in the life of Pitt himself seems favourable for picking up a few threads which had to be dropped in the narrative of his negotiations with Newcastle. After the baiting to which Robinson had been subjected in the first days of the session he disappeared from debate; and Fox, then in close negotiation for a seat in the Cabinet, represented the Government in the Commons, and turned a deaf ear to the proposal that he should join Pitt in a combined attack on Newcast

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CHAPTER XX.

The bombardment of the new Ministry continued without intermission, for Pitt was determined to wreak his vengeance on Newcastle and Fox. We may, moreover, presume that, seeing the critical condition of affairs and the incompetence of the Ministry to wrestle with them, he, conscious of great powers, was determined to become a directing Minister. He was now forty-seven, in the full ripeness of character and intellect. Neither he nor the country could afford to wait. A day or two later Lyttelton un

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CHAPTER XXI.

But national calamity was now to lend irresistible force to his attacks. It had been known for some time that France was meditating an attack on Gibraltar or Minorca, and in the beginning of March it became certain that Minorca was to be the object. [323] During the first week of May the Government received the news that the French had actually landed on the island. War was formally and not prematurely declared on May 18. Six weeks earlier the ill-fated Byng had sailed with a fleet to relieve th

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CHAPTER XXII.

But with this Government we have nothing to do. We have reached our limits. The youth of Pitt has passed, his apprenticeship is over, he has now his foot in high office, he is soon to be supreme. The weary period of proscription and conflict has come to an end, he is henceforth to command where he has obeyed, and he is to raise his country to a singular height of glory and power. That splendid period is beyond the scope of this book, which only records the ascent and the toil; the lustre of achi

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