From Lady Hester Pitt.
Dear Madam,—Having informed Mr. Pitt, who is this moment come home, that you intend going to the Lodgings in Lisle Street, He wou'd not set down to dinner without desiring me to let you know from Him that this intention of Yours gives him the greatest surprise and not Less concern for Your sake, being unalterably persuaded that Retreat is the only right Thing for your Health, Welfare, and Happiness, and that Bath in Your present state seems to be the fittest Place.
St. James's Square Wednesday past four o'clock.
We now come to the famous affair of the pension. Ann has evidently written to ask her brother's interest for a pension. He replies that on such a subject he would rather not speak, much less write to her, and gives her plainly to understand that he washes his hands of the whole business. She now turned to Bute. 'Having lost, therefore,' writes Camelford, 'all the hopes she had founded on her brother's friendship, which now turned to open enmity, she tried the generosity of Ld Bute upon the King's succession, who, not unwilling to give Mr Pitt a sensible mortification in the shape of a civility, procured for her a pension that was no small comfort in addition to her slender income, which was afterwards again augmented to £1000 p.a., at the instance of her friend M. de Nivernois, upon the peace.'
Dear Sister,—I hoped long before now to have been able to call on you, and in that hope have delayed answering a letter on a subject so very nice and particular, that I cou'd, with difficulty and but imperfectly, enter into it even in conversation. I am sure I need not say to one of your knowledge of the world, that explaining of Situations is not a small Affair, at any time, and in the present moment I dare say You are too reasonable to wish me to do it. In this state I have only to assure you of my sincerest wishes for your advantage and happiness, and that I shall consider any good that arrives to you as done to myself, which I shall be ready to acknowledge as such: but having never been a Sollicitor of favours, upon any occasion, how can I become so now without contradicting the whole tenour of my Life? I think there is no foundation for your apprehensions of anything distressfull being intended, and I hope you will not attribute, what I have said to any motive that may give you uneasiness, being very truely
Dear Sister Your affectionate Brother
W. Pitt.
Nov. 24: 1760.
After the letter in which Pitt sheers off from the pension, there was evidently an announcement from Ann that it had been granted to her on the recommendation of Lord Bute. This is lost. But we have Pitt's unpleasing congratulation. This was the note which Ann was with difficulty restrained from returning to Pitt, having altered it to suit the circumstances of the case, when Pitt's wife was granted a much larger pension.
Dear Sister,—Accept sincere felicitations from Lady Hester and me on the Event you have just communicated. on your account, I rejoice at an addition of income so agreeable to your turn of life, whatever repugnancy I find, at the same time, to see my Name placed on the Pensions of Ireland. unmixt as I am in this whole transaction, I will not doubt that you will take care to have it thoroughly understood. long may you live in health to enjoy the comforts and happiness which you tell me you owe to the King, singly through the intercession of Lord Bute, and to feel the pleasing sentiments of such an obligation.
I am Dear Sister Your most affectionate Brother
W. Pitt.
Tuesday Dec. 30th 1760.
Then follows Ann's reply, which may be judged not unconciliatory when her fierce temperament is taken into consideration. She elaborately and almost humbly vindicates her pension against her brother's sarcastic strictures.
Dear Brother,—I must trouble you again, not only to return my thanks to Lady Hester and yourself, for your obliging felicitations, But as I have the mortification of finding, that for some reasons which I can not judge of, You feel a repugnancy to the mark of favour I have had the honour to receive, and desire—it may be throughly understood that you had no share in the transaction—I ought to make you easy, by assuring you, as I do, that so far as I think proper to communicate an event, which will not naturally be very publick, I will take care to explain the truth, by which it will appear that you are no way concern'd in it, and that it has no sort of relation to your Situation as Minister, since my request was first made to the Princess many years ago, as Her Royal Highnesess Servant, as I am pretty sure I explained to you in a letter from France, and repeated to you at my return, as the foundation of my hopes of obtaining the Princesses approbation for any establishment you might have procured for me. And tho' the Provision I have been so happy to obtain from His Majesty's Bounty is of the utmost importance to me and answers every wish I cou'd form with regard to my income, yet when I was allow'd to say how much wou'd make me easy, I fix'd it at a sum, which I flatter myself will not be thought exorbitant, or appear as if I had wanted to avail myself of the weight of your credit, or the merit of your services to obtain it.
As to your objection to your Names (sic) being upon the Irish Pensions, I do not believe that any mistake can be made, from mine being there. And as to myself, I very sincerely think it an honour that is very flattering to me, to have received so precious a mark of the Royal favour, and to have my Name upon the same List not only with some of the highest and the most deserving persons in England, but even with some of the greatest and most glorious names in Europe. If I have tired you with a longer letter than I intended, I have been lead (sic) into it, by the sincere desire I have, that an advantage so very essential to the ease and comfort of the remainder of a Life, which has not hitherto been very happy, shou'd not be a cause of uneasiness to You. I am
Alas for the freakful fate which plays with poor humanity and its concerns! The next letter announces another pension, not to Ann, but to Pitt's wife. So soon after the other correspondence, not ten months! No wonder that Ann was tempted to the vengeance that has been described. Even though she refrained we may imagine her unrestrained scoffs and her bitter laughter.
Dear Madam,—I was out of Town Yesterday, or otherwise I shou'd have had the pleasure of informing You that His Majesty has been Graciously pleas'd to confer the Dignity of Peerage on Your Brother's Family, by creating Me Baroness of Chatham with Limitation to our Sons. The King has been farther pleas'd to make a Grant of Three Thousand Pounds a Year to Mr. Pitt for his own Life, Mine, and our Eldest Son's in consideration of Mr. Pitt's Services, We do not doubt of the Share You will take in these Gracious Marks of his Majesties Royal Approbation and Goodness.
I am Dear Madam Your most Obedient Servant
Hes: Pitt.
Sunday Morning