[34] “Origin of Power-loom Weaving,” by W. Radcliffe, 59 et seq.
[35] In Pitt MSS., 221, is a petition signed by many persons connected with the navy in favour of granting a pension to Mr. Cort, who had made “malleable iron with raw pit-coal, and manufactured the same by means of grooved rollers, by a process of his own invention.” The petitioners state that though the invention had brought no benefit to Cort, but rather the reverse, yet it had proved to be of national importance.
[36] W. Wales, op. cit., 44 et seq., enumerates several cases where the rural population declined, but he attributed that fact not to the enclosures (for he states that the enclosures of wastes, which were more numerous than those of the open fields, increased employment), but rather to the refusal of landlords to build cottages, though they charged higher rents than before. For the question of enclosures, however, see Dr. Gilbert Slater’s recent work on the subject (Constable and Co., 1907).
[37] See Dr. von Ruville’s work, “William Pitt, Earl of Chatham” (Eng. ed., 3 vols. 1907), for a full account of these forbears.
[38] Ruville, i, 343–6.
[39] Ibid., 345. Pitt finally bought about 100 acres, and further strained his resources by extensive building at Hayes.
[40] “Pitt, some Chapters of his Life and Times,” by Lord Ashbourne, 161–6.
[41] “The Life of William Wilberforce,” by his Sons, i, 304.
[42] Pitt MSS., 11 and 13.
[43] Stanhope, ii, 125.