Concentration of effort on political and diplomatic questions was the alpha and omega of Pitt's creed. The terrible pressure of events forbade his looking far ahead or far afield; he marched straight onward, hoping by his untiring efforts first to restore national prosperity and thereafter to secure a peace which would inaugurate a brighter future. His overtaxed strength collapsed when the strain was most tense; and his life therefore figures as a torso, which should not be criticized as if it were the perfect statue. Yet, as moral grandeur is always inspiring, Pitt's efforts were finally to be crowned with success by the statesmen who had found wisdom in his teaching, inspiration in his quenchless hope, enthusiasm in his all-absorbing love of country. An egoist never founds a school of the prophets. But Pitt, who
Spurn'd at the sordid lust of pelf
And served his Albion for herself,
trained and inspired a band of devoted disciples such as no other leader of the eighteenth century left behind him. Some were unimaginative plodders, as Perceval; others were capable administrators and shrewd diplomatists, as Castlereagh; to one alone was vouchsafed the fire of genius, the sympathetic insight, the soaring ambition held in check by overmastering patriotism, which were commingled in the personality of the master; and Canning afterwards declared that he buried his political allegiance in the grave of Pitt. It was granted to these men to labour on in the cause for which he gave his life, and finally, in the years 1814–15, to bring back France to her old frontiers by arrangements which he clearly outlined in the years 1798 and 1805. Of the numerous annexations and changes of boundaries effected by Napoleon, only one, the Valtelline, was destined to survive. But Europe after Waterloo testified alike to the sagacity and the limitations of the mind of William Pitt.
STATISTICS OF THE YEARS 1792–1801
N.B.—The figures under the heading "money borrowed" are taken from the official statistics presented by the Rt. Hon. George Rose, "Brief Examination into the Increase of the Revenue, Commerce and Navigation of Great Britain" (London, 1806), p. 16. The total statistics are given in round numbers.