Napoleon’s Government, though very despotic, was not, however, usually cruel; and this great crime which, perhaps, was caused by the haunting dread of an assassin’s arm, was an exception to its general tenor.—Times review.
Last Moments of Mr. Pitt.
The news of Austerlitz was the last blow which killed Pitt. The gout, which had hitherto confined its attacks to his extremities, assailed some vital organ. He was not without hopes of getting better. Lord Wellesley found him in high spirits, though before the interview was over Pitt fainted in his presence. His last moments are described by the Hon. James Stanhope, who was present in the room when he died; so that at last we seem to have authentic information of a scene which has hitherto been very imperfectly described. “I remained the whole of Wednesday night with Mr. Pitt,” says Mr. Stanhope in a paper drawn up by him, and of which Earl Stanhope has availed himself in his Life of Pitt. “His mind seemed fixed on the affairs of the country, and he expressed his thoughts aloud, though sometimes incoherently. He spoke a good deal concerning a private letter from Lord Harrowby, and frequently inquired the direction of the wind; then said, answering himself, ‘East; ah! that will do; that will bring him quick.’ At other times he seemed to be in conversation with a messenger, and sometimes cried out ‘Hear, hear,’ as if in the House of Commons. During the time he did not speak he moaned considerably, crying, ‘Oh, dear! Oh, Lord!’ Towards twelve the rattles came in his throat, and proclaimed approaching dissolution.... At about half-past two he ceased moaning.... I feared he was dying; but shortly afterwards, with a much clearer voice than he spoke in before, and in a tone I never shall forget, ‘Oh, my country! how I leave my country!’ [referring, as it was natural for him to do, to the disastrous state of the continental war produced by the battle of Austerlitz.] From that time he never spoke or moved, and at half-past four expired without a groan or struggle,” 23rd January, 1806. He received the Sacrament from the Bishop of Lincoln. Mr. Pitt gave his watch to his servant, who handed it over to Mr. Dundas, M.P., more than twenty years after Mr. Pitt’s death. That watch, a mourning-ring, and box containing the hair, were bequeathed to the Rt. Hon. R. N. Hamilton; and the watch is now preserved in the Fitzwilliam Museum, at Cambridge.
“Pitt is the most forgiving and easy-tempered of men,” says Lord Malmesbury. “He is the most upright political character I ever knew or heard of,” says Wilberforce. “I never once saw him out of temper,” says George Rose. One day, when the conversation turned upon the quality most needed in a Prime Minister, and one said “Eloquence,” another “Knowledge,” and a third “Toil,” Pitt said, “No; Patience.” It was an answer worthy of the great statesman, and recalls that of Newton, who said that he owed his splendid discoveries to the power of fixed attention. Pitt was wonderfully patient, and this which is commonly regarded as a slow virtue he combined with uncommon readiness and rapidity of thought. “What an extraordinary man Pitt is!” said Adam Smith; “he makes me understand my own ideas better than before.” The Marquis Wellesley has left this character of Pitt—a man of princely hospitality and amiable nature:
“In all places, and at all times, his constant delight was society. There he shone with a degree of calm and steady lustre which often astonished me more than his most splendid efforts in Parliament. His manners were perfectly plain, without any affectation; not only was he without presumption or arrogance, or any air of authority, but he seemed utterly unconscious of his own superiority, and much more disposed to listen than to talk. He never betrayed any symptom of anxiety to usurp the lead or to display his own powers, but rather inclined to draw forth others, and to take merely an equal share in the general conversation: then he plunged heedlessly into the mirth of the hour, with no other care than to promote the general good humour and happiness of the company. His wit was quick and ready, but it was rather lively than sharp, and never envenomed with the least taint of malignity; so that, instead of exciting admiration or terror, it was an additional ingredient in the common enjoyment. He was endowed, beyond any man of his time whom I knew, with a gay and social heart. With these qualities, he was the life and soul of his own society; his appearance dispelled all care; his brow was never clouded, even in the severest public trials; and joy, and hope, and confidence, beamed from his countenance in every crisis of difficulty and danger.”—Communicated to the Quarterly Review.
This was “the Heaven-born Minister.” This was “the pilot to weather the storm.” This is he who stands forth as the greatest of our statesmen, and the story of whose life, as fitly told by Lord Stanhope, will have undying interest throughout the world.
Who would have supposed forty years ago that a day was coming when a Frenchman would unhesitatingly write the apology—we had almost said the panegyric—of William Pitt—ce Pitt, as the members of the Jacobin Club used to call him? And yet such is the case. By way of preface to a translation of Lord Stanhope’s last work, M. Guizot has given a very good estimate both of the political relation in which England stands to France, and also of the character of the great British statesman. He conclusively shows that Pitt was positively opposed to a war with France, and did all he could to prevent the inevitable catastrophe.
What drove George the Third mad.
How strange is it to find, upon a close examination of the biography of Mr. Pitt, that early in the present century, the mention of the measure which twenty-eight years later became the law of the land, had the effect of disturbing the reason of the Sovereign: yet so it was. “Pitt had become in a manner pledged on the union of the Irish with the British Legislature to provide for what has since been called the Emancipation of the Catholics. The probability is, that from the first he had underrated the King’s repugnance to the measure; but it has been suggested that had there been no treachery in the camp, and had he been the first to broach the subject to George III., he might have had his own way, and carried the acquiescence of the King. As it was, Lord Loughborough had, contrary to all rule, made the King aware of Pitt’s intentions, and had, for his own selfish purposes, sought to strengthen His Majesty in a most absurd view of his duty. So it happened that instead of Pitt breaking the subject to the King, the King, in a fit of impatience, breaks out upon Dundas. Referring to Lord Castlereagh, who had recently come from Dublin, he said, “What is it that this young lord has brought over which they are going to throw at my head?... The most Jacobinical thing I ever heard of! I shall reckon any man my personal enemy who proposes any such measure.” “Your Majesty,” replied Dundas, “will find among those who are friendly to that measure some whom you never supposed to be your enemies.” The time for action had evidently come: it was necessary for Pitt to break the silence; he wrote to the King explaining his views, and pointing out that if they were not acceptable it would be necessary for him to resign. Pitt did resign; his successor was appointed, but before the formal transfer of office could take place, the King went mad, and it was this Catholic question that drove him mad. He recovered in a fortnight and told his physician to write to Pitt, “Tell him I am now quite well—quite recovered from my illness; but what has he not to answer for who is the cause of my having been ill at all?” Pitt was deeply touched, and at once conveyed an assurance to the King through the same physician that never again during the King’s reign would he bring forward the Catholic question. Previous to that illness, Pitt had two clear alternatives before him—“Either I shall relieve the Catholics, or I shall resign,”—and he resigned accordingly. But after the illness all was changed. Any one attempting to relieve the Catholics would incur the risk of the King’s derangement. There was but a choice of evils, and it was natural that Pitt should regard it as the lesser evil to postpone indefinitely the settlement of the Catholic claims, which, nevertheless, he regarded as of the utmost importance.”—Times review.