"My dear Wilberforce,—I told you, immediately after the receipt of your former letters, that all thought of applying to Parliament for payment of Mr. Pitt's debts was abandoned; and measures are taking for the attainment of that object, which will be very greatly assisted by your endeavours I am sure. Mr. Samuel Thornton and Mr. Angerstein are to meet several gentlemen in the city on Tuesday morning to promote a private subscription, and whatever may be necessary to be done at this end of the town I trust will be effected. I hope I expressed myself intelligibly respecting your motives—you cannot be more certain of them than I am—and I felt deeply obliged by the plainness with which you expressed your sentiments; they decided my conduct instantly, as I told you before.
"As to the wish expressed by our late inestimable friend relative to the Stanhopes, I suggested to you that as provision had been made for the husbands of the two elder ones, equal to £1,000 a year, I believe, for each, I thought a further one by Parliament could hardly be acquiesced in. For Lady Hester I hoped no difficulty would be made in providing an annuity to that amount. The two young men are in the army—they are not of Mr. Pitt's blood and small sinecure employments are given to them which will aid their income.
"Three gentlemen are to meet in the city on Monday to concert the best measures for promoting the subscription, and you shall know the result. You will, I am persuaded, come in to attend the House on that day.
"The Bishop of Lincoln is at the Deanery.
"I am, my dear Wilberforce,
"Most truly yours,
"George Rose."
The next two letters are from Dundas, afterwards Lord Melville,[27] "the only minister to whose judgment Pitt greatly deferred." Wilberforce writes of him as "an excellent man of business and a fine, warm-hearted fellow," but later on he says, "his connection with Dundas was Pitt's great misfortune."[28] The first letter is on the subject of free exports of our manufactures to Holland.
Right Hon. Henry Dundas to Mr. Wilberforce.
"Wimbledon, August 15, 1796.
"My dear W.,—I have spoke both with Mr. Pitt and Lord Grenville on the subject of a free exportation of our manufactures from this country to Holland. I think they agree with me in thinking that if the restraint was ever a politick one the time is passed. Lord Liverpool, I believe, is of a different opinion, but it will immediately come under discussion, and I would hope he will act wisely upon it. For my own part, I am of opinion that it is a degree of infatuation at the present moment to prevent the trade and manufactures of the country finding an exit and a vent in any mode and by any channel the enterprise of the merchants can devise. I am as well as can be under all the anxieties which the state of the country naturally suggests, and the pain arising from that anxiety is not diminished by feeling oneself free from the blame of all the mischief which is going on. Who would have thought not many years ago that in the year 1796 Great Britain should be the only nation to be found true to its own interests, or in a situation to maintain them. But I find my pen running away with me, and must conclude with congratulating you on the fine weather and luxuriant crops, and with being, my dear Wil,
"Yours sincerely,
"Henry Dundas."
Dundas's remarks on the defence of the country and the raising of volunteer and yeomanry corps in 1798 are not without interest in 1897.