CHATHAM

HIS EARLY LIFE AND CONNECTIONS

CHATHAM

His Early Life and Connections

BY
LORD ROSEBERY

LONDON
ARTHUR L. HUMPHREYS
187 PICCADILLY, W
1910

Second Impression.

To
BEVILL FORTESCUE
OF DROPMORE AND BOCONNOC,
THIS BOOK, WHICH OWES EVERYTHING TO HIM,
IS
GRATEFULLY DEDICATED.

PREFACE

My first words of preface must be of excuse for some apparent lack of gratitude in my dedication. For besides my debt to Mr. Fortescue, I owe my warmest acknowledgments to Mary, Lady Ilchester, and her son, for the permission to examine some of the papers of Henry Fox; a character of great interest, whose life is yet to be written. But I hope that this will soon be presented by Lord Ilchester, whose capacity for such work is already proved. I render my sincere thanks both to him and to his mother; but my dedication, written long before I had access to the Holland House papers, must remain unchanged; for without Mr. Fortescue's family collection of papers at Dropmore this book could never have been begun.

The life of Chatham is extremely difficult to write, and, strictly speaking, never can be written at all. It is difficult because of the artificial atmosphere in which he thought it well to envelop himself, and because the rare glimpses which are obtainable of the real man reveal a nature so complex, so violent, and so repressed. What is this strange career?

Born of a turbulent stock, he is crippled by gout at Eton and Oxford, then launched into a cavalry regiment, and then into Parliament. For eight years he is groom-in-waiting to a prince. Then he holds subordinate office for nine years more. Then he suddenly flashes out, not as a royal attendant or a minor placeman, but as the people's darling and the champion of the country. In obscure positions he has become the first man in Britain, which he now rules absolutely for four years in a continual blaze of triumph. Then he is sacrificed to an intrigue, but remains the supreme statesman of his country for five years more. Then he becomes Prime Minister amid general acclamation; but in an instant he shatters his own power, and retires, distempered if not mad, into a cell. At last he divests himself of office, and recovers his reason; he lives for nine years more, a lonely, sublime figure, but awful to the last, an incalculable force. He dies, practically, in public, as he would have wished; and the nation, hoping against hope, pins its faith in him to the hour of death.

And for most of the time his associations are ignoble, if not humiliating. He had to herd with political jobbers; he has to serve intriguing kinsfolk; he had to cringe to unworthy Kings and the mistresses of Kings; he is flouted and insulted by a puppet whig like Rockingham. Despite all this he bequeaths the most illustrious name in our political history; and it is the arduous task of his biographer to show how these circumstances led to this result.

Happily this task does not fall to the present writer, who has only to describe the struggle and the ascent; the consummation and glory of the career lie beyond these limits.

Further, it may be said that not merely is the complete life of Chatham difficult to write, but impossible. It is safe, indeed, to assert that it never has been written and never can be written.

This seems a hard saying, for it appears to be a reflection on his numerous biographers from Thackeray to Von Ruville, though it is nothing of the sort. The fact is that the materials do not exist. For the first time the Dropmore papers throw some light on the earlier part of his life. But it is tolerably certain that nothing of this kind exists to illuminate his later years. Of his conversations, of his private life nothing, or little more than nothing, remains. Except on the one genial occasion on which Burke saw him tooling a jim-whiskey down to Stowe, we scarcely see a human touch. After his accession to office in 1756, his letters of pompous and sometimes abject circumlocution, intended partly to deceive his correspondent and partly to baffle the authorities of the Post Office, give no clue to his mind. He wrote an ordinary note as Rogers wrote an ordinary couplet. Even his love-letters are incurably stilted. There is no ease, no frankness, no self-revelation in anything that he wrote after he embarked actively in politics. From that time he shrouded himself carefully and successfully from his contemporaries, except on the occasions when he appeared in public; for, strange to say, it was in his speeches that his nature sometimes burst forth. And yet even here, there is trouble. One of the difficulties of a life of Chatham lies in the rough notes of his speeches preserved by Horace Walpole. They are often confused, often dreary, sometimes incomprehensible; but they must be included, for there is nothing else; though they weigh heavy on a book. Sometimes, however, they reveal a flash of the man, and Pitt permits little else. Such being his deliberate scheme of life, adopted partly from policy, partly from considerations of health, there seems little more material for a biography of the man, apart from his public career, than exists in the case of a Trappist.

It is then, I think, safe to predict that the real life of Chatham can never be written, as the intimate facts are wanting. What survive were, as usual, exhausted by Macaulay in those two brilliant essays, in which with the sure grasp of historical imagination he depicted the glowing scenes of Chatham's career, and left to posterity the portrait which will never be superseded. For his instinct supplies the lack of evidence, and though there may be exaggeration of praise, that praise will not be seriously diminished. Lives of Chatham will always be written, because few subjects are more interesting or more dramatic, but they must always be imperfect. It is, of course, easy to record his course as a statesman, his speeches, his triumphs, his achievements; and these narratives will be called biographies. But will they ever reveal the real man?

There seems to be a constant tendency in writers to forget that the provinces of history and biography, though they often overlap, are essentially distinct; for history records the life of nations, and biography the life of individuals. To set forth the annals of the time in which the hero has existed, and to note his contact with them, is only a part of his life, though it is often held to be all that is worth remembering. The life of any man that ever lived on earth is far more than his public career. The life of a man is not his public life, which is always alloyed with some necessary diplomacy and which is sometimes only a mask; it is made up of a thousand touches, a multitude of lights and shadows, most of which are invisible behind the austere presentment of statecraft. We have probably all, and perhaps more than all, that Shakespeare ever wrote; we have so to speak all his public life. But would we not gladly give one or two of his plays to obtain some true insight into his private life, to realise the humanity of this superhuman being, to know how this immortal was linked to mortality? We want to know how a master man talked, and, if possible, what he thought; what was his standpoint with regard to the grave issues of life; what he was in his hours of ease, what he enjoyed, how he unbent; in a word, what he was without his wig and bag and sword, in his dressing-gown and slippers, with a friend, a novel, or a pipe. This is half or three parts of a man, and it is certain that we shall never know this aspect of Chatham. He would no doubt, had it served his purpose, have appeared in the dressing-gown and slippers, but the array would have been as solemn and artificial as the robes of a cardinal. He would, had it served his purpose, have smoked a pipe, but it would have been the jewelled nargileh of the Grand Mogul. He had practically no intimates; his wife told nothing, his children told nothing; he revealed himself neither by word nor on paper, he deliberately enveloped himself in an opaque fog of mystery; and there seems no clue or channel by which any further detail of his character can reach us, unless Addington, the doctor, or Wilson, the tutor, have anything to tell us. But did anything of the kind survive, we feel confident that it would have transpired. Beckford and Potter, Barré and Camden, his friends or sycophants or satellites, have left no sign. Shelburne indeed thinks that he penetrated Chatham, and Shelburne no doubt saw him under circumstances of comparative intimacy. And yet, judging by the result, it may well be doubted whether Shelburne did more than watch and guess, with an inkling of spite. Occasionally there is a legend, a tradition, or an anecdote, but Chatham seems to have cut off all vestiges of his real self as completely as a successful fugitive from justice. And so posterity sees nothing but the stern effigy representing what he wished, or permitted, or authorised to be seen. This is not enough or nearly enough, but it must now be certain that there will never be much more. This makes us all the more grateful for the Dropmore papers and for Mr. Fortescue's liberality. He has been able to throw new light on Chatham's youth and on his unrestrained days. Light on the subsequent years of self-repression would be so guarded and shaded that we should scarce obtain a glimpse of the true man. Indeed, by his careful disguise Chatham has made himself a prehistoric or rather a prebiographical figure, a man of the fifteenth century or earlier. We know what was around him, the scene on which he played, the other actors in the great drama, and we recognise himself on the stage; but away from the footlights he remains in darkness. In a word, after 1756, when this book ends, his public life is conspicuous and familiar. But his inner life after that period will never be known; and so we must be content with a torso.

October 1910.

It has seemed unnecessary to give references to familiar printed authorities, such as Horace Walpole, Coxe, Harris's Life of Hardwicke, Waldegrave, or the published Dropmore MSS. But where an exception has been deemed necessary, 'Orford' refers to the 'Memoirs,' and 'Walpole' denotes an allusion to the 'Letters.'

Lord Camelford's manuscript, which I have used so copiously, is an intimate family document entitled 'Family Characters and Anecdotes,' addressed to his son, and dated 1781.

CHATHAM
HIS EARLY LIFE AND CONNECTIONS

CHAPTER I.

There is one initial part of a biography which is skipped by every judicious reader; that in which the pedigree of the hero is set forth, often with warm fancy, and sometimes at intolerable length. It is, happily, not necessary to enter upon the bewildering branches of the innumerable Pitts, but only to keep to one conspicuous stem. We must however record that the Pitt family was gentle and honourable; 'it had,' says one of them, 'been near two centuries growing into wealth without producing anything illustrious.'[1] But in the eighteenth century it was destined to blossom into no less than four peerages, Londonderry, Rivers, Camelford, and Chatham, not one of which survives. William Pitt's great-grandfather was Vicar of Blandford in Dorsetshire; and there was born Thomas, his grandfather, better known as Governor Pitt, and associated in history with the famous Pitt diamond. The Vicar, being the younger son of a younger son, had no fortune but the advowson of his own living of St. Mary; and Thomas again being a younger son set forth to seek his fortunes in the Golden East, and, it may be added, found them there.

Of this redoubtable progenitor, Governor Pitt, as he was always called, it would be possible to say much, as his life, measured by the length of current biographies, would justify a volume; in any case it is necessary to say something, for in his character may be traced some germs of his grandson's intractable qualities.

We first catch sight of him as an 'interloper,' that is, an illicit merchant carrying on trade in violation of the East India Company's monopoly. In that capacity he showed himself formidable and intrepid, 'of a haughty, huffying, daring temper,'[2] and the Company waged unsparing war against him. In a letter to their agents, writing with special reference to him, they say: 'We have a most acceptable accompt of the flourishing condition of all our affaires in those parts, and of the wreck and disappointment of all the interlopers; insomuch that if you have done your parts in reference to the Crowne, that Tho. Pitts went upon, there is no probability (that) of seven interloping ships that went to India the same year that our Agent did, any one ship will ever come to England again; and ... we cannot doubt that you will in due time render us as pleasing an accompt of those interlopers that went out this year, which will certainly put an end to that kind of robbery.'[3] And so these hostilities continued for more than a score of years, but without the suppression of Pitt, who appears to have greatly thriven in the process; for during the latter part of this period he was member of Parliament for his own pocket borough of Old Sarum,[4] bought out of these contraband gains. Victory, indeed, rested with him; for the Company, weary and baffled, determined, on the faith of an ancient but precarious principle, to set a thief to catch a thief; and in November 1697 appointed Pitt governor of Fort St. George, though some fastidious stockholders protested. This 'roughling immoral man,' as one of the objectors called him, governed with a high and strong hand from 1698 to 1709; when the Company, finding the burden of him intolerable, summarily dismissed him. He was, no doubt, like his grandson, a difficult servant; and in his career we see the source of that energy, haughtiness, and self-reliance which were so conspicuous in both. Lord Camelford, his great-grandson, though a relentless critic of his family, gives, in the grateful character of an heir, a leniently appreciative account of the Governor; and says that 'he amassed a fortune which was reckoned prodigious in those times without the smallest stain on his reputation. I have heard (but at what exact period of his life I know not) that, having accomplished such a sum as he thought would enable him to pass the remainder of his days in peace, he was taken prisoner, together with the greatest part of his effects, on his return to England, and released at the intercession of the Duchess of Portsmouth, who was then in France. He went back to India and made in a shorter time a much larger fortune from the credit he had established and the experience he had acquired.'

1710

However that may be, he now returned promptly to England, by way of Bergen, having shipped on a Danish vessel, and having sent before him in the heel of his son's shoe[5] the precious chattel which made his name famous, until, under his descendants, it acquired a different lustre. This was a prodigious diamond, to which he alludes in his correspondence as his 'grand concern,' which he bought for 48,000l., and sold, after keeping it for some sixteen years, to the Regent of Orleans for the French Crown. It was rather a sonorous than a profitable bargain, for though he sold it for 133,000l., he was never paid in full. He received 40,000l. and three boxes of jewels, but the balance, calculated at 20,000l., was never discharged. He and his descendants reckoned, indeed, that on the whole he was the poorer by the possession of this gem. A tradition remains that the bargain might have fallen through at the last moment but for the shrewdness of the Governor's second son, Lord Londonderry. When Rondet, the royal jeweller, came from Paris to receive it, he criticised the water of the stone. 'His lordship, who was quick enough in business, understood him, and putting a bank-note into his hands, bid him go to the window to see it in a better light. It was then decided to be in all respects perfect.'[6]

It is evident, however, that he was possessed of considerable though exaggerated wealth, and he was probably the first of those nabobs who were to bulk so largely in the drama, the society, and the politics of the eighteenth century. Among these his diamond gave him pre-eminence, and made his name both famous and proverbial. In England he remained for the rest of his life, some sixteen years, dying in 1726. The reformed filibuster had become a power in the land. He had wealth, force of character, political connection, and parliamentary influence. This last must have been an object with him, as we find him sitting for Thirsk instead of his own borough of Old Sarum; and his eldest grandson seems to have inherited a considerable but indefinable interest in the borough-mongering of the West, having definite powers in regard to Okehampton and Sarum, and vaguer connections elsewhere. So the Governor, a staunch Whig and furious anti-Jacobite, with an influential son-in-law in Stanhope, a soldier and statesman who was First Minister for a time, was a man to be reckoned with. He was indeed offered, and had accepted, the Governorship of Jamaica, a high compliment, for it was then a position of peculiar difficulty, but never took up the appointment; finding probably his hands full at home, with an insubordinate family to manage, capital to invest, and estates to superintend.

We find him living at Twickenham, Swallowfield, Blandford, and in Pall Mall, but mainly at Stratford, near Old Sarum. He had indeed contemplated building his principal residence at Blandford, his early home. But the younger children, finding that this would be settled on the eldest son, intercepted his purpose and turned his attention to Swallowfield, 'where, however, he contrived to throw away as much money in a very ugly place with no property about it,'[7] writes his resentful heir.

Finally, in 1726, the Governor was gathered to his fathers, and his spoils caused some disappointment. His wealth had been over-rated, as is perhaps the case with all notorious fortunes, and not well invested; at any rate, he had burned his fingers in the South Sea Bubble. He seems to have left 100,000l. in personal property, though some of that may have consisted in unsubstantial and unrealised advances to Lord Londonderry, or others of his children. He had bought land wherever he could find it (for the sake, perhaps, of influence as much as income), in London (Soho), Berkshire, Hampshire, Wiltshire, Dorsetshire, Devonshire, and Cornwall, as well as that most marketable of assets, Old Sarum, and apparently other borough interests. But his greatest acquisition was the noble estate of Boconnoc, which he purchased in 1717 from the widow of that wild Mohun who was slain in duel by his brother-in-law, the Duke of Hamilton. The Governor paid 53,000l. for the estate, a great price in those days; but was held to have got a bargain.[8]

To his family he had always been formidable, but also an object of jealous rapacity and expectation. They wrangled and intrigued for his money both during his life and afterwards, and seem to have been universally dissatisfied by the result. 'From the various characters of these persons' (the Governor's children) 'it is easy to conceive,' writes Lord Camelford, 'in what manner the Governor must have been pulled to pieces by their different passions and interests when he came to realise his wealth in England.' The transactions with Lord Londonderry seem to have been particularly complicated; in fact they were never unravelled. We only gather, as a specimen of them, that after the Governor's death his executors claimed 95,000l. as due from Lord Londonderry; which Lord Londonderry denied, claiming 10,000l. from the estate. Thirty years were vainly spent in the endeavour to clear up this issue, a process rendered all the more arduous by Lord Londonderry's having peremptorily possessed himself of his father's papers after death. Only one case seems to have been free from complication. The Governor stated succinctly that his son John was good for nothing, and so he logically left him nothing. John, however, claimed an annuity which, we may be confident, he never obtained. Thus there were endless disputes, a civil war in the family, not uncongenial, perhaps, to those who waged it; which died out only with the combatants, but which illustrates once more the volcanic character of these truculent Pitts.

It is in his family relations, in his dealings with these ungracious heirs and with his own wife, that the Governor is most vivid and interesting; at any rate, to one who has to trace the heredity of genius and character in his descendants. Thomas Pitt's blood came all aflame from the East, and flowed like burning lava to his remotest descendants, with the exception of Chatham's children; but even then it blazed up again in Hester Stanhope. There was in it, even when it throbbed in the veins of his eldest son and grandson, some tropical, irritant quality which, under happy circumstances and control, might produce genius, but which under ordinary circumstances could only evolve domestic skirmish and friction. The Governor himself, in his dealings with his wife and children, does not seem to have been tolerant or tolerable. He set himself to rule them with the notions of absolutism which are associated with the Oriental monarchies, but he met with no great measure of success. It is necessary to study his methods as exhibiting the volcanic source of a formidable race.

His wife was of the family of Innes in Morayshire, 'of Scotch and Cornish extraction,' says Lord Camelford, and she was lineally descended from the Regent Murray. Sir John Sinclair, like a loyal Scot, attributes the genius and eloquence of the Pitts to their 'fortunate connection ... with a Miss Innes of Redhall, in the Highlands of Scotland.' Of her, nevertheless, in unconsciousness of this obligation, but in receipt of private advices, the Governor writes in terms of implacable hostility. He had heard, he says to his son, 'that your mother has been guilty of some imprudence at the Bath ... let it be what it will, in my esteem she is noe longer my wife, nor will I see her more if I can help it.'[9]

But his children were not to be released from duty to her by her supposed misconduct. Four years earlier he had written to Robert: 'If what you write of your mother be true, I think she is mad, and wish she was well secured in Bedlam; but I charge you let nothing she says or does make you undutiful in any respect whatever.' So when they apparently act on the Governor's view of Mrs. Pitt, he turns round and belabours them. 'Have all of you,' he inquires of his eldest son, 'shook hands with shame, that you regard not any of the tyes of Christianity, humanity, consanguinity, duty, good morality, or anything that makes you differ from beasts, but must run from one end of the kingdome to the other, aspersing one another, and aiming at the ruine and destruction of one another?' This genial picture of his offspring does not seem wholly imaginary, for the Governor proceeds: 'That you should dare to doe such an unnatural and opprobrious action as to turne your mother and sisters out of doors?—for which I observe your frivolous reasons, and was astonished to read them; and I no less resent what they did to your child at Stratford. But I see your hand is against every one of them, and every one against you, and your brother William to his last dying minute.' (William had died young, in 1706.) A week later he writes again: 'Not only your letters, but all I have from friends, are stuffed with an account of the hellish confusion that is in my family; and by what I can collect of all my letters, the vileness of your actions on all sides are not to be paralleled in history. Did ever mother, brother, and sisters study one another's ruine and destruction more than my unfortunate and cursed family have done?' He again reverts to the grievance of Robert's having turned his mother and sisters out of doors, though he calls them, in the same letter, 'an infamous wife and children,' and states that he has 'discarded and renounced your mother for ever;' apparently on suspicion, for he makes 'noe distinction between women that are reputed ill and such as are actually soe.' The wife of the Cæsar of Fort St. George had to be above suspicion. Nor is this by any means an isolated passage. From his Eastern satrapy the Governor pours on his hapless family, and especially on his firstborn, a constant flood of scorn and invective. The arrival of the Indian mail must have caused a periodical panic to his children, and his announcement in 1715 that 'writing now is not so much my talent as formerly' a corresponding relief.

In vain does Robert, the eldest son, inspire friends to write to the Governor glowing accounts of his conduct; the Governor sniffs suspicion in every breeze. 'I wish gaming bee not rife in your family, or you could never have spent so considerable an estate in so short a time.' 'I wish gameing, drinking, and other debaucheries has not been the bane of you.' 'I wish these sore eyes of yours did not come by drinking, and that generally ushers in gaming, of either of which vices or any other dishonourable action, if I find you guilty, you may be assured I will give you no quarter.' 'I think that no son in the world deserves more to be discarded by a father.' But on the rare occasions when the Governor does not write in a passion his letters are full of sound sense. The cost of education is the only expense which he does not grudge. 'I would also have you putt your mother in mind that she gives her daughters good education, and not to stick at any charge for it.' But he wishes to get his money's worth. 'See that your brothers and sisters keep close to their studies, and let not my money be spent in vain on them; if it be, I'll pinch 'em hereafter.' Again, later, he writes: 'When this reaches you your brothers will be 17 years old. If their genius leads them to be scholars, I would have them sent to Oxford, but placed in two distinct colleges; and if inclined to study law you may enter them in the Temple. But if they are inclined to be merchants, let them learn all languages, and obtain perfect knowledge of the sciences bearing upon trade. I believe that trade will flourish rather than decay.'

When he returned home things were probably not much better for his children, though his letters, of course, are less frequent, and also less violent. But we gather from timid and vigilant bulletins sent off by those who cautiously approached the Governor's lair that he was still as formidable and plain spoken as ever. He suspects Robert of Jacobitism, the supreme sin in the judgment of the old Governor. 'It is said you are taken up with factious caballs, and are contriving amongst you to put a French kickshaw upon the throne again.' 'I have heard since I came to towne,' he writes seven years afterwards, 'that you are strooke with your old hellish acquaintance, and in all your discourse are speaking in favour of that villainous traytor Ormond.' And again: 'Since last post I have had it reiterated to me that in all company you are vindicating Ormonde and Bullingbrooke, the two vilest rebells that ever were in any nation, and that you still adhere to your cursed Tory principles, and keep those wretches company who hoped by this time to have murthered the whole Royall family: in which catastrophe your father was sure to fall,' &c. &c. From which it may be gathered that the moral temperature of Pall Mall, whence the Governor was writing, differed little from that of Madras.

The only note of tenderness that he ever strikes is with regard to his grandson, William, to whom he looks with a rare prescience of attention. At first he conducts both boys from Eton to Swallowfield, 'with some of their comrogues,' on a short leave of absence. But soon it is William alone whom he takes as a companion. 'I set out for Swallowfield Friday next; your son, William, goes with me.' 'I observe you have sent for your son, William, from Eton. He is a hopeful lad, and doubt not but he will answer yours and all his friends' expectations,' 'I shall be glad to see Will here as he goes to Eton.' 'Monday last I left Will at Eton.' Sentences like these taken from the Governor's letters are, when the writer is considered, a sufficient testimony of exceptional regard. It is not too much to say that William is the only one of his descendants whom the Governor commends; the only one, indeed, who never falls under the lash of the Governor's uncontrollable tongue.

The Governor left behind him three sons, Robert, Thomas, and John; and two daughters, Lucy and Essex. Robert, the eldest son, married, somewhat clandestinely, Harriot Villiers, sister of the Earl of Grandison, 'who seems to have brought with her,' says her grandson, 'little more than the insolence of a noble alliance.' A more favourable estimate declares that she had a fortune of 3000l., and that 'it is a great dispute among those who have the pleasure of conversing with her whether her beauty, understanding, or good-humour be the most captivating.' She makes a pale apparition in Lady Suffolk's correspondence, soliciting a place for her brother, Lord Grandison, with the offer of a bribe, and subsiding under the royal confidant's rebuke.[10]

The second, Thomas, married one of the heiresses of Ridgeway, Earl of Londonderry. After that nobleman's death 'he bought the honours which were extinct in the person of his wife's father.'[11] One infers from casual hints that Thomas may have had the most influence with his father, and that he was not embarrassed by scruples. He was, says Lord Camelford, 'a man of no character, and of parts that were calculated only for the knavery of business, in which he overreached others, and at last himself.' But Camelford may have been soured by the controversies which followed the Governor's death. The honours so dubiously acquired died out with Lord Londonderry's two sons.

John, the Governor's third son, 'was in the army, an amiable vaurien, a personal favourite with the King, and, indeed, with all who knew him as a sort of Comte de Gramont, who contrived to sacrifice his health, his honour, his fortunes to a flow of libertinism which dashed the fairest prospect, and sank him for many years before his death in contempt and obscurity.'[12] This death took place, within Lord Camelford's memory, 'at the thatched house by the turnpike in Hammersmith.' John seems to have been a sort of Will Esmond, and we have on record a horse transaction of his which savours strongly of Thackeray's famous knave.[13] He married 'a sister of Lord Fauconberg's, whose personal talents and accomplishments distinguished her as much at least as her birth, and much more than her virtues.'[14]

Another of Colonel John's freaks is worth retailing, as throwing light on the peremptory methods of the Pitts, and of the manner in which the Governor was harried by his offspring. He waited outside his father's house in Pall Mall on a day when he knew that one of the estate agents was to bring up the rents of an estate. He watched the man in and out of the house, then went in, where he found some secretary counting the money over, swept it deftly with his sword into his hat, and escaped into the street, full of glee at having bubbled an unappreciative parent out of his dues, and leaving the unhappy subordinate paralysed behind him.[15] This anecdote enables us to understand why the Governor had so low an opinion of John, and why the keys were kept under the Governor's bed when this scapegrace was at home.[16]

Of the two daughters, Lucy, who married the first Earl Stanhope, the minister and general, seems to have left a fragrant memory behind her; we are pleased to find her resenting her sister-in-law's behaviour to her mother, the Governor's wife. She died in February 1723-4.

Essex, the second, married Charles Cholmondely, of Vale Royal, grandfather of the first Lord Delamere. 'Her peevishness made her the scourge of her family,' says her great-nephew, so we may conclude that she was not devoid of the Pitt characteristics. She died in 1754.

Over his luckless heir the Governor had kept constantly suspended the terrors of his testamentary dispositions. 'My resentments,' he wrote not long before his death, 'against you all have been justly and honourably grounded, and that you will find when my head is laid.' Nevertheless, when he died in 1726, Robert, the belaboured eldest son, succeeded to the great bulk of his fortune. He, in his turn, did not lose a moment in visiting on his eldest son, Thomas, the sufferings that he himself had endured. In the very letter in which he announces his father's death to the lad, he speaks of his son's 'past slighting and disobedient conduct towards me,' and lectures him with uncompromising severity. He does, indeed, announce an allowance of 700l. a year, but soon after docks it of 200l. on the flimsiest and shabbiest pretexts. Robert, who seems to have been a poor creature, as his portrait at Boconnoc represents him, mean and cantankerous, with some of the violence but without the vigour and ability of the Governor, only survived his father a year, into which he managed to concentrate a creditable average of quarrels with his family. His death was something like the sinking of a fireship; spluttering and scolding he disappears in 1727.

Robert's life and death were on the lines laid down by Pitt precedent. He lived and died on ill terms with his family, and his death was followed by the customary lawsuits. During his short possession of his patrimony he had laboured under some miscalculation as to its extent; for, after examining the rentals and estates, he had congratulated himself on the possession of 'full 10,000l. a year;' ' in which belief he died soon after, leaving the same delusion to his son, which was one of the principal causes of his misfortunes.'[17] As the estate was entailed, Thomas, Robert's eldest son, was not liable for the debts of his father, or anxious to assume that responsibility. The claims that gave him most trouble were those of his mother, Robert's widow, who had obtained additions to her jointure, and had had 10,000l. settled on her children at her marriage, a provision which was apparently never carried into execution. Many bills and cross bills in Chancery were the consequence of these claims, which ended in Mrs. Robert Pitt's retirement into France, where she shortly afterwards died. Her brother and champion, Lord Grandison, also retreated to Ireland, both thus renouncing administration of the effects of Robert Pitt. So, avows Lord Camelford, 'my father seized whatever fell into his hands without account, either belonging to my grandfather or grandmother, keeping at arm's length every demand upon him, till somehow or other these litigations seem to have worn themselves out and slept by the acquiescence of all parties.' The 'acquiescence,' we may add, seems only to have accrued by the death of the litigants.

Robert left two sons and five daughters, and this brood was not unworthy of the family traditions. The eldest son was Thomas, the second William, the subject of this book; to the daughters we shall come presently.

The volcanic element in the Pitt blood was fully manifest in this generation, and Thomas was a child of wrath. His relations with his younger brother William seem always to have been uneasy, and from an early period they seem to have been wholly uncongenial to each other.

Whatever William may have been, Thomas was impracticable, and no one seems to have succeeded in working amicably with him. He was a man of extremes. 'All his passions,' writes his son, 'were violent by nature, particularly pride and ambition, which were painted in his figure, one of the most imposing I ever saw. He was not without good qualities; but, to speak fairly, they were greatly over-balanced by the contrary tendencies.' He was said not to have been naturally vicious, but early embarrassments, perpetual family litigations, a sense of injury, the flattery of dependents, and a train of mortifications and disappointments 'had formed in him such habits of rapacity, injustice and violence that he seemed at last to have lost even the sense of right and wrong.' He had, evidently, personal attractions, marred by an imperious demeanour, was strong and graceful, addicted to hunting and manly sports, fond of music and dancing. His overbearing manner, which arose from an undisguised contempt of his equals, gave him some ascendancy in Cornwall, where, however, though endured, he was secretly detested.

So haughty and violent a character might, one supposes, have been mellowed and redeemed by a fortunate marriage, and Thomas seems to have secured an angel as his wife. At the opera one night he saw a daughter of Sir Thomas Lyttelton, was struck by her extraordinary beauty, proposed in his headlong manner next day, and was accepted. Her son laments her want of any fortune to remedy her husband's eternal embarrassments, but she seems to have lacked nothing else. Besides her loveliness, 'as a faithful wife, a tender mother, a kind friend, an indulgent mistress, she was a pattern to her sex.'[18] But her very virtues turned her husband against her. Her meek gentleness, humility, and charity, the extreme piety, carried almost to bigotry, in which she had been reared, were reproachful contrasts to his opposite qualities. She was the object of ridicule to the wit and malice of others, possibly, we should guess, of her sisters-in-law; and, finally, every kind sentiment, even of common humanity, towards her, was extinguished in the husband who had loved her so passionately.

Thomas seems, from the moment of succession until death, to have been a prey to pecuniary embarrassment. He started with an exaggerated view of his resources, and launched into extravagance; arrogance and ambition made him more profuse; a taste for borough management, strong in him, was probably more expensive than any other possible form of gambling; so all his life was soured by the struggle between pride and debt, and by consequent mortification. This seems to be the secret of his wasted and unhappy existence.

United as he was by his marriage to the Lytteltons, Grenvilles, and Cobham, he naturally became an adherent and favourite of the Prince of Wales. He probably called the Prince's attention in glowing terms to the possibilities of the Heir Apparent's Duchy of Cornwall, and, at any rate, became His Royal Highness's parliamentary manager in the West, the realm of rotten boroughs. There the Prince was flattered, or flattered himself, with influence as Duke of Cornwall, in a region where Lord Falmouth, the famous threatener of 'we are seven,' and Thomas himself exercised a more substantial sway. He enjoyed a fleeting triumph at the General Election of 1741, not unaccompanied with the constant quarrels which were the vital element of his family. As a reward he was appointed in 1742 Warden of the Stannaries.

Then he seems to decay. The General Election of 1747, on which he had built high hopes, brought him nothing but debt and disaster. He writes in despair to the Prince, and Frederick sends kindly and reassuring messages in reply; but he was now ruined, and his last prospects vanished with the Prince of Wales, on whose death he was superseded in the Stannaries; this perhaps marks the date of his final catastrophe. At any rate, there was a financial collapse, and he had to go abroad. Shelburne met him at Utrecht and heard him hold forth in the true Pitt style, abusing his brother William as a hypocrite and scoundrel, with a great flow of language and a quantity of illustrative anecdotes. 'A bad man,' says Horace Walpole. 'Never was ill-nature so dull as his, never dullness so vain.'

Shelburne hints that he was mad, or nearly mad, and that, though not actually confined, he was obliged to live a very retired life, complicated by straitened circumstances. 'The unhappy man,' as William calls him, had never been on cordial terms with his brother: they had had the usual family wrangles about property, and recently, in his distress, Thomas had solicited from William, now Secretary of State and supreme, the appointment of Minister to the Swiss Cantons. He might have foreseen refusal, for he was fit for no such employment, and William was sensitive as to charges of favour to his family from the Crown. But men are friendly judges of their own fitness for any post which they may happen to desire, and Thomas did not care, probably, to have his merits or demerits so justly appraised by his junior; so he spent his time of exile in denouncing to any audience that was attracted by his name, the ingratitude and neglect of his successful relative. He died in July 1761, and William frigidly announces to his nephew the death of 'the unhappy man' from apoplexy.

This nephew was created Lord Camelford under the auspices of his first cousin, the younger Pitt, whom, by the way, Pitt-like, he seems unable to forgive for this favour, as he never mentions his creator. The malicious bards of the Rolliad hinted that the peerage accrued from some borough-mongering transaction:

'Say, what gave Camelford his wished for rank?
Did he devote old Sarum to the Bank?
Or did he not, that envied rank to gain,
Transfer the victim to the Treasury's fame?' (sic)

But, though he was by no means destitute of the family characteristics, this Thomas was a man of high honour, character and charm. He won the heart of Horace Walpole, whose neighbour he was, until they quarrelled, as of course they were sure to do. But for a time Horace, whose affection was not often or easily given and whose confidence in matters of taste was fastidious, gave both affection and confidence unstintedly to this young man. He attracted, too, the still rarer tenderness of his uncle William. To him Chatham addressed the well-known letters on education which he found time to write in all the business of office; though Thomas on attaining manhood repaid him with the most cordial aversion. This sentiment, which seems at first to savour of ingratitude, is not in reality difficult to explain. In the first place, the uncle was to some extent involved in those financial questions connected with the paternal inheritance in which the father played, as we have seen, so intrepid though unscrupulous a part. Mutual aversion facilitated mutual disagreement in matters always fertile of friction; and the younger Thomas, though he had an ill opinion of his father, sided with him as against his uncle. We cannot, even on Thomas's own showing, blame the uncle in these rather petty transactions, and William's besetting sin was certainly not avarice; but neither can we blame the son for siding with the father. On an impartial survey we may conclude that disputes between two Pitts who were near descendants of the Governor were incapable of an amicable solution.

But there was more than this. William, for some purpose of persuasion, says Lord Camelford, informed Thomas that his nephew, the younger Thomas (Lord Camelford himself), would be his heir. This was a considerable, almost a magnificent, prospect. William was then middle-aged and unmarried, his position and future were alike splendid, and high office might in those days lead to wealth. His career had, moreover, brought him a legacy of 10,000l. from Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough. But, far beyond that there was the reversion of the great Althorp inheritance, between which and William there were only the lives of the short-lived possessor and his sickly child. That William held out this expectation we think so probable that we do not even question it. He had all his life been half an invalid, and never seems to have contemplated marriage till he did marry, at the age of forty-eight. He, moreover, loved his nephew with sincere and proved tenderness. Why, then, should it be doubted that he indicated him as his heir, when, in truth, he had no other? But that he did this with an unworthy motive or for the purpose of deception there is neither proof nor probability. The episode probably furnished matter for his brother's maudlin ravings at Utrecht, but we do not think that it materially influenced the opinions of his nephew.

The true reason for Camelford's hatred of his uncle was that he fell under the influence of George Grenville at a time when Grenville had broken for ever with Pitt. The estimable qualities of Grenville have been described with a colour and exuberance which could only proceed from the glowing imagination of Burke. But, with all allowance for what Burke saw in this able, narrow, and laborious person, it cannot be denied that the foundation of his qualities was a stubborn self-esteem which necessarily led to stubborn hatreds. Grenville came to hate Bute, to hate the King, to hate the Duke of Cumberland; but it may be doubted if all his other accumulated hatreds equalled that which he felt for his brother-in-law. Pitt, while in office, had kept Grenville in a subordinate position, and had apparently thought it adequate to his deserts. When Grenville was Minister, Pitt had negotiated with the King to overthrow him. In the schism produced by Pitt's resignation, Temple had sided with Pitt and quarrelled with his brother George. But, worst of all, Pitt had held Grenville up, not unsuccessfully, to public ridicule and contempt. Now, a Grenville to himself was not as other men are; he was something sacred and ineffable. Neither Temple nor George ever doubted that they were the equals, nay, the superiors, of their brother-in-law, whom in their hearts they regarded as only a brilliant adventurer, useful, under careful guidance, to the Grenville scheme of creation. When, therefore, Pitt quizzed and thwarted George, he raised an implacable enemy. Later on, they might affect reconciliation, and Temple might pompously announce to the world that the Brethren were reunited. But George's undying resentment against Pitt never flagged to the hour of his death.

Thomas Pitt came under Grenville's influence at the fiercest moment of this rancour, and seems to have been the only person on record who was fascinated by him. Thomas writes of him with affectionate enthusiasm long after his death, and in his life waged his wars with zeal. One of these led to a quarrel with Horace Walpole, arising out of the dismissal of Conway, which produced a lengthy correspondence, still extant. But to become the disciple of George Grenville it was necessary to abhor William Pitt. Thomas took the test without difficulty, and adhered to it conscientiously. His father's influence, such as it was, tended in the same direction. So, though Thomas specifically places his uncle at the head of all British statesmen, and although he besought Chatham to sit to Reynolds for the gallery at Boconnoc, and though he displayed grief, real or ostentatious, at Chatham's death, going the quaint length of asking every one to dinner who spoke sympathetically in either House on the occasion; in spite of all this, he retails aversion in every sentence that he writes; aversion of which the obvious source is devotion to Grenville. It is necessary to explain this because Camelford's manuscript notes would otherwise be inexplicable. Putting this violent prejudice on one side, this memorial drawn up by Camelford for his son, though too intimate for complete publication, is a priceless document. Let all be forgiven him for the sake of this manuscript. It may be inaccurate, and biassed and acrid, but it presents the family circle from within by one of themselves, and no more vivid picture can exist of that strange cockatrice brood of Pitts.

The son for whom it was written grew up a spitfire, not less eccentric than his sires, and became notorious as the second Lord Camelford. His was a turbulent, rakehelly, demented existence, the theme of many newspaper paragraphs. He revived in his person all the pranks and outrage of the Mohawks. Bull-terriers, bludgeons, fighting of all kinds were associated with him; riots of all kinds were as the breath of his nostrils, more especially theatrical tumults. One of these latter contests brought him into contact with the pacific authors of the 'Rejected Addresses,' who were admitted, not without trepidation, to his apartment, which was almost an arsenal. It can scarcely be doubted that the lurking madness of the Pitts found a full expression in him. As an officer in the Navy, commanding a sloop in the West Indies, his conduct fell little if at all short of insanity. It is not easy to understand how even in those more facile times he escaped disgrace.

Eventually, at the age of twenty-nine he was killed in a wanton duel with a Mr. Best. The circumstances of this mortal combat show that he was a true Pitt of the Governor's headstrong breed. Both before the duel and afterwards, on his death-bed, he acknowledged that he was the sole wanton aggressor, and that his antagonist was blameless. But as Mr. Best was reported the best pistol-shot in England, his pride would not allow him to lend himself, however indirectly, to any sort of accommodation. So he died, and with him died the eldest line of the Governor's branch of Pitts. Boconnoc passed to his sister, Lady Grenville, wife of the minister who was Chatham's nephew. The relations of the brothers-in-law seem to have been on the Pitt model. 'Pique against Lord Grenville explains his (Lord Camelford's) conduct,' writes Lady Holland.[19] Despite all their idiosyncrasies it seemed impossible to keep the Pitts and Grenvilles from quarrelling and blending.

All this may seem trivial enough, but it has an important, indeed necessary, bearing on the story of William's life, as showing the stock from which he sprang.

The harsh passions of the Governor and the petulant violence of his heirs seem so outrageous and uncontrolled as to verge on actual insanity. Shelburne explicitly states that 'there was a great deal of madness in the family.' Every indication confirms this statement. What seemed in the Governor brutality and excess, frequently developed in his descendants into something little if at all short of mental disorder. We thus trace to their source the germs of that haughty, impossible, anomalous character, distempered at times beyond the confines of reason, which made William so difficult to calculate or comprehend.

CHAPTER II.

And now we come by a process of exhaustion to the subject of this book.

William Pitt, the elder statesman of that name, was born in London, in the parish of St. James's, November 15, 1708. It does not now seem possible to trace the house of his nativity, but it was probably in Pall Mall, where his father then or afterwards resided. We are limited to the information that his godfathers were 'Cousin Pitt' (probably George Pitt of Strathfieldsaye) and General Stewart, after the latter of whom he was named. General Stewart was the second husband of William's grandmother, Lady Grandison.[20]

It may be well to recall here that William was the second son of Robert Pitt, the Governor's eldest son, and his wife, Harriot Villiers, fourth daughter of Catherine, Viscountess Grandison, and her husband the Hon. Edward Villiers Fitzgerald, who was descended from a brother of the first Villiers, Duke of Buckingham.

Of his childhood we catch but occasional and remote glimpses.

His grandfather, as we have seen, had early marked him. The shrewd old nabob had discerned the boy's possibilities, but seems also to have determined that his energies should not be relaxed by wealth. At any rate, the Governor refrained from any special sign of favour, and bequeathed the lad only an annuity of 100l. a year. This was William's sole patrimony, for he seems to have received nothing from his father.

He was sent to Eton, or, as William always spells it, 'Eaton,' at an early age; the exact period does not seem to be ascertainable. Here he had notable contemporaries: Henry Fox, George Lyttelton, Charles Pratt, Hanbury Williams, and Fielding.

'Thee,' said this last, addressing Learning, 'in the favourite fields, where the limpid gently rolling Thames washes thy Etonian banks, in early youth I have worshipped. To thee, at thy birchen altar, with true Spartan devotion I have sacrificed my blood.'[21] Pitt could have echoed his schoolfellow's apostrophe if the not improbable legend be true that he underwent an unusually severe flogging for having been caught out of bounds. But even without this, his experiences were no doubt poignant enough; for, though the son of a wealthy father, he was placed on the foundation, and the Eton of those days afforded to its King's Scholars no lap of luxury. The horrors and hardships of Long Chamber, the immense dormitory of these lads, have come down to us in a whisper of awful tradition, and it is therefore no matter for surprise, though it is for regret, that William did not share the passionate devotion of most Etonians for their illustrious college. He is credited indeed with saying that he had scarcely ever observed a boy who was not cowed for life at Eton[22]: a sweeping condemnation which sounds strange in these days, but which is easily explained by the misery that he, as a sickly boy, may well have undergone in that petty Lacedæmon. For his health deprived him of all the pleasures of his age, as he was already a martyr to gout. That hereditary malady which cut him off from the sports of the school impelled him to study, and so served his career. Mr. Thackeray, who wrote his biography in quarto and who may be discriminated without difficulty from the genius of that name, deposes vaguely that 'Dr. Bland, at that time the headmaster of Eton, is said to have highly valued the attainments of his pupil.' We rest more securely on a letter of his Eton tutor, Mr. Burchett, of which the last sentence need only be quoted here, as it is all that relates to William.

Mr. Burchett to Mr. Pitt.

Y^r younger Son has made a great Progress since his coming hither, indeed I never was concern'd with a young Gentleman of so good Abilities, & at the same time of so good a disposition, and there is no question to be made but he will answer all y^r Hopes.

I am, S^r,

Y^r most Obedient & most Humble Servant,

Will. Burchett.[23]

This reference under the hand of an Eton tutor is exuberant enough. But no doubt rests on Pitt's school reputation. It survived even to the time of Shelburne, who speaks of him as distinguished at Eton. Lyttelton wrote of him while still there: 'This (good-humour) to Pitt's genius adds a brighter grace;'[24] a remarkable tribute from one Eton boy to another. More striking still is the tradition preserved by an unfriendly witness, William's nephew, Camelford. 'The surprising Genius of Lord Chatham,' he writes, 'distinguished him as early as at Eaton School, where he and his friend Lord Lyttelton in different ways were looked up to as prodigies.' School prodigies rarely mellow into remarkable men; though remarkable men are often credited, when their reputation is secure, with having been school prodigies. But the contemporary letter of Burchett and the reluctant testimony of Camelford admit of no doubts. Most significant, perhaps, of all is the preservation of the flotsam of school life, a couple of school bills, the tutor's letter, another from the boy himself. This last, which took eleven days in transmission, is here given. The bills have been already published by Sir Henry Lyte in his History of Eton.

William Pitt to his Father.

Eaton, Septemb^r y^e 29^th.

Hon^ed S^r,—I write this to pay my duty to you, and to lett you know that I am well, I hope you and my mama have found a great benefit from the Bath, and it would be a very great satisfaction to me, to hear how you do, I was in hopes of an answer to my last letter, to have heard how you both did, and I should direct my letters, to you; for not knowing how to direct my letters, has hindered me writing to you. my time has been pretty much taken up for this three weeks, in my trying for to gett into the fiveth form, And I am now removed into it; pray my duty to my mama and service to my uncle and aunt Stuart if now att the Bath. I am with great respect,

Hon^ed S^r, Your most dutiful Son,

W. Pitt.[25]

This is the whole record extant of William's Eton life; to so many lads the happiest period of their existence, but not to him. An invalid, and so disabled for games, a recluse, perhaps a victim, he had no pleasant memories of Eton. But there, in all probability, he laid the foundations of character and intellect on which his fame was to be reared. It is not usually profitable to imagine pictures of the past, but it may not be amiss to evoke, in passing, the shadow of the lean, saturnine boy as he limped by the Thames, shaping a career, or pondering on life and destiny, dreaming of greatness where so many have dreamed, while he watched, half enviously, half scornfully, the sports in which he might not join. He is not the first, and will not be the last, to find his school a salutary school of adversity. He looked back to it with no gratitude. But Eton claims him for her own; and long generations of reluctant students have whiled away the reputed hours of learning or examination by gazing at his bust in Upper School, and dreamily conjecturing why so great a glamour still hangs about his name.

With these few remnants and this vague surmise ends all that is, or will probably ever be, known of William's childhood. Little enough if we compare it to the copious details furnished by modern autobiographers. But self-revelation was not the fashion of the eighteenth century, and childhood then furnished less to record. Boys were in the background, repressing their emotions, and inured to a rugged discipline which, though odious to the sympathetic delicacy of modern civilisation, produced the men who made the Empire.

From Eton, Pitt proceeded to Oxford, where he was admitted a Gentleman Commoner at Trinity College on January 10th, 1726 (o.s.), guided thither, probably, by the fact that his uncle, Lord Stanhope, had been a member of that society. There are indications that at this time he was destined, like a great minister of a recent day, for the Church, but the gout attacked him with such violence as to compel him to leave the University without taking his degree. We have, however, an indirect proof of the reputation which he brought to Oxford in a letter from a Mr. Stockwell, who, although he had determined to give up tuition, consents to take William as his pupil, partly as a 'Salsbury man,' and so owing respect to the Pitt family; partly because of 'the character I hear of Mr. Pitt on all hands.'

William's only public achievement at Oxford was a copy of Latin verses which he published on the death of George I. They are artificial and uncandid, as is the nature of such compositions, and have been justly ridiculed by Lord Macaulay. But the performance is at least an early mark of ambition. If this be all, and it is all, that we know of this period of William's life, it seems worth while to print the two letters written by Mr. Stockwell to Robert Pitt, the more as they throw some light on bygone Oxford, a topic of evergreen interest.

Mr. I. Stockwell to Robert Pitt.

Hon^ed S^r,—I had long since determin'd, not to engage any more in a Trust of so much consequence, as the Care of a young Gentleman of Fortune is, & have in fact refus'd many offers of that sort: but the great Regard, that every Salsbury-Man must have for your Family, and the Character I hear of M^r Pitt from All Hands, put it out of my Power to decline a Proposal of so much Credit & Advantage to Myself & the College. I heartily wish your Business and Health would have allow'd you to have seen him settled here, because I flatter Myself, that you would have left Him in Our Society with some Degree of Satisfaction; as That can't be hop'd for, You will assure Yourself that everything shall be done with the exactest Care and Fidelity.

I have secur'd a very good Room for M^r Pitt, which is just now left by a Gentleman of Great Fortune, who is gone to the Temple. Tis thoroughly furnish't & with All necessarys, but perhaps may require some little Additional Expence for Ornament or Change of Furniture. The method of paying for the Goods of any Room in the University is, that Every Person leaving the College receives of his Successor Two Thirds of what He has expended. On this foot the Mony to be paid by M^r Pitt to the Gentleman who possess't the Room last, is 43^l, Two thirds of which, as likewise of whatever Addition He shall please to make to the Furniture, He is to receive again of the Person, who succeeds Him.

Tis usual for Young Gentlemen of Figure to have a small quantity of Table-Linnen, & sometimes some particular peices of plate, for the reception of Any Friend in their Rooms, but everything of that sort for Common & Publick Uses is provided by the College.

If you please to send me the Servitor's Name, I will immediately procure His admission into the College, & show Him all the Kindness in my Power, but as to His attendance on M^r Pitt it is not now usual in the University, nor, as I apprehend, can be of any Service. Tis much more Customary & Creditable to a Gentleman of Family to be attended by a Footman—But this I barely mention.

The other Expences of M^r Pitt's Admission will be in the following Articles:

aution Mony (to be return'd again)	10	0	0
Benefaction to the College	10	0	0
For Admission to the Fellow's Common Room	2	0	0
Fee for the Use of the College Plate, &c.	2	0	0
College Servts Fees	1	15	0
University Fees	0	16	0

I have stated M^r Pitt's Benefaction at Ten Pounds, because that is what we require & receive of every Gentleman-Commoner, & of very many Commoners; but I know S^r that you will excuse me for mentioning, that several Young Gentlemen of M^r Pitt's Gown have besides made the College a Present of a Peice of Plate of 10, or 12^l. I am thus particular only in Obedience to Your Orders. I believe S^r if You please to remit a Bill of An Hundred Pounds, it will answer the whole expence of Mr. Pitt's settlement here and I shall have the Honour to send you a particular Account of the disposal of it. As I am debarr'd the Pleasure of waiting on You by a little Office, that Confines me to the College in Termtime, I shall take it a very great Favour, if you please to let me know at what time I may hope to see M^r Pitt here.

I beg my Humble Duty to Your Good Lady, & my Humble Service & Respects to M^r Pitt, and am with the highest Respect

S^r Y^r most Oblig'd & Obedient Serv^t

Ios. Stockwell.[26]

Mr. Stockwell to Robert Pitt, 'at Swallowfield
near Reading, Berks.'

Trin: Coll: Oxon: Dec^r 22. 1726.

Hon^rd S^r,—Upon receiving the favour of Yours & finding that it was your Intention that M^r Pitt should keep a Servant, I have made choice of Another Room much more Convenient for that Purpose, as it supply's a Lodging for His Footman. I have employ'd some Workmen in it to make some necessary alterations; but the whole expence will not amount to the Charge of the Chamber, I had mention'd to you before. As I am not willing, M^r Pitt should be put to the distress of lying One Night in an Inn, I will take Care, it shall be fit for his Reception by New Years Day, & I am sure He will like it very well.

I proposed so large a Sum, because I had not mention'd the Articles of Gown, Cap Bands, Tea-Furniture, & some other little Ornaments & Conveniences that young Gentlemen don't care to be without. You will be pleas'd to mention, in what degree of mourning[27] His Gown must be made; & I will send you an exact Account of the whole expence. There is no need of remitting any Mony, till He comes.

If You are willing to recommend the Servitor You spoke of, who may live here at a very easy rate (I believe very well for 15^l p. Ann) I have bespoke a place for him, & He may be admitted when you please. I beg My Humble Duty to Your Good Lady, & my Humble Service & Respects to Your Good Family, & am

S^r Y^r most Obliged & Obedient Serv^t

Ios. Stockwell.[28]

Fortunately, too, a few of William's Oxford letters have also been preserved. The first apologetically continues Stockwell's tale of preliminary expenses, and endeavours to deprecate Robert Pitt's economical wrath.

William Pitt to his Father, in Pall Mall.

Trin: Coll: Jan^ry Y^e 20^th 1726/7.

Hon^ed S^r—After such delay, though not owing to any negligence on my Part, I am ashamed to send you y^e following accompt, without first making great apologies for not executing y^e Commands sooner.

Matriculation Fees	0	16	6
Caution money	10	0	0
Benefaction	10	0	0
Utensils of ye Coll	2	0	0
Common Room	2	0	0
Coll: Servts Fees	1	15	0
Paddesway[29] Gown	8	5	0
Cap	0	7	0
Tea Table, China ware, bands &c.	6	5	0
Glasses	0	11	0
Thirds of Chamber & Furniture	41	7	8
Teaspoons	1	7	6
	————
Summe total	84	14	8
	————
Balance pd me by Mr Stockwell	15	05	4

I have too much reason to fear you may think some of these articles too extravagant, as they really are, but all I have to say for it is humbly to beg you would not attribute it to my extravagance, but to y^e custom of this Place; where we pay for most things too at a high rate.

I must again repeat my wishes for y^r health, hoping you have not been prevented by so painfull a delay as y^e gout from pursuing y^r intended journey to Town I must beg leave to subjoin my Duty to my Mother & love to my Sist^rs and am with all Possible respect

S^r Y^r most dutyfull Son

Wm. Pitt.[30]

The next is written after an evident explosion of that wrath. In the Pitt family, even more than in others, father and son viewed filial expenditure from opposite points of view. It is painful, then, but not surprising to find that Robert should have regarded William's washing bill as beyond the dreams of luxury.

William Pitt to his Father, 'in Pall Mall.'

Trin: Coll: April y^e 29^th.

Hon^ed S^r,—I rec^d y^rs of y^e 25^th in which I find with y^e utmost concern y^e dissatisfaction you express at my expences. To pretend to justify, or defend myself in this case would be, I fear, with reason thought impertinent; tis sufficient to convince me of the extravagance of my expences, that they have met with y^r disapprobation, but might I have leave to instance an Article or two, perhaps you may not think 'em so wild and boundless, as with all imaginable uneasiness, I see you do at present. Washing 2l. 1s. 0d., about 3s. 6d. per w^k, of which money half a dozen shirts at 4d. each comes to 2s. per w^k, shoes and stockings 19s. 0d. Three pairs of Shoes at 5s. each, two pair of Stockings, one silk, one worcestead, are all that make up this Article, but be it as it will, since, S^r, you judge my expence too great, I must endeavour for y^e future to lessen it, & shall be contented with whatever you please to allow me. one considerable article is a servant, an expence which many are not at, and which I shall be glad to spare, if you think it fitt, in hopes to convince you I desire nothing superfluous; as I have reason to think you will not deny me what is necessary. As you have been pleased to give me leave I shall draw upon you for 25^li as soon as I have occasion. I beg my duty to my Mother & am with all possible respect

Hon^ed S^r, y^r most Dutifull Son

W. Pitt.

The third is mysterious enough to us, but it expresses gratitude for some marks of kindness, whether to the writer or not, cannot now be known. It is difficult to imagine that Robert should have extended his beneficence to any one at Trinity but William, and yet it is not easy to depict the gratitude of a College for a favour done to one of their undergraduates by his father. In any case there remains no longer any trace of such benefaction at Trinity. The inevitable financial statement in which the bookseller's bill figures handsomely, not far behind the tailor's, is tactfully kept separate in a postscript. It is, however, well to know that this letter, the last in all probability that William wrote to his father, who died six weeks afterwards, is one of as much affection as the fashion of that day permitted.

William Pitt to his Father.

Trin: Coll: April y^e 10^th 1727.

Hon^ed S^r,—I hope you gott well to London yesterday as I did to this place, though too late to trouble you with a letter that Evening. I can not say how full of acknowledgements every one amongst us is for y^e fav^r you confer'd upon one of their society. One could almost imagine by y^e good wishes I hear express't toward you from all hands, you were rather a publick benefactor to y^e College, than a Patron to any one member of it. I mention this because I believe it will not be unacceptable to you to hear y^r fav^rs are gratefully rec^d. I hope my Mother is well, to whom I beg my Duty: & am with all possible respect, S^r,

Y^r most dutifull son,

Wm. Pitt.

S^r,—Finding y^e quarter just up I send you y^e following accompt commencing Jan^ry y^e 9^th to y^e 9^th of this month.

Battels	15	0	0
Paid Lambert bd Wages	4	4	0
Three months learning french & entrance	2	2	0
For a course of experimental Philosophy	2	2	0
For coat & breeches & making	5	18	0
Booksellers bill	5	0	0
Cambrick for ruffles	1	4	0
Shoes, stockings	1	19	0
Candles, coal, fagots	3	10	0
Pockett money, Gloves, Powder, Tea, &c.	4	4	0
For washing	2	2	0
	—————
	47	5	0
Remains	9	15	0[31]

Robert Pitt died in Paris, May 20, 1727, and the next letter is addressed to his widow at Bath. The eldest son, Thomas, already, it would appear, had played William false, and caused a coolness with the mother by not delivering a letter.

William Pitt to his Mother.

Oxford July y^e 10^th 1727.

Hon^ed Mad^m,—Tis with no small impatience I have waited for y^e pleasure of hearing from you, but as that is denied me, I take this opportunity of repeating my Duty and enquiries after y^r health. I wrote to you by return of y^e coach, enclos'd to my Brother, to be forwarded by him, from whom I have also received no answer, which makes me imagine you may not have less reason to be angry with me for not paying my Duty to you, than I have to be sorry at not having y^e pleasure to hear from you, I mean my letter has not come into y^r hands. I send this by y^e Post from hence, which I hope will find better luck, it will be a sensible pleasure to me to hear y^e waters agree with you: for w^ch reason out of kindness to me, as also in regard to y^r own quiet (lest I should trouble you every other post with an importuning epistle) be so good as to give y^e satisfaction of hearing you are well; I am with all respect,

Y^r most Dutifull Son,

Wm. Pitt.

The following letter would seem to indicate that William was spending the Long Vacation at Oxford, while his mother as usual was spending hers at Bath. He appears to hint disapproval of an acquaintance she wished him to make, reversing the usual position of parent and son on such matters. There is again reproachful allusion to his brother; there are few indeed in any other tone throughout William's correspondence.

William Pitt to his Mother, 'at Bath.'

Oxon Sept^r y^e 17^th 1727.

Hon^ed Mad^m,—I rec'd y^e favour of y^rs by M^r Mayo and have waited on M^r Vesey as you order'd, with whom, had you not recommended him to me upon y^e knowledge you have of his family, I should not have sought an acquaintance. I hope you will lett me hear soon y^r intentions. If I am not to be happy in seeing you hear, y^e certainty of it can not be more uneasy than the apprehension; if I am, I shall gain so much happiness, by y^e foreknowledge of it. What part of y^e world my Brother is in or when he will be in Town, I know not. I hope to hear from him between this and y^e Coronation. The only consideration y^t can make me give up quietly y^e pleasure I promis'd myself in seeing you here, is y^t you are employ'd in a more important care to y^rself and Family, y^e preservation of y^r health. I have only to add my Love to my Sist^er and am with all respect,

Y^r most dutifull son

Wm. Pitt.

The gout, we have seen, drove William prematurely from Oxford, after a little more than a year of residence. Thence he proceeded to Utrecht, where it was then not unusual for young Englishmen and Scotsmen to complete their education. Here we find him in 1728 with his cousin Lord Villiers and Lord Buchan, father of the grotesque egotist of that name and of Henry and Thomas Erskine. Pitt writes in 1766 that Buchan was his intimate friend from the period that they were students together at Utrecht, and, when in office, he showed kindness on that ground to Lord Cardross, Buchan's eldest son, the egotist himself. Of this period some few letters to his mother survive, dutiful yet playful.

The first letter is of the formal kind then general between sons and parents, mentioning his cousin Lord Villiers, for whom he puts in a good word, not unnecessarily, as we shall see presently.

William Pitt to his Mother.

Utrecht, Feb^ry y^e 6^th N.S. 1728.

Hon^ed Mad^m,—I have y^e pleasure to repeat my assurances of affection & duty to you, together with my wishes for y^r health: I shall take all opportunities for paying my respects to you, I hope you will now and then fav^r me w^th a line or two, especially since you have so good a Scribe as Miss Ann to ease you of y^e trouble of writing y^rself. My L^d Villiers begs his Compliments may be acceptable to you, at y^e same time I should not do my L^d justice if I omitted saying something in his just praise, but as I can not say enough, I forbear to say more. My Love to my Sist^rs & Compliments where due. I am with all resp^t

Your dutiful Son

Wm. Pitt.

The next seems to denote a reluctant intention of returning to England to pay his family a visit.

William Pitt to his Mother.

Utrecht Feb^ry y^e 13^th 1728.

Hon^ed Mad^m,—I hope I need not assure you y^r letter gave me a very sensible pleasure in informing me of y^r better health; I wish I may any way be able to contribute toward farther establishment of it by obeying a Command which tallies so well with my own Inclinations though at y^e same time be assured, nothing less than y^e pleasure of seeing you should prevail upon me to repeat so much sickness & difficulty as I met with Coming over to Holland. I believe I shall not fail in my respects to you, as often as occasion permits, though I fear my letters are hardly worth postage: unless to one who I flatter myself believes me to be

h^r most Dutifull Son

Wm. Pitt.

P.S. my Love to all y^e Family.

The next letter again pleads on behalf of my Lord Villiers, for whose excess of vivacity William feels obvious sympathy. He mentions, too, and characterises with a sure touch, his old Eton friend Lyttelton, who has fallen in love with Harriot Pitt, as he was afterwards to fall in love with Ann. Lyttelton was apparently determined that the Lytteltons and Pitts should be matrimonially connected as closely as possible, for two months afterwards we find him exclaiming in a letter to his father: 'Would to God Mr. (William) Pitt had a fortune equal to his brother's, that he might make a present of it to my pretty little Molly! But unhappily they have neither of them any portion but an uncommon share of merit, which the world will not think them much the richer for.'[32] As Thomas had just married Christian Lyttelton, it is clear that the writer meditated a triple alliance as the end to be aimed at. The peerage books tell us that this pretty little Molly died unmarried.

William Pitt to his Mother, 'in Pallmall, London.'

Utrecht Feb: y^e 29^th

Hon^ed Mad^m,—The return of my L^d Villiers into England gives me an opportunity of assuring you of my respect & wishes for y^r health; I can not omitt any occasion of shewing how sensible I am of y^r affection, but must own I could have wish'd any other than this by which I am depriv'd of my L^d Villier's Company, he is recall'd perhaps deservedly: if a little Indiscretion arising from too much vivacity be a fault, my L^d is undeniably blameable; but I doubt not but my L^d Grandison himself will find more to be pleas'd with in y^e one than to correct in y^e other respect. I have received so many Civilities from M^r Waddel, who does me y^e hon^r to be y^e bearer of this, y^t I should not do him justice to omitt letting you know how much I am obliged to him. I hope y^e Family is well: Lyttelton prevented you in y^e account of his own Madness. Sure there never was so much fine sense & Extravagance of Passion jumbled together in any one Man. Send him over to Holland: perhaps living in a republick may inspire him with a love of liberty & make him scorn his Chains. My love to all, who (a second time) I hope are well: & believe me with all respect & affection

Y^r most Dutiful Son

Wm. Pitt.

The third contains, perhaps, the only token of kindness between the two brothers which survives. It also alludes to Lyttelton's passion for Harriot.

William Pitt to his Mother, 'in Pall Mall, London.'

Utrecht April y^e 8^th N.S. 1728.

Hon^ed Mad^m,—Y^r letters must always give me so much pleasure, y^t I beg no consideration may induce you to deprive me of it. they can never fail being an entertainment to me when they give me an opportunity of hearing you are well. I can not omitt thanking you for y^e enquiry you make about my supplies from my Brother: neither should I do him justice, if I did not assure you I receiv'd y^e kindest letter in y^e world from him: wherein he gives me y^e offer of going where I think most for my improvement, and assures me nothing y^t y^e estate can afford shall be denied me for my advantage & education. I hope all y^e family is well. Miss Anne's time is so taken up with dansing & Italien y^t I despair of hearing from her. I should be glad to hear what conquests miss Harriot made at y^e birthday. if I had not a letter from one of y^e Three, I must think they have forgott me. I am in pain for poor Lyttelton: I wish there was leagues of sea between him & y^e Charms of Miss Harriot. If he dies I shall sue her for y^e murder of my Friend. This Place affords so little matter of entertainment, y^t I shall only beg you to believe me with all respect,

Hon^ed Mad^m, Y^r most Dutifull Son

Wm. Pitt.

My love & service to my Brother & Compliments to all y^e Family.

His stay at Utrecht was probably not protracted, as we find no more letters from thence. The next glimpse we have of him is in January 1730, at Boconnoc. He is now established at home, rather, perhaps, from economy than of his own free will, for he disrespectfully calls Boconnoc 'this cursed hiding-place;' living in Cornwall or at Swallowfield, near Reading, another of the family residences; or on military duty at 'North'ton,' evidently Northampton, which William, however, abbreviates differently in later letters. When we consider the elaborate style and formulas of the letters of this period there seems nothing so strange as the passion for abbreviation by apostrophe, such as 'do's' for 'does,' which seems to save neither time, trouble, nor space.

In February 1731 he received a commission in the 1st Dragoon Guards, then under the command of Lord Pembroke, and we find him in country quarters at Northampton and elsewhere. In the autumn we find him once more at Boconnoc, whence he writes this more genial note to his mother.

William Pitt to his Mother, at Bath.

Bocconnock Oct^br y^e 17 1731.

Dear Madam,—I am, after a long Confinement at Quarters, at present confined here, by disagreeable, dirty weather, which makes us all prisoners in this little house. I knew nothing of your journey to Bath, when I came to Town, and was therefore disappointed of the pleasure of seeing you there. I see you have put a bill upon your door. Pray what do you intend to do with yourself this winter? I shou'd be mighty glad to know whether your affairs are near an Issue. I hope they will very soon leave you at Leisure to consult nothing but your health and Quiet. Be pleas'd to favour me with a Letter here, where I shall stay about a month longer; and give me the satisfaction of knowing how much you profit by the Waters. Believe me,

Dear Madam, Your dutifull affec^t son

Wm. Pitt.

My service to the Col: and Mrs. Bouchier: I shall Be glad to hear he makes one at the Balls.

In 1733 he set out on a foreign tour, of which we shall see more presently, and before leaving writes this note, which gives some ground for thinking that his brother helped him at least to meet the expenses of this voyage, as Lord Camelford thinks was actually the case.

William Pitt to his Mother, 'in Bateman Street, near Piccadilly, London.'

Boconnock jan: 19: 1732/3.

Dear Madam,—I hope Miss Kitty who is now upon y^e Road will get safe to You: I cant omit doing Justice To your goodness in making room for her, she no doubt wanting your care very much in the ill state she is in. I continue still here and shall not set out yet this month, haveing a design to go abroad then. It is however uncertain till I hear from my Brother after he gets to Town. Miss Harriot, by her letters, Is much recovered and I flatter myself your house will prove as lucky to Poor Kitty. I need not assure you of my wishes for your health and speedy deliverance from the Misery of Late: my Love to my Sisters and believe me

Dear Madam Your most Dutifull Son

Wm. Pitt.

Miss Nanny gives her Duty to you.

He visited Paris, and Geneva, Besançon (where he lost his heart for a time), Marseilles, and Montpelier, passing the winter at Luneville.

From Paris he again writes to his mother this letter, of no significance except dutiful affection; and another from Geneva which gives a strong proof of filial obedience in giving his consent, though with strong and obvious reluctance, to one of the bills filed by his mother and Lord Grandison in reference to his father's succession.

William Pitt to his Mother, 'in Bateman Street Near Piccadilly à Londres.'

Paris May y^e 1 1733.

Dear Madam,—Though I have nothing to say to you yet of the Place I am arrived at, I cant help giving you a bare account of my being got safe to Paris: You are pleased to give me so much reason to Think you interest yourself in my welfare That I cou'd not acquit myself of my Duty In not giving you this mark of my respect and the sense I have of your goodness. I shall make my stay as short here as possible. let me have the pleasure of hearing some account of your health and situation: be pleased to direct to me Chez Monsieur Alexandre Banquier, dans la Rue St. Appoline pres de la Porte St. Denis, à Paris. I am

Madam Y^r most Dutifull Son

Wm. Pitt.

William Pitt to his Mother, 'in Bateman Street Piccadilly London. Angleterre.'

Geneva Sep^r y^e 17: N.S. 1733.

Dear Madam—I have just rec^d y^e favour of your letter of y^e 7^th august, with the answer to a bill of complaint of my L^d Grandison and your self: I cou'd wish you had pleased to have let me know in general that that bill is, for at present I have no Idea of it. You assure me, Madam the answer you wou'd have me make is a form, and can lead me into no farther consequences, by engageing me In Law, or disobligeing My Brother; neither of which I am persuaded you wou'd upon any consideration involve me in: upon these grounds I readily send you my consent to the answer proposed By M^r Martyn in your letter. I am sorry it did not come to my hands sooner, least my answer shou'd not be time enough; and that I shou'd, by that means, be any involuntary obstacle to your affairs which wou'd be a sensible concern to

Dear Madam Y^r most Dutyfull affec^e Son

Wm. Pitt.

I leave this Place shortly not knowing yet where I shall pass y^e winter.

In 1734 he was back in England, doing duty with his regiment at Newbury.

It is unnecessary to speculate on the measure of success that William would have achieved in the army had he remained a soldier. That he had an early disposition to the career of arms seems probable, as his uncle, Lord Stanhope, a soldier himself, who died when William was twelve, used to call him 'the young Marshal.' It is useless to surmise; but had he not been so great an orator, one would be apt to imagine that his bent and talent lay in the direction of a military career. This at least is certain, that he sedulously employed his time, preserved from mess debauches and idle activity by his guardian demon the gout. He told Shelburne that during the time he was a cornet of horse, there was not a military book that he had not read through. This is a large statement, but denotes at least unstinted application. So his career as a subaltern, though abruptly cut short, was probably fruitful, and these studies must have been useful to the future war minister. To paraphrase Gibbon's pompous and comical phrase, the cornet of dragoons may not have been useless to the history-maker of the British Empire. For his destiny was to plan and not to conduct campaigns, and he was now to be caught in the jealous embrace of parliamentary politics.

CHAPTER III.

But before he launches on that troubled career, it is well to catch what glimpses we can obtain of Pitt in private life. It is the more necessary as this aspect soon disappears from sight, and his letters begin to assume that pompous and obsequious tone which we have come to believe was his natural style, but which it is obvious was assumed and affected for purposes of his own. Until he passes on to the stage, he is as bright, as livery, and as affectionate as any lad of his generation. It is beyond measure refreshing to see him at this period bantering, falling in love, the participator of revels if not a reveller himself. For afterwards no one saw him behind the scenes, no one was admitted to his presence until every feature had been composed and his wig and his vesture dramatically arranged. To catch a glimpse of him before he played a part has been hitherto an unknown luxury. But to do this we must now for a moment consider his sisters.

There were five of these, and among them was to be found in abundance the strain of violence and eccentricity that distinguished the Pitts.

'The eldest, Harriot,' writes Lord Camelford, 'was one of the most beautiful women of her time, but little produced in the great world, and died very young from anxiety of mind in consequence of a foolish engagement she entered into with Mr. Corbett, son of Sir William Corbett, to whom she was privately married.' She secured for a while, as we have seen, Lyttelton's transient affections. 'The second daughter, Catherine, had much goodness, but neither beauty nor wit to boast of. She married Robert Nedham,[33] a man of uncommon endowments, but of good Irish family and property, by whom she had several children.' The third was Ann, of whom more presently; and the fifth Mary.

The fourth was Betty, of whom, unlike three of her sisters, we seem to know too much. The curse of the Pitt blood was strong in her. Lord Camelford, her nephew, speaks of her 'diabolical disposition,' and says concisely that 'she had the face of an angel and the heart of all the furies,' and that she 'formed the most complicated character of vice that I have ever met with.' Family testimony is not always the most charitable, but outside witnesses in no way mitigate these expressions. Lord Shelburne says that she was received nowhere, owing to her profligate life. Horace Walpole brings an infamous charge against her, which we may well hope is a distortion of the natural fact that for some time she took up her abode with her eldest brother Thomas; though Thomas on parting with her said that her staying with him was extremely distasteful to him. She, in any case, openly lived as his mistress with Lord Talbot, a peer as eccentric as herself, and who promised her marriage, she said, whenever he should be free from the incumbrance of Lady Talbot.[34] Afterwards she went to Italy, became a Roman Catholic, started from Florence with the declared intention of marrying Mr. Preston, a Leghorn merchant, who seems however to have been unequal to the occasion.[35] Then she returned to England, virulent against her brother William, 'whose kindness to her,' says Horace Walpole, no biassed witness, 'has been excessive. She applies to all his enemies, and, as Mr. Fox told me, has even gone so far as to send a bundle of his letters to the author of The Test[36] to prove that Mr. Pitt has cheated her, as she calls it, out of a hundred a year, and which only prove that he once allowed her two, and, after all her wickedness, still allows her one.'[37] And yet on occasion she could call William the best of brothers and of men.[38] This, too, was characteristic of the breed.

At this period of her life she called herself, heaven knows why, Clara Villiers Pitt, or Villiers Clara Pitt (there is an engraving of her with the latter designation), and published a pamphlet recommending magazines of corn. Of her perhaps too much has been said; but it is necessary to demonstrate that William's family relations were not always easy: Thomas reviled him, Elizabeth reviled him, Ann, whoever was in fault, caused him much trouble, while Thomas's son, whom he peculiarly cherished, regarded him with peculiar animosity.

It should be mentioned, however, that Dutens met her in France some time during Pitt's paymastership, and gives us a picture of her, which also throws light on William's strong family affection. She was then handsome, with a fine figure, her face aflame with pride and intellect, her age apparently under thirty; she was abroad for her health. With her, as a companion, chosen by her brother, was a Miss Taylor, a much prettier girl, of whom Elizabeth was vigilantly jealous and with whom Dutens fell haplessly in love. Miss Pitt was then apparently on excellent terms with her illustrious brother, and gave Dutens a letter to him. She had indeed become enamoured of the young Frenchman, a passion which, we are not surprised to hear, she carried to indecorous lengths. He, however, escaped to England and presented his letter. Pitt called on him the same afternoon and thanked him for his attentions to a beloved sister. Dutens became intimate, showed the minister his compositions, and was favoured with an inspection of Pitt's. Then all suddenly changed, and he was denied access.[39] Betty had quarrelled with the family of Dutens, and had written to beg her brother to quarrel with Dutens.[40] Dutens, she said, had boasted in company that he was well with her, and that if her fortune and family answered expectation he might marry her. Consequently she desired her brother to order his footman to kick Dutens down stairs; in any case she implored him to quarrel with the young man. With this request Pitt unhesitatingly and unreasonably complied. We see here in one incident how warm were Pitt's family affections, and the difficulties under which they were cherished.

In 1761 she married John Hannan of the Middle Temple, 'of Sir William Hannan's family in Dorsetshire, a lawyer by profession, remarkable for his abilities, some years younger than myself, and possessed of a fortune superior to my own,' as Betty describes him in a hostile announcement of the engagement addressed to William. Nine years afterwards she died. Of Hannan, her husband, nothing further seems to be known; but it may be surmised that his lot was not enviable.

Mary, the youngest, seems to have been a spinster of no striking qualities. We know little of her, except that she was born in 1725 and died in 1782.[41] There exists one letter from William to her of the year 1753, and he mentions her in a letter, dated April 9, 1755, as living with him. And indeed he was always kind to her, as she seems to have habitually resided with him. Mrs. Montagu writes in July 1754: 'Miss Mary Pitt, youngest sister of Mr. Pitt, is come to stay a few days with me. She is a very sensible, modest, pretty sort of young woman, and as Mr. Pitt seem'd to take every civility shown to her as a favour, I thought this mark of respect to her one manner of returning my obligations to him.'[42] But even she, though colourless, seems not to have been wholly devoid of the Pitt temperament, though she seems to have always been on intimate terms with her family. 'She had,' says Lord Camelford, 'neither the beauty of two of her sisters, nor the wit and talents of her sister Ann, nor the diabolical dispositions of her sister Betty. She meant always, I believe, to do right to the best of her judgement, but that judgement was liable to be warped by prejudice, and by a peculiar twist in her understanding which made it very dangerous to have transactions with her.' The 'peculiar twist,' which even Mary could not escape, was innate in most Pitts.

We have kept Ann to the last, though she was third of the sisterhood in point of age, being born in 1712, and so four years younger than William, whose peculiar pet and crony she was for the earlier part of their lives. She was in her way almost as notable as he, and she resembled him in genius and temper, as Horace Walpole wittily observed, 'comme deux gouttes de feu.' But drops of fire, did they exist, would probably not amalgamate for long, and one would guess that Ann and William were too much alike to remain in permanent harmony. Perhaps, too, their extreme intimacy made them too well acquainted with each other's tender points, a dangerous knowledge when coupled with great powers of sarcasm. One might surmise, too, that Pitt's wife, always apparently cold to Ann, might be disinclined to encourage the renewal of an intimacy which might once more attract William's closest confidence, though we have a letter[43] from Ann, dated 1757, in which she speaks with nothing less than rapture of Lady Hester's kindness to her. Lady Hester's immaculate caligraphy and frigid style give in our easier days an impression of distance and austerity.

Ann, when she was little more than twenty, may be said to have entered public life by becoming a maid of honour to Queen Caroline, the wife of George II. From this moment she became one of that group of distinguished women, not blue but brilliant, who adorned England in the eighteenth century by their idiosyncrasies as much as by their abilities. She was courted and beloved by characters so famous as Gay's Duchess of Queensberry and George the Second's Lady Suffolk, and by Mrs. Montagu, who was much more blue than brilliant; for her essay on Shakespeare, so much lauded by her contemporaries, has long been dead and buried. In her dear Mrs. Pitt's conversation, declared this paragon of pedants, she saw Minerva without the formal owl on her helmet.

Among men she corresponded with her neighbour, Horace Walpole (who felt for her an affection tempered with alarm), Lord Chesterfield, and Lord Mansfield. 'She had charms enough to kindle a passion in the celebrated Lord Lyttelton,' says Camelford; Dr. Ayscough, a coarse and crafty ecclesiastic, whose acquaintance Pitt and Lyttelton had made at Oxford, and who was a trusted adviser of Frederick, Prince of Wales, sought her in marriage;[44] but there seem no other traces of the tender passion in her life. For the whim, if it indeed were not a joke, which made her ask Lady Suffolk to assist her to secure the hand of Lord Bath (then about seventy, when she herself was forty-six), hardly comes under that description. Ann was, indeed, made rather for admiration than for love. Bolingbroke, who called William 'Sublimity Pitt,' called Ann 'Divinity Pitt.'[45] But she was, one may gather, destitute of beauty,[46] and her vigorous originality of character and conversation inspired, we suspect, more awe than affection. The delightful sprightliness of youth is apt with age or encouragement to sour into a blistering insolence, and Ann had all the sarcastic powers of her brother. For example, Chesterfield calling on her in his later life complained of decay. 'I fear,' he said, 'that I am growing an old woman.' 'I am glad of it,' briskly replied Ann, 'I was afraid you were growing an old man, which you know is a much worse thing.'[47] An attractive, even fascinating, member of society, she was something too formidable for the ordinary man to take to his bosom and his hearth. Reviewing her life, we think that the real and sole object of her love was her brother William, even when her love for the moment vented itself, as love sometimes does, in quarrel. Strife was necessary to the Pitts, and when they waged war with each other it was no battle of roses. The disputes of lovers and relatives, like amicable lawsuits, are apt to become serious affairs, and with this race they were conflicts of the tomahawk. Be that as it may, and whatever the cause, William and Ann adored each other, kept house together, and then quarrelled with prodigious violence and effect. At present we are not near that point. Ann is her brother's 'little Nan,' 'little Jug,' and he is writing her the delightful letters contained in this chapter, written, says Camelford, who preserved them, with the passion of a lover rather than that of a brother. To us they represent rather the special relation of a brother and sister, when affection and intimacy have grown with their growth, from the nursery and the schoolroom to riper years, not unfrequently the sweetest and tenderest of human connections. Our only regret must be that William did not cherish Ann's letters as she did his, for they may well have possessed her peculiar charm. 'She equalled her brother, Lord Chatham,' writes her nephew, who knew them both well, 'in quickness of parts, and exceeded him in wit and in all those nameless graces and attentions by which conversation is enlivened and endeared.' At the same time, one may reluctantly admit that such letters of hers as survive, give one little desire for more. The same, however, may be said of her great brother's habitual epistles (for they can be called nothing less); and their correspondence together was something apart, the gay and engaging eclogue of two young hearts; so that Ann, like William, must have been at her best in her early letters to him.

And so we set forth these delightful letters of a lad of twenty-two to his favourite sister. They need no comment; of the allusions no explanation can now be given or would be worth giving; but the letters speak for themselves.[48]

Boconnock, Jan^y 3, 1730.

Dear Nanny,—As you have degraded my sheets From y^e rank and Quality of a Letter, merely for Containing a few Innocent Questions, I am determin'd to avoid such rigour for the future by Confining myself to bare narration: first, Then we are to have a ball this week at Mr. Hawky's Child-feast, (a Heathenish Name for the Christian Institution of Baptism), where the Ladies intend to shine most irresistably, and like enfants perdus, thrust themselves in the very front of y^e Battle, break some stubborn Tramontanne Hearts, or Die of the spleen upon the spot. The next thing I have to say, (Don't be afraid of a Question) Is, that we set out y^e end of the same week, and propose seeing you about a week after our departure. I'l say no more, least I should forget y^e restrictions I have Laid myself under and launch out into some Impious enquiries that don't suit my sex. Adieu, Dearest Nanny, till I have the pleasure of seeing you at Bath.[49]

The next letter is from Swallowfield, one of the Pitt houses. Ayscough has proposed to Ann. He is a favourite butt of William's, who seems to rejoice in his discomfiture.

Swallowfeild, Sep. y^e 29^th, 1730.

I am quite tired of waiting for a letter from my Dear Nanny, and am determin'd by way of revenge to fatigue you as much by obliging you to read a very long letter from myself, as you have me with the eager expectation of receiving one from you. The excuse you assign'd for not doing it sooner fills me with apprehensions for your health; Is it that you still converse only with Doctor Bave,[50] or that you have already changed the old Physician for the young Galant? Is it the want of conversation That denies you matter, or the entire engagement to it that won't allow you time for a letter? Be it as it will, I flatter myself into a beleif of the Latter, chusing rather to be very angry with you for your neglect of me, than sincerely afflicted for your want of health. I desire I may know from yourself what advances you make towards your recovery; you never can want a subject to write to me upon, while you have it in your power to entertain me with a prospect of seeing you perfectly restored to health, and in consequence of that to the sprightly exertion of your understanding and full display (as my Lady Lynn elegantly has it) of your Primitive Beauties. Why shou'd I mention Ayscough's overthrow! That is a conquest perhaps of a nature not so brilliant as to touch your heart with much exultation; But lett me tell you, a man of his wit in one's suite has no Ill air; You may hear enough of eyes and flames and such gentle flows of tender nonsense from every Fop that can remember, but I can assure you Child, a man can think that declares his Passion by saying Tis not a sett of Features I admire, &c. Such a Lover is the Ridiculous Skew,[51] who Instead of whispering his soft Tale to the woods and lonely Rocks, proclaims to all the world he loves Miss Nanny—Fâth (sic)—with the same confidence He wou'd pronounce an Heretical Sermon at St. Mary's. I must quit your admirer to enquire after the condition of the Colonel and his Lady,[52] and to assure' em of my most hearty wishes for Their health and happiness. I beg leave to repeat the same to Miss Lenard, who I hope will recruit her spirits after so much affliction with y^e holsome Application of a Fiddle. I shall communicate to you next Post a Translation of an Elegy of Tibullus By Lyttelton, who orders me to say it was done for you:[53] I shall then be able to say whether I go to Cornwall or no, so that you may know how to direct to me.

I need not say what you are to do with the hair enclosed to you from Mrs. Pitt. Adieu dear Nanny.

The next letter is from Blandford, where the writer is stopping on his way to Boconnoc, which he gives as his address at the end of the letter. He is still occupied with his sister's career as a flirt.

Blanford: Oct. y^e 13^th. 1730.

As we mutually complain'd of the silence of Each other, so I conclude we mutually have Forgiven it: But had I continued it, my Dear, Till I had something more entertaining to talk of Than an execrable journey to Cornwall, perhaps You might not have had much reason to complain of me. I have not had a minute's pleasure from my own thoughts since I left Swallowfeild, till now I give them up entirely to you, and Paint you to myself in the hands of some agreeable Partner, as happy as the new way of wooing can make you. I can not help suggesting To you here a little grave advice, which is, not to lett your glorious Thirst of Conquest transport You so far, as to lose your health in acquiring Hearts: I know I am a bold man to dissuade One from dansing a great deal that danses very gracefully; but once more I repeat, beware of shining too much; content yourself to be healthy first, even tho you suspend your triumphs a week or ten days. I beg I may not be misconstrued To insinuate anything here in favour of my own sex, or to serve the sinister ends of an envious Sister or two; no; I scorn such mean artifices. In God's Name, when the waters have had their Effect, give no Quarter, faites main basse upon all you meet, à coup d'eventelle, à coup d'Oeil: spare neither age nor condition: but like an Unskilfull Generall don't begin to take the Feild till your military stores are provided and your magazines well furnish'd. Thus Have I acquitted myself not only as an able but honest Counsellour, and ventured to represent to you your true Interest, tho' never so distastefull. Adieu, my Dear Nanny, till you renew our Conversation by a speedy letter. My sincere respects to the Col. and family.

Boconnock Near Bodmin.

Next comes the letter in which he curses Boconnoc, but only because of its remoteness. He lives, it may be presumed, at the family house from economy. But he is not at ease about Ann's health, and longs to be at Bath to be with her.

Boconnock. Nov^r y^e 15^th 1730.

I read all my Dear Nanny's letters with so much pleasure, that I grow more and more out of temper with y^e remoteness of this cursed hiding place, where The distance of some hundred Miles denies me the Repetition of it so often as I eagerly desire. But as much as I am pleas'd with the prettiness of your style and manner of writing, I cant help feeling a sensible uneasiness to hear no news of your amendment; cou'd my Dear Girl add that to them, they wou'd give me a satisfaction that wou'd bear some proportion to The degree of your Esteem, you convince me I possess. We are all sollicitous to hear Doctor Baves opinion of your case, which I beg you will not fail to send me in your next letter. You will before this reaches you, have rec^d a letter from my Brother, which I hope will give you perfect satisfaction with regard to your further demands. As I shall not go to London Before my Brother, it will not be absolutely in my Power to see you in my way: I am not however without hopes of prevailing upon him to go from Blanford to Bath, which is not above thirty Miles. Beleive me I shall have it at heart to make you this visit, having two such powerful motives to it, as my Own Pleasure and yours. All proofs of your affection To me are highly agreeable, and I am willing to measure the value you may set upon mine to you, By the same favourable standard. Be assured therefore I shall lett slip no occasion of giving what I shall in my turn receive with infinite pleasure: Pray assure Colonel Lanoe and his family of my good wishes; and let us know what benefit they receive from the waters. I have time for no more. Adieu My Dear Girl.[54]

He was now apparently with his regiment at Northampton, though he was not gazetted till February.

Northton. Jan. 7, 1731.

I am just in my Dear Nanny's Condition, when she tells me she sat down determin'd to write tho' she had Nothing to say: but I know not how it comes to pass, One has a pleasure in saying and hearing very nothings, where one loves: while I have my paper before me I Fancy myself in company with you, and while you read my letters, you hear me chattering to you, tis at least an interruption to working or reading, that serves to diversify Things a little, to be forced to run your eyes over a side or Two of paper; tho' it says nothing at all. I remember, when I saw you last, you had a thought of reading and Translating Voiture's letters: I beg you will take him up as soon as you have got through this of mine, To recompense you for the dullest of Letters, what will you Have me do? I come from two hours muzzy conversation To a house full of swearing Butchers and Drunken Butter women, and in short all the blessings of a market day: In such a situation what can the wit of man suggest to him? Oh for the restless Tongue of Dear little Jug! She never knows the painful state of Silence In the midst of uproar: for my Part I think I cou'd write a better letter in a storm at sea, or in my own way, at a Bombardment, than in my present situation. I won't have this called a Conversation: it shall pass for a mute interview, adieu my Dearest Nanny: preserve your health is y^e only word of consequence I can say to-night.

Compliments to my Sis. Pitt, and all my Friends that come in your way.[55]

Now, for the only time in his life perhaps, we find him engaged reluctantly in drinking bouts, the necessary discipline of a military mess in those days. He refers to the amiability of Charles Feilding in a later letter.

Northton. Feb^ry y^e 9. 1731.

I have been a monstrous time out of my Dearest Nanny's Company; the date of your Letter before me, Me fait de sanglantes reproches: I say nothing in my own behalf, but Frankly confess, in aggravation of my silence, that I have neglected you for a course of drunken conversation, which I have some days been in. The service wou'd be the most inactive life in y^e world if Charles Feilding was out of it; As long as he is with us, we seldom remain long without pretty smart Action: I am just releiv'd by one night's rest, from an attaque that lasted sixteen hours, but as a Heroe should never boast, I have done y^e state some service and they know't—no more of that.

What shall I talk of to my dear Girl? I have told her I love Her, in every shape I cou'd think of: we'l converse in French and tell one another y^e same things under the Dress of Novelty. Mon aimable Fille, rien ne m'est si doux que de recevoir de votre part les marques d'une ardente amitié, si ce n'est de vous en donner moi-meme. I did not think I cou'd have wrote a sentence so easily, mais les paroles obeissent toujours aux sentiments du coeur. Let me tell you once more, in plain English, your letter was infinitely pretty; you may leave off Voiture whenever you please. I hope little Jug is still talking at Boconnock; how Fares it with my Statira, my angry Dear? I can think of nothing so likely to bring her into Temper, as telling Her, her Skew will soon revisit y^e groves of Boconnock, where they may pass y^e Long Day, and tend a few sheep together. I beg she'l accept of y^e following stanza I met with by chance in some french poesy, and put a Tune to it, which She may warble in honour of her gentle loveing shepherd:

Dans ces Lieux solitaires
Daphnis est de retour:
Deesse de Cythere
Celebre ce grand jour:
Rapellez sur ces rives
Les amours envolés,
Les graces fugitives
et les Ris exilés.

my Love and services to all Freinds: My Brother gives me y^e pleasure of hearing my Sist^r Pitt is very well: pray make my apologies for not writing to her.

Adio Anima mia bella,
Dolce speranza mia.

W^m Pitt.

He has now come to London apparently to kiss hands for his commission. How little George II. can have realised what his relations were to be with the raw young cornet.

London: March y^e 5: 1731.

I thank my Dearest Nanny for her Letter Though it abused me, I think without Reasonable Grounds: tis true I dont write so often as I wish to see you, yet I won't allow I have let our conversation suffer any considerable Interruption. I Have had no opportunity yet of cultivating any farther acquaintance with M^r Molinox than by receiving his name and leaving Mine: I shall need no other inducement to his Freindship than the presumption of his civility to you, which your letter gives me reason to think: I shall ever esteem Any Man deserving of my regard who loves In any degree what so thoroughly merits and possesses my Heart as my Dear Girl. I have the pleasure of telling you my Commission is sign'd and I have Kiss'd hands for it, so that my Country Quarters won't be Cornwall this Summer. You are like to have Company soon with you, Hollins having ordered my Sister Pitt the Bath immediately: what becomes of the two poor vestals I dont yet know. the Town produces nothing new, as the Place you are in I suppose, produces absolutely nothing at all: kill some of your time by writing often to one who will always contribute to make you pass it more pleasurably, when in his Power. Adieu, recover y^r health, and preserve Chearfulness enough to give your Understanding a fair light.[56]

Y^rs most sensibly

W. Pitt.

The next letter was written in the midst of what would now be called a bear-fight, carried on apparently in the room of the demure Lyttelton.

London. March y^e 13: 1731.

I am now lock'd into George's room; the girls Thundering at the door as if Heaven and Earth would come together: I am certainly the warmest Brother, or the coldest Gallant In the Universe, to suffer the gentle Impertinencies the sportly Sollicitations of two girls not quite despicable without emotion, and bestow my Time and spirits upon a Sister: But in effect the thing is not so strange or unreasonable, for every Man may have Girls worthy his attention, but few, sisters so conversible as my Dear Nanny. Tis impossible to say much, amidst this rocking of the doors Chairs and tables: I fancy myself in a storm Of the utmost danger and horror; and were I really in one, I would not cease to think of my Dear Girl, till I lost my fears and Trepidations in the object of my tenderest care and sincerest zeal. let the winds roar, and the big Torrent burst! I won't leave my Nanny for any Lady of you all, but with the warmest assurance of unalterable affection, Adieu.[57]

He is now once more in country quarters, grievously hipped. The allusion to the barmaid 'who young at the bar is just learning to score' reads like a line from some forgotten song. In his despair he threatens to get drunk.

Northampton April y^e 9^th. 1731.

After neglecting my Dear Girl so many Posts In the joys of London, I should be deservedly Punished by the Loss of your correspondence now I very much stand in need of it: I am come from an agreeable set of acquaintance in Town to a Place, where the wings of Gallantry must Be terribly clip'd, and can hope to soar No higher than to Dolly, who young at the Bar is just Learning to score—what must I do? my head is not settled enough to study; nor my heart light enough to find amusement In doing nothing. I have in short no resource But flying to the conversation of my distant Freinds and supplying the Loss of the jolis entretiens I have left behind by telling my greifs and hearing myself pity'd. I shall every Post go near to waft a sigh from Quarters to the Bath, which you shall rally me very prettyly upon, suppose me in Love, laugh at my cruel fate a little, then bid me hope for a Fair wind and better weather. I entreat you Be very trifling and badine, send me witty letters or I must chear my heart at the expense Of my head and get drunk with bad Port To kill time. My sister is by this time with You and I hope the Girls: my Love to her and bid her send away her husband and drink away. my spirits flag, et je n'en puis plus, adieu.

One would guess, but one can only guess, that the following letter referred to some project of marrying William, which Ann dreaded as causing a separation from her.

Northampton. May y^e 21: 1731.

What shall I say to my Dearest Nanny for sinking into a tenderness below y^e dignity of her spirit and Genius? I sat down with a resolution to scold you off for a little Loving Fool, but Find myself upon examination your very own Brother and as fond of receiving such testimonies of the Excess of y^r affection, as you are of Bestowing them: t'wou'd be more becoming y^e Firmness of a man to reprove you a little upon this occasion, and advise you to fortify your Mind against any such Separation as you so kindly apprehend, but as your fears are, I believe at present Groundless, I chuse rather To talk to you like an affectionate Freind, than a stern Philosopher and return every Fear you Feel for me with a most ardent wish for your Happiness: Beleive me t'will wound my Quiet to be forced to do anything to disturb yours, But shou'd such an event as you are alarm'd at, arrive, your own reason will soon convince your tender Fears, there is but one Party for me to take: All the Dictates of Prudence, all the Considerations of Interest must determine me to it: But I am Insensibly drawn in to prove I ought to do, what There is no appearance I shall have in my Power to do, therefore my Dear Girl, suspend your Inquietudes, as I will my Arguments, and think I Long to see you in y^e full enjoyment of y^r Health and Spirits, which I hope to be able to do early in August. Adieu my Dearest Nanny, Love me and preserve your own happiness.

I never rec^d a Line from my Sister Pitt.

But will write to her soon. I hope she is well.[58]

This next letter is taken up with poking fun at Ayscough. The 'poor nuns' would be Pitt's sisters, whom he calls elsewhere the 'poor vestals.'[59]

North'ton June y^e 17: 1731.

My Dear Nanny's letter from Bath gave me so many Pleasures that I don't know which to thank her for first: the Prettiness of it tells me she has more sense than her sex, the affection of it declares she is more capable of Freindship Than her sex: and to compleat my joy, It assures me she no longer wants her health: which may Heaven continue to my Dear Girl! If anything can make me devout, t'is my Zeal for your happiness: However don't let the Parson[60] know this Prayer escaped me for fear she (sic) shou'd be malicious enough to Tell me of it in company some time or other at Quarters. I am glad he is with you: he will prove as good an enlivener of the spirits and invigourate the conversation amongst you, as much as Bath waters do The Blood. Be sure not to suffer him to be Indolent and withdraw his Wit from y^e Service of y^e Company: I know y^e Dog sometimes grows tired of being laugh't at: But no matter: insist upon his being a Man of humour every Day but Sunday. I expect you will all Three Lose your reputations in y^e country for him: and indeed there's no Intimacy with one of His Cloath without too much room for Suspicion: But as you don't expect to make your fortune there, The thing is not so deplorable. You will be mutually Happy in meeting the Poor Nuns again: I very much fear I shall not partake of that pleasure so soon as August: Beleive me I long for nothing more than to see you all well and happy: I break off y^e Conversation with great reluctance To go to Supper: Adieu Dearest Nanny.

Ann was now to be a maid of honour and venture on the new world of a court. So she asks advice of her sage young brother, and he gives his admonitions in French, probably from fear of the Post Office.

Undated.

Vous voulez que je vous dise, mon aimable, ce que je pense de la vie que vous allez mener à la cour; votre Interest, qui me touche de près, m'y fait faire mille Reflexions: en voici mon Idée. Le cour me paroit une mer peu aisée à naviger, mais qui ne manque pas d'ouvrir aux mariniers bien entendûs le commerce le plus avantageux; j'entens l'art de connoitre le monde et de s'en faire connoitre agreablement: Un Esprit habile sans artifice, et un coeur gai sans legereté vous rendent ce voiage pleins d'agrements et de plaisirs, pendant que la vertu qui ne se dement jamais, est l'Etoile fixe qui vous empeche de vous y egarer.

En effet n'est-il pas à souhaiter pour une Personne qu'on aime, et dont on connoit bien les forces, de la voir exposée à un tel point, qu'elle ne puisse s'en tirer qu'avec le secours du bon sens et de la Prudence? Ce sont les difficultés qui donnent au merite tout son jour, et souvent elles en font naitre: Vous en avez, mon aimable, et il ne s'agit que de le mettre en oeuvre: mais voici ce qui vous embarasse: La Modestie, qui en est une Considerable, cache mille autres vertus en se montrant toujours elle-meme; Elle ne laisse pas en cela de faire un peu le Tyran: elle nous fait souvenir de ces meres qui par un excez de Pruderie derobent leurs Filles aux yeux du monde, toutes aimables qu'elles soient, mais que cette Modestie songe à prendre quelque fois le Parti de la retraite, et qu'elle scache qu'on ne la regrette gueres, quand on voit quelque belle vertu briller à sa place.

à mon avis il n'y a rien de si outrée que l'idée que de certaines gens se sont fait de la cour des Princes: Ils ne s'y figurent que l'Envie et ses noirceurs, la Perfidie, et les suites funestes de l'amour dereglé: ils en enlaidissent tellement la ressemblance qu'on ne la reconnoit plus: pour vous, ma chère, Ie ne vous conseille ni de vous troubler la cervelle d'affreuses Chimeres, ni de vous endormir tout à fait a l'ombre de la securité. Pour ce qui est de l'amour, il seroit ridicule d'entreprendre de vous en Tracer le Portrait, Il ne se fera comprendre que par Luimeme: en un mot, qu'il soit un Dieu bienfaissant ou qu'il ne soit qu'un Demon malin, donnez vous garde de l'offenser, car, effectivement, c'est un Personnage à represailles: enfin en quelque caractere que vous le voyez, Il vous le faudra respecter: dans l'un vous l'aimerez comme fidele chretienne; dans l'autre, reverez le afin qu'il ne vous fasse point de mal. adieu ma tres chere.

William has now set out on his foreign tour, of which we caught some glimpses in letters to his mother. We have already had his letter to his mother from Paris.

Paris May y^e 3^rd: N.S. 1733.

I don't know whether my Dearest Nanny is not at this moment angry with me for not writing sooner; But cou'd you see the hurry this Place throws a man into upon his arrival, you wou'd rather wonder I write at all. I have done nothing since I came to Paris, but run up and down and see; so that beleive me it is a sort of Novelty to set down and think: Tis with pleasure I return to you from The variety of fine sights which have engaged me; my eyes have been long enough entertain'd, to give my Heart leisure to indulge itself in a short conversation with my Dear Girl. It may sound oddly to say I love you best at a great distance, but surely absence best shows us the Value of a Thing, by making us feel how much we want it: I find already I shall have many vacant hours that wou'd be agreably fill'd up with the company of something one esteems; but I must comfort myself à la francoise, le bannis la Sagesse et la Raison; c'est de notre vie le Poison. I shall set out for Besancon in franche comté In three or four days, where I shall stay till autumn, write often and direct to me chez Mons^r Alexandre Banquier dans la Rue St. Appoline Près de la Porte St. Denis à Paris who will Take care to send them to me. I hope you like your way of Life better every Day; I don't know whether you may not be said to be travelling too; France is hardly newer to me than Court was to you; may you find the Country mend upon you the farther you advance in it: bon voyage ma chere, and may you find at your journey's end as good an inn as matrimony can afford you. I am

Your most aff^t Brother

W. Pitt.

My Love to Kitty and Harriot. I cou'd not write to all and you are the only one I was sure to find.

I write this Post to Skew; if he is not in Town, enquire at his Lodgings for y^e letter and send it. I hope my Brother rece^d my Letter.[61]

The next letter leaves him at Besançon, the ancient capital of Franche-Comté, wrested from the Spaniards in 1678, and now become a French fortress, famous for its silver watches. Here Pitt loses his heart.

Besancon. June the 5: 1733. N.S.

I receiv'd my Dear Nanny's letter yesterday: it has no Date, but I imagine by some of the Contents it has been a tedious time upon the road. The direction I left was a very proper one and particular enough, Alexander being generally known at Paris, so that the street of his abode is unnecessary: however To be very sure of meeting with no disappointment In a pleasure I desire to indulge myself in as often as you'l let me, direct to me at Alexander's dans la rue St. Appoline près de la Porte St. Denis à Paris, who will carefully transmit all letters to me, wherever I am. The pleasure you give me in the account of Kitty's recovery, is disagreably accompanied with that of Poor Harriot's Relapse into an ill State of Health; which I too much fear will never be removed till her mind is made a little easy: I never think of her but with great uneasiness, my tenderness for her begins to turn to sorrow and affliction; I consider her in a great degree lost, and buried almost in an unsuccessfull Ingagement: You have all my warmest wishes for your happiness and prosperity. I persuade myself you are in the high road to them, make the best of your way I beg of you; and contrive to finish your Travels by the time of my return. I can say but little of Besancon yet: The Place is externally pretty enough how it will prove upon a more intimate knowledge of it, I can't say. My Lord Walgrave was so good as to procure me letters For the Commandant and a Lady of this Place who passes for the finest Woman here. I have had the honour to dine with her at her campagne, where I was very handsomely regaled: what ressource Her acquaintance will be, I shall be better able to judge after another visit or two.

Skew hinted something to me concerning Kitty, which he said was not quite chimerical. If it be any suite of my Mother's project for her I doubt the Success. I have not Heard a word from my Brother, tho' I have wrote to him three times. If he han't received them all let him know it.

I find Sir James Gray here, who is a very pretty sort of Man and once more my schoolfellow; between my letters and the acquaintance he has made in the Town, we shall be of some Use to one another. Adieu.

Your most aff^t Freind and Brother

W. Pitt.

I wish you joy of Lord William's Match.

He is next found at Marseilles, where he discovers that he is still sore from his love affair at Besançon.

Marseilles, sep: y^e 1: 1733.

j'ai honte à regarder la datte de votre derniere lettre, à laquelle je vai faire reponse: vous me dites ma Chere, que vous etes fort aise que vos lettres me fassent plaisir, d'autant plus que vous croiez en avoir obligation plutot à ma prevention pour vous, qu'à votre merite. Qu'y a-til de plus obligeant Pour moi ou de plus injuste pour vous meme?

Il est vrai que je vous aime à un point qui passe bien souvent dans le monde pour aveuglement: mais je prétens vous aimer en connoisseur, je veux que le gout et la raison fassent ici ce que l'entetement fait d'ordinaire ailleurs. ne guerirez vous jamais de cette modestie outrée? de grace ne faites plus Tort à vous meme par une humilité qui n'est pas de ce bas lieu, et cessez de louer mon amitié aux depens de mon gout.

Vous voiez par la datte de ceci que je suis à Marseilles, j'y suis depuis deux jours et conte d'en partir dans deux ou trois jours pour Monpelier, où nous ferons un sejour à peu pres comme celui que nous ferons ici: je crois passer l'hiver a Luneville, et de[62] a Lyon par Geneve et le long du Rhin à Strasbourg d'où je me rendrai en Lorraine. je viens de quitter Besancon avec infiniment de regrets: voulez vous que je me confesse à vous? j'y avois un plus fort attachement que je ne croiois, avant que de me Trouver sur le Point de partir: tant il est vrai que l'on ne sent jamais si bien le prix d'une chose Que lorsque il la faut perdre. Nous y avions de fort aimables connoissances, et je trouve presentement à plus de soixante Lieues de loin, que j'y aurois passer l'hyver volontiers, je n'en ai pas tout à travers du coeur, mais toutefois j'en ai. adieu ma chere, faites moi d'abord reponse, et imputez mon silence passé à toute autre cause que à un refroidissement pour vous. je suis avec tout la tendresse du monde

votre affectionné Serviteur

W. Pitt.[63]

And now he has arrived at Luneville, the city of the moon, once dedicated to the worship of Diana, but at this time devoted to the manufacture of glass and pottery. In four years it was to be enlivened by the gay court of Stanislas; but it was now a provincial town, occupied provisionally by the French in defiance of its absentee Duke, Francis, afterwards Emperor of Germany. Pitt is not yet cured of his passion. It is painful to him to revive it by giving a description of the lady, and he seems to feel her want of noble birth as if he had contemplated marriage.

Luneville ce 12: d'octob. N.S. 1733.

Votre lettre me réjouit fort en m'apprenant que votre vie est heureuse: quand vous ne me manderiez que cela une fois la semaine, votre commerce me donneroit toute la satisfaction du monde: mais d'ailleurs il y'a, mon aimable, un tour agreable dans tout ce que vous me dites, qui me rend votre conversation charmante. La tendresse de ses amis, en quelque expression que ce soit, nous touche; mais quand elle se presente à nous d'une maniere aisée et delicate, l'esprit participe à la satisfaction que la coeur en recoit.

Vous me demandez le Portrait de la Belle: faites vous bien attention à quoi vous m'allez engager? je commence à respirer et vous voulez me replonger dans les douleurs que m'a causées sa perte, en m'obligeant de renouveller dans mon esprit les traits qui s'en etoient emparés. L'absence est un grand Medecin: je me suis si bien trouvé de ses remedes que je ne desespere pas d'en pouvoir revenir: laissez lui faire encore un peu et je vous ferai le Portrait, que vous me demandez, assez à l'aise. Cependant trouvez bon que je vous en fasse seulement un crayon (à la hate?) en vous disant que, quoique son coeur fût certainement neuf, son esprit ne l'etoit point (j'en parle comme de feu ma Flamme) que sa Taille etoit grande et des plus parfaites, son air simple avec quelque chose de noble; Pour ses Traits je n'y touche pas: suffit que vous sachiez que ce fut de ces beautés d'un grand effet, et que sa Physionomie prononcât quelque chose des qualités d'une ame admirable ne vous attendez pas pour le present Que je vous en donne un detail si exact que vous en puissiez la reconnoittre si elle se trouvoit sur votre chemin: je n'ose m'y laisser aller davantage: nous en parlerons un jour plus amplement: mais avant de quitter son chapitre il faut que je vous dise tout: Elle n'a point de titre ni de grand nom qui impose; et c'est là le diable. C'est simplement Madamoiselle de —— fille cadette de Mons^r de —— ecuyer à Besancon: Religieuse, Vous avez bien dit que j'en parlerai volontiers: de quoi vous avisez vous de mettre un homme sur le chapitre de ses amours? Vous saviez que quand on y est, on ne scait jamais où finir, et que vous vous exposez à essuier tout ce qui vient au bout de sa plume, voila trop parler de mes affaires: parlons un peu des votres: faisons des demandes par rapport à certain peuple connu sous le titre d'amants. Parler franchement et donnez m'en des nouvelles, vous ne scauriez être si content que vous l'êtes so vous n'aviez range quelque coeur sous vos lois: adieu: aimons nous toujours et songeons a nous render heureux.

W. Pitt.

No one can be more sensible than I am of the esteem of Charles Feilding, nor more disposed to do justice to the amiableness of his character.

Six weeks afterwards all trace of his love affair has disappeared; it is not the mere cessation of pain, it is oblivion.

Luneville. Nov. y^e 22: 1733.

Les vérités obligeantes que vous me dites, ne me sont pas seulement cheres par le fond de tendresse qu'elles me font vous connoitre pour moi, elles le sont au dernier point par la maniere agreable dont vous les tournez: j'aime autant que votre coeur s'explique avec moi en bon Anglois qu'en bon francois, d'autant plus que ce qu'on dit en sa langue maternelle paroit encore plus Naturel, et c'est la ce qui fait le principal merite des lettres d'amitié, je suis charmé, mon aimable Bonne, de l'air content dont vous m'ecrivez, j'ai un plaisir aussi sensible à me figurer que vous êtes heureuse, que vous etes gaie, que j'en pourrois repentir moimême de tout ce que la joie et la gaieté me pourrait offrir: je vous suis present que si l'etois Dans le cabinet à Cote de votre Toilette. Je n'ai plus rien à vous dire de Mademoiselle.

C'etoit de ces flammes passageres, un eclair qui a passé si vite qu'il n'en reste pas le moindre vestige. j'ai oublié jusque au portrait que je vous en ai fait: n'allez pas m'accuser de legereté, voila comme il faut être en voiage: je me fais un fond de constance pour mon retour. Souvenez vous de garder votre parole en me faisant la confidence de vos premieres amours: que le terme ne vous choque pas, je l'entends avec les circonstances qu'il faut. Je ne doute pas que vous ne m'en fassiez bientot, au moins si vous avez autant de franchise que je me l'imagine. adieu, ma chere, je vous—(torn)—de terribles bagatelles: mais je ne'en scai rien—(torn)

Votre tres affectionné

W. Pitt.

If Miss Molly Lyttelton is in Town, I wish you may see one another often, and make a Friendship.[64]

The two following letters contain obscure allusions, which, so far as we can now interpret them, appear to indicate that Thomas Pitt at any rate was at this time a ministerialist and supporter of Sir Robert Walpole.

Newbury Octb^r y^e 24: 1734.

Dear Nanny,—You may conceive I was a good deal surprised at M^r Harrison's modest proposal: I thought it indeed so monstrous, that y^e best way of treating it was not to vouchsafe it any answer, especially as it did not come immediately from Him: I cannot conceive how poor Harriot cou'd think of employing Herself in such a message, or at least that she wou'd not understand my neglect in answering it, to be (what it is) a thorough contempt of the Noble Colonel's ridiculous offer. My first astonishment is a little abated by hearing he was encouraged to it by my Brother at Paris, I mean my astonishment as to him; For the latter, I have done wondering at any the most Inscrutable of his proposed designs: it must be confess'd, this last (if true) is not inferiour to any of the brightest passages of his conduct: removeing me to bring in a Person declared in Opposition, and who it is proposed shou'd pay me, instead of reimbursing him his expences at Oakhampton. I can talk no more of him; I'll endeavour to put him out of my mind till January.

I am extremely pleased to see the time of my deliverance from my Inn approach, a month more will bring me to you, when I shall be as happy as the endless disapointments and difficulties I have to encounter, will allow me: all I have of happiness is confined to you and my friend George; you may easily judge of my Impatience to be with you; I suppose he's still at Stowe. I am pleased with y^e honour done me to (sic) Lady Suffolk, the more as I am sure it gave you pleasure. Adieu Dear Nanny.

Most affec^y y^rs

W. Pitt.[65]

Newbury. Nov: y^e 7. 1734.

Dear Nanny,—I have been persecuted with a succession of little impertinent complaints; I have been deliver'd some time of my broken tooth, by the most dextrous operator, I beleive, in the World, but am at present in my Room with a sore throat, which is very troublesome to me. I wou'd not have You be very uneasy at Harrison's proposal; it appears to me, as it did at first, of no consequence, and deserves being spoken of only for the Impertinence of it. I am persuaded it is no more than an absurd, sudden thought of y^e Coll'^s; 'tis hardly possible my Brother shou'd have given his consent to it as a foundation for Harrison to proceed upon with me. My Brother's Interest no doubt do's not persuade him to such a bargain between Harrison and me: if he intends to consult that, in the disposition of this seat in Parliament, he must certainly rather oblige me to accept of satisfaction for the loss of it by something he may obtain for me, and chuse a man more agreeable to Sir Robt. than Harrison, who will put him two thousand pounds in Pocket: I am very much deceived if I hear any thing more of it. You misunderstood me in thinking I had given no sort of answer to the proposal. I was, I confess, little sollicitous about giving a speedy one or a very particular one: I said to Harriot in general that I was extremely surprised at the offer: that an answer was almost needless for the Coll., if he had thought of it since, must be able to guess what answer it deserved. that I was sorry she had employ'd herself at all in so strange a Proposal, in short something to that effect. I apprehend no difficulties from this affair; if I have any to encounter they'l come from another Quarter. I wrote to a certain Gentleman[66] above a month ago, without answer, so judge of his kind disposition towards me. my Lord Pembroke is very good in leaving it in my Power to come to Town, if I found it necessary. I have at present no thoughts of making use of his Indulgence. I want to see you more than you can imagine. Adieu:

Y^rs most affec^ly

W. Pitt.

Lady Suffolk, Ann's principal friend at Court, has now retired from an ungrateful servitude. The loss must have been great to Ann, who required more than most an experienced and sagacious friend at her elbow.

Newbury Nov: y^e 17: 1734.

Dear Nanny,—I was persuaded my Lady Suffolk's removal from court wou'd affect you in the Manner you tell me it dos: Your Friend M^rs Herbert, where I dined the day before yesterday, was speaking of the thing with concern and was sure it wou'd touch you, as much as any Body: your Greifs are so much mine that it wou'd be needless to tell you I am sorry for your Loss; I foresee a very disagreeable consequence to you from this change, which is, that your Friendship with Her may be charg'd upon you as a crime, and what was before a support may now be a prejudice to you. Harriot's complaint is far from giving me any uneasiness, I think nothing but such a necessity wou'd have made Them do what they indisputably ought to do. my concern for Her is, that her situation is so bad as to render this circumstance, (distresfull as it is) necessary to put her into a better. Poor Girl, what unnatural cruelty and Insolence she has to suffer from A Person[67] that shou'd be her support and comfort in this distress: I have heard him say so many hard Things upon this affair, that I think I do him no injustice to say he will be more inexorable than the Knight.[68] I suppose Lyttelton is return'd from Stowe and has found a letter from me Laying for him at the Admiralty. If he's not come back I am afraid he's ill this Pinching weather. I continue well, as I was when I wrote to you last. Adieu Dear Nanny,

Y^rs most affec^ly

Wm. Pitt.[69]

The letter that follows is important, as it marks an epoch in Pitt's life: for he was now at Stowe, where he was to make a long stay, and enrol himself in Cobham's band of connections. He had just entered Parliament[70] and now commences a politician. But, happily for us, he has not yet assumed his political dialect.

Stowe. July y^e 2: 1735:

Dear Nanny,—I am mighty glad to hear you escaped the headach after so fatiguing a journey, but I desire that may not prevent your applying to a Physician: I am extremely pleas'd with the account you give me of the Person[71] you saw, it is a great step to be able to seem easy: I wish his mind may ever be as easy, as I have the pleasure of hearing his affairs are at present, the other Part of your letter astonishes me: I think he'l not succeed, tho' I assure you he has my good wishes, for I am persuaded nothing less will ever extricate him. The turn indeed is very sudden, but since he has taken it, he'l disgrace himself less by obtaining, than losing. My L^d Cobham wou'd have been very glad to see you and wish'd I had brought you, I am sorry you lost so good an opportunity of seeing Stowe. Adieu

most aff^ly y^rs

Wm. Pitt.

I have had other business to write to my Brother upon, which has hinder'd my speaking of the Orange trees. I'l make Ayscough do it.

I hope you found Lady Suffolk well.

The next letter is burthened with mysterious and anonymous allusions, as to which conjecture is futile.

Stowe July y^e 20: 1735.

Dear Nanny,—I am mighty glad you are so well satisfy'd with the match you give me an account of: I was not surpris'd to hear it, for I fancy'd I saw it long ago. I have all sort of reasons to wish Her happy, but to mention no other, She loves you in the manner I am apt to think one shou'd love you. the Person[72] you think pretty easy, is far from it: he endeavours to acquiesce under Pain, to bring his mind, if possible, to such a state of composure as to go through the duties of Life like an honest and Reasonable Man. our Friends[73] Repulse is the most scandalous and ignominious of all things. I want to hear a little of his noble designs for next year: Despair must produce something Extraordinary in so great a mind. I am seriously ashamed of him, and if he was to ask my advice what he should do, I think I cou'd only beg him to do nothing: that Man's whole life is a sort of consolation to me in my poor little circumstances. He gives me occasion to reflect too often, that I wou'd not act his Part one month for twice his estate, but I leave him to talk to you of yourself: I don't hear what Broxom says of your headach's: if you have not consulted him you have used me very ill: Pray send for him and let me know if you are better. Adieu.

most affectionately Y^rs

Wm. Pitt.

Pope and Martha Blount were now at Stowe, so was Lady Suffolk; and William was polishing himself in the best company.

Stow Sept. y^e 2: 1735.

Don't say a word more of my never writing, but confess immediately that you admire my way of writing more than any Body's, that is my way of sending you Postcripts Every Day: I have nothing to say of Letters, but M^r Pope[74] says somewhere, 'Heaven first taught Postscripts for the wretches aid,' etc: you must know I han't a word to say to you; for I write only to introduce the Postscript, as M^r Bays wou'd make a Poem to bring in a fine thought, that was none of his own; I therefore finish to leave more room for my Lady Suffolk. adieu.

[In another hand, evidently Lady Suffolk's] how often my Dear Child have I wish'd you here? I know you wou'd like it, and I know two who thinks (sic) even Stowe wou'd be still more agreeable they talk of you I believe both Love you; but one can pun, and talk nonsense w^th M^rs Blount most Elegantly remember Saturday and never forget me, that is, do not be ungratefull.

We see in the next letter that Pitt was not merely supping with the wits, but playing at cricket, with Pope perhaps as umpire.

Stow Sept^r y^e 14: 1735.

I am very well pleas'd with the conversation you Had lately, and that you met with nothing in it that at all corresponds with the Subject of my former letter: I shall now be at ease, and give myself no more trouble in thinking and conjecturing about it. I am glad my Lady Suffolk got so well to Town; if she's not the worse for her journey, I fancy you are not much so for her return. if she did not happen to be the most amiable Estimable Person one has seen, I shou'd still love her For the admirable Talent she has of Distinguishing and Describing merit, in which she do's not yeild to the Noble L^d of our acquaintance. if she has done me justice, She has Told you I was very stupid and play'd very well at Cricket. I obey'd her orders to my L^d and Lady Cobham; my L^ds reflection was, He wish'd he cou'd take such a journey and do after it just what she did. when you see Lyttelton, tell him M^r Pope has been writing a letter to him ever since he has been here, but head-ach and Laziness has delay'd it, so that I believe He may be time enough at London to bring the letter to him himself, as he talks of setting out in a few days. Ayscough has been here, and desires Lyttelton will mention him to the Speaker for preaching before the House the next 30th of January sermon. I'l leave off for fear I shou'd think of half a dozen messages more.

I am most affec^ly Y^rs

W. Pitt.

direct to me at Stow I am more here than at Touster [?Towcester]. You must say 'member of Parl^t' They make me pay always else.

The next two letters deal with some dark transaction relating to wine, probably smuggled, from Guernsey.

Stow Sept. y^e 16: 1735.

I am very sorry I can't answer all your Questions this Post, but to begin with that I can answer the Frame Maker's Name is Bellamy, he lives in Rupert Street: as to the Guernsey wine, it is a commission of so secret a Nature, and must be treated with such art and circumspection, (according to the instructions I am honour'd with) That I must desire further time to get the lights necessary to the full discovery of so dark an affair. I have been able to penetrate no farther than that my L^d Cobham and his Butler are the only Persons at the bottom of the secret, The one I can't ask he being abroad; the other I must not, being ty'd up by my orders: there remains therefore nothing To be done, but to wait the return of the Butler, or larger Power to treat with my L^d in Person. but to talk no longer like a Minister, but an humble Servant of my lady Suffolk's, I desire my compliments to Her, and I'l be sure to send an answer about the wine next Post. I please myself with thinking you are free from Head-ach, both as they are very bad things; and because they are y^e effect with you of other uneasiness: be well and happy, is the only advice you want; and the only means by which I can be so:

I am most affec^ly y^rs

W. Pitt.

Stowe. Sept. y^e 19: 1735.

If you happen to write to me once in a week or fortnight I am never to hear the last of it; but pray admire the exact diligence of my correspondence: I don't only answer your letter the first Post, but I continue answering It two or three Posts successively: I am now only at the second, and you shall see you are not above half answer'd yet: but to tell you all I can, the Man M^r Hardy, who sells my L^d Cobham the Wine in Question, is now in Guernsey; the Buttler will write to his correspondent to know when he is like to return, which he supposes must be soon—all which my Lady Suffolk shall be informed of: I expect a clear distinct answer from you to each letter of the volumes I have lately writ to you.

Adieu.

The following letter alludes in all probability to his brother, and also to that Richard Grenville who was afterwards so notorious as Lord Temple. It seems strange when one recalls Temple in maturity to read of him as Dick, with a careless countenance and jolly laugh. But everybody has been young.

Stowe. Sept. y^e 28: 1735.

I don't understand this way of answering two letters in form, avec un Trait de Plume; I expected you shou'd have told me you had nothing to tell me in more words, or at least at two different times: this sort of Correspondence, where one must not talk, seems rather a sort of visit to shew yourself: I hope you won't be in such a hurry next time; that I shall see you a little longer, or I shall call it only leaving your name, after all this, I am not really angry at the shortness of your last letter; you gave a reason that satisfied me entirely. I hope our friend is well; I had the Pleasure of hearing he seem'd in very good Spirits, when Dick Greenville (sic) saw him; I hope really was so. I suppose You have seen Dick's careless countenance at Kensington, and that you begin to be acquainted with his Laugh. I am called to breakfast, so goodby

Y^rs most affectionately

W. Pitt.

October finds William still at Stowe, and not likely to leave, but he sends this anxious and tender note to Ann.

Stowe. October y^e 5: 1735.

My Dear,—I long to be with you to know what the particular circumstance is that gives you uneasiness: or is it only the Thing in general? whatever it be, take all the comfort you can in knowing you act humanely and honourably. it won't be in my Power to see you till December, and the latter End of it. I am very much at Stowe, and pass my time as agreeably as I can do at a distance from you at a time you say you want to talk to me: I hope by your next letter to hear you have talk'd to yourself upon the Subject of your uneasiness and don't want my advice: Adieu,

I am with all affection y^rs

W. Pitt.[75]

The next note deals again with the affair which is causing Ann uneasiness, but without giving us any clue to it. One cannot however refrain from the surmise that Ann's temper and tongue had now begun to get her into trouble.

Stowe. Octob^r y^e 12: 1735.

My dear Child,—I can't by letter enter into particulars relating to The affair you mention, nor were I with you, cou'd I give you any other than a general advice, which is, as well as you can to make yourself and others easy: I know this is saying almost nothing, and that is the very thing I think you have only to do: I beg you will be at Quiet as to what you have hitherto done, believe me it is not only irreproachable, but must do you great honour with whoever know your conduct. I will say one word more, which is this, that you shou'd take care not to be misunderstood, at least in any great degree. This is all I can say to you, who have the warmest concern for your happiness and am with more affection than I can tell you,

Y^rs

W. Pitt.

There is now an unexplained interval of two years. Some letters have perhaps been lost or destroyed, one has apparently miscarried; or, still more probably, the brother and sister have been together. But the next letter is still dated from Stowe, where William was evidently established on the most familiar footing.

Stow. Nov^r y^e 6: 1737.

You are even with me for all the want of readiness in writing, ever since I began to correspond: I wou'd tell you how many weeks it is, since I wrote to you my last unanswer'd letter, if my memory was strong enough to carry so remote a period of Chronology in my head: I have sometimes told you I have been ashamed of not writing: I take this occasion to retract all Declarations of that sort, and tell you I never was, nor ever will be ashamed of want of regularity in corresponding, after this last silence of yours: I am aware that you must throw the blame upon y^e Post, and say you never received the letter in question, and indeed the Doctor has given me an intimation, y^t the thing was to take y^t turn, without which you wou'd not have been troubled even with these reproaches. the Letter had nothing in it, and yet I had rather you had receiv'd it, if you are in earnest that you did not. I intend to be in Town the beginning of December: I shall see Mrs. Nedham at Bampton before I come:

Y^rs

W. Pitt.

I desire you will write immediately to let me know you have no return of y^e disorder you had just before you left Hampton court.

In the next he refers to Lord Cornbury, a friend, a Tory, and something of a Jacobite. He was a great admirer of Pitt, and had indeed written an ode to him.

Stow. Nov^r y^e 12: 1737.

I do not think myself obliged to thank you for your letter, it was a defence to an accusation, you was under a necessity of pleading and you did it with the confidence of an old offender, and even went so far as to recriminate upon y^r accuser: but let the act of oblivion cover all. however that I may thank you for something, I thank you for haveing hardly any remains of y^r cold. Pray keep keeping yourself well till December, in one week of which month I hope to see you. Adieu.

Y^rs Most affec^ly

W. Pitt.

I wish you the Dutchess of Queensbury and Lady Cardigan with all my heart. How do's L^d Cornbury?

CHAPTER IV.

More than sixteen years elapse between this letter and the next, which takes us far beyond our present limit, but it is best to finish the story of Ann. Part of this long interval can be explained by extreme harmony, and the remainder by the reverse. The mutual devotion of William and Ann lasted, says Lord Camelford, till he became Paymaster in May 1746: then they quarrelled. Why, no one knows, or, it is to be presumed, will ever know. Horace Walpole only says that Pitt shook his sister off in an unbecoming manner. Camelford thinks that Pitt disliked Ann's friendship for Lady Bolingbroke, and thought that she was under the influence of Bolingbroke himself, 'that tawdry fellow, as Lord Cobham called him.'[76] Pitt, like most other people, except the rare spirits who loved the brilliant being, profoundly distrusted Bolingbroke, and may not have wished to see Bolingbroke influence assume a footing in his house. Perhaps then he remonstrated, perhaps Ann vindicated her friendship with heat. Between these two fiery natures words might be exchanged in a moment which years would not obliterate. Grattan told Rogers that 'Mrs. Ann Pitt, Lord Chatham's sister, was a very superior woman. She hated him, and they lived like cat and dog. He could only get rid of her by leaving his house and setting a bill on it, "This house to let."'[77] If these two Pitts quarrelled in the fierce Pitt fashion, it is not unlikely that some such expedient would be adopted. But it must be doubted whether they lived like cat and dog, else they would have parted long before. Grattan's statement was made in conversation with all the large outline and picturesque latitude that conversation allows, and he probably knew nothing about the matter. We can only surmise. Lord Camelford tells us that up to the time of the Paymastership (1746) William and Ann had lived together in one of the small houses in Pall Mall which look into St. James's Square, and that when he moved to his official residence at the Pay Office he moved alone. But, as a matter of fact, she had left him some time before, and gone to live with Lady Bolingbroke at Argeville. We have a letter from William to Lady Suffolk, dated July 6, 1742, in which he favours the plan of Ann's living with Lady Bolingbroke, so long as is convenient to her hostess, and then returning home. Moreover, Pitt himself in October of this year 1742 was not living in Pall Mall, but had moved to York Street, Burlington Buildings.[78] Ann had formed a mad project of living in Paris as a single woman, which William justly discountenanced. However, she proceeded to Argeville, where George Grenville found her in September. She may have returned to her brother, but she probably remained abroad, and her having been with the Bolingbrokes so long, even with William's sanction, may have made her less welcome to her brother on her return.

In June 1751 she was appointed Keeper of the Privy Purse to the Princess of Wales, and superintendent of the education of the Princess Augusta, afterwards Duchess of Brunswick. She obtained this appointment, we are told, through the interest of Mr. Cresset, the confidential servant and Treasurer of the Princess of Wales, whose authority in the Court soon afterwards gave way to the ascendancy of Lord Bute; though Pitt imagined that here again he could trace the hand of Bolingbroke. 'However,' says Lord Camelford, 'thinking she could be useful to him in so important a post, he sought a reconciliation—he flattered, he menaced, he insulted, but was rejected.'

Of these proceedings two records remain in letters which have already been published, but cannot be omitted here, as they are instinct with passion and light. Whether they answer to Lord Camelford's description must be left to the judgment of those who read them. That they are powerful, tender, and unaffected all must allow. They also contain quotations from the quarrels which are not devoid of interest. Ann had declared that William expected absolute deference and a blind submission to his will; and that he had in several conversations directly explained to her that, to satisfy him, she must live with him as his slave. On this point William admits that he did expect some measure of deference to his views, and that, living together, he thought she might shape her life in some degree to his. This seems to have been the real ground of separation. William wished to be master in his own house. Ann could brook no control. Perhaps the brother may have asked the sister to discontinue or relax her intimacy with the Bolingbrokes, as injurious and inconvenient to him, and Ann, we may guess, would curtly bid him mind his own business. But these are only probabilities.

In the course of these proceedings we learn that William lost his temper, declaring that she had a bad head and a worse heart; for this he humbly begs her pardon.

Another complaint of Ann's is easily explained. She says that William had been talking of the 200l. a year that he allowed her. William's answer makes it perfectly clear that he had been reproached with the fact of his sister's destitute condition, and that he had had to explain, in his own defence, that he gave her this income.

Whether Pitt wished for a reconciliation because his sister had become Privy Purse to the Princess of Wales must be judged by the light of his character. It seems more probable that it was because she had returned from abroad, and that he would now meet her constantly in society. In any case, here are the letters. Whatever Pitt's motives may have been, it is clear that Ann, had she not been a vixen, would have gladly accepted the olive-branch offered by her brother, who, still unmarried, wished to be restored to the companionship which had been the joy of his life, 'that friendship which was my very existence for so many years,' 'a harmony between brother and sister unexampled almost all that time.'

(A)

June 19, 1751. Wednesday morning.

Dear Sister!—As you had been so good to tell me in your note of Monday that you would write to me again soon in a manner capable, you hoped, of effacing every impression of any thing painfull that may have passed from me to you, I did not expect such a letter as I found late last night, and which I have now before me to answer: without any compliment to you, I find myself in point of writing unequal enough to the task; nor have I the slightest desire to sharpen my pen. I have well weighed your letter, and deeply examined your picture of me, for some years past; and indeed, Sister, I still find something within, that firmly assures me I am not that thing which your interpretations of my life (if I can ever be brought to think them all your own) would represent me to be. I have infirmities of temper, blemishes, and faults, if you please, of nature, without end; but the Eye that can't be deceived must judge between us, whether that friendship, which was my very existence for so many years, could ever have received the least flaw, but from umbrages and causes which the quickest sensibility and tenderest jealousy of friendship alone, at first, suggested. It is needless to mark the unhappy epoque, so fatal to a harmony between sister and brother unexampled almost all that time, the loss of which has embitter'd much of my life and will always be an affliction to me. But I will avoid running into vain retrospects and unseasonable effusions of heart, in order to hasten to some particular points of your letter, upon which it is necessary for me to trouble you with a few words. Absolute deference and blind submission to my will, you tell me I have often declared to you in the strongest and most mortifying terms cou'd alone satisfy me. I must here beseech you cooly to reconsider these precise terms, with their epithets; and I will venture to make the appeal to the sacred testimony of your breast, whether there be not exaggeration in them. I have often, too often reproached you, and from warmth of temper, in strong and plain terms, that I found no longer the same consent of minds and agreement of sentiments: and I have certainly declared to you that I cou'd not be satisfy'd with you, and I could no longer find in you any degree of deference towards me. I was never so drunk with presumption as to expect absolute deference and blind submission to my will. A degree of deference to me and to my situation, I frankly own, I did not think too much for me to expect from you, with all the high opinion I really have of your parts. What I expected was too much (as perhaps might be). In our former days friendship had led me into the error. That error is at an end, and you may rest assured, that I can never be so unreasonable as to expect from you, now, anything like deference to me or my opinions. I come next to the small pecuniary assistance which you accepted from me, and which was exactly as you state it, two hundred pounds a year. I declare, upon my honour, I never gave the least foundation for those exaggerations which you say have been spread concerning it. I also declare as solemnly, before God and man, that no consideration cou'd ever have extorted from my lips the least mention of the trifling assistance you accepted from me, but the cruel reports, industriously propagated, and circulating from various quarters round to me, of the state you was left to live in. As to the repayment of this wretched money, allow me, dear Sister, to entreat you to think no more of it. The bare thought of it may surely suffice for your own dignity and for my humiliation, without taxing your present income, merely to mortify me: the demonstration of a blow is, in honour, a blow, and let me conjure you to rest it here. When I want and you abound, I promise you to afford you a better and abler triumph over me, by asking the assistance of your purse. I will now trouble you no farther than to repeat my sincere wishes for your welfare and to rejoice that you have so ample matter for the best of happiness, springing from a heart and mind (to use your own words) entirely devoted to gratitude and duty.

(B)

June 20, 1751. Pay Office.

'Dear Sister!—I am this moment returned out of the Country and find another letter from you. I am extremely sorry that any expressions in mine to you should make you think it necessary for you to trouble yourself to write again, that you might convey upon paper to me, what you would avoid saying in conversation, as disagreeable and painfull. I believe I may venture to refer you to the whole tenor of my letter to convince yourself that I had no desire to irritate; and I assure you very sincerely that the expression, which seems to have had some of that effect, did not in the least flow from a thought that you was capable of intending to represent falsely. I only took the liberty to put it to your candid recollection, whether the very cause you mention, strong feelings and emotions of mind attending them, with regard to conversations of a disagreeable kind, might not have led to some exaggerations of them to your own self. I verily believe this cause, and this alone may have had some of this effect: for sure I am, that I never could wish, much less exact that the object of my whole heart and of my highest opinion and confidence, thro the best part of my days, could be capable of such vileness as absolute deference and blind submission to my will. All I wished and what I but late quite despaired of, I took the liberty to recall to you in my last letter. As to the late conversation you have thought necessary (since your letter of yesterday) to recollect, I am ready to take shame before you, and all mankind, if you please, for having lost my temper, upon any provocation, so far as to use expressions, as foolish as they are angry: that you had a bad head will easily pass for the first: and a worse heart for the last. This you made me angry enough to say: but this I never was, nor I hope shall be, angry enough to think: and this, Sister, I am sure you know. As to the other word, which I am sorry I used because it offended you, I will again beg to appeal to your recollection, whether it was not apply'd to your forbidding me ever to talk to you of every thing that interested you: and as to shaping your life in some degree to mine, which I believe were my very words, let me ask you, if you don't know that they were said in an answer to your telling me that I had in several conversations directly explained to you that to satisfy me you must live with me as my slave? So much, dear Sister, for the several points of your letter; which I am sorry to find it necessary to say so many words upon. I will be with you by nine to-morrow, as that hour seems most convenient to you: is it impossible I may still find you so obliging as not to think any more of repaying what I certainly never lent you, in any other sense than that of giving me a right to your purse, whenever I should want it, and which you must forego some convenience to repay?[79]

Whether a reconciliation took place on this occasion or not we have no evidence apart from Camelford's. But if he is to be believed as to William's motives, there was little to be gained by one, for Ann was soon to leave the Court. Her new office 'very soon grew uneasy to her,' says her nephew, 'through the artifices of her royal pupil.' Horace Walpole gives a different account. 'Being of an intriguing and most ambitious nature, she soon destroyed her own prospect by an impetuosity to govern her mistress and by embarking in other cabals at that Court. Her disgrace followed, but without dismissal, on which she had retired to France.'[80]

'It was then,' says Camelford, 'that her brother, then Secretary of State, made a new overture of reconciliation by a letter that you will read, which had too much the appearance of sincerity and disinterestedness not to be gladly accepted.'

Camelford is not particularly careful of his own accuracy or consistency. He had just told us that William sought for a renewal of friendship because Ann would be useful to him at Court: he now has to acknowledge that when Ann was banished from Court he instantly sought reconciliation with more ardour than ever. As regards his accuracy, it need only be noted that the letter to which he alludes is dated from the Pay Office, and despatched more than three years before Pitt became Secretary; a flaw, but not a grave flaw, in a father writing from memory to his son.

Here is the letter, which seems to be in answer to one from Ann, and which is surely as tender and affectionate as the sorest heart of sister could desire:

Pay Office. Feb. 8. 1753.

Dear Sister,—I shou'd have receiv'd the most sensible satisfaction, if you had been able to tell me, that the more declared, or new symptoms of your disorder had been such, as gave you a near prospect of being quite relieved. believe me Dear Sister, my heart is fill'd with the most affectionate wishes for your health, and impatient desire to see you return home well and happy. I never can reflect on things passed, (wherein I must have been infinitely in the wrong, if I ever gave you a pain) without the tenderest sorrow: and the highest aggravation of this concern wou'd be to think, that, perhaps, you may not understand the true state of my heart towards you. Heaven preserve my Dear Sister, and may I ever be able to convince her how sincerely I am her most affectionate Brother:

W. Pitt.

I continue an Invalid, and wait for better weather with as much patience as I can.

This is followed by another letter so humble and so self-reproachful that one can scarcely believe it to be penned by one whose pride was a byeword, and one can certainly not believe it to be the production of crafty and servile selfishness, as Lord Camelford would have us imagine. No brother could approach a sister with more delicacy or warmth of feeling.

Pay Office. Feb. 27. 1753.

Dear Sister,—I am unable to express the load you have taken off my heart by your affectionate and generous answer to my last letter: I will recur no more to a subject, which your goodness and forgiveness forbid me to mention. the concern I feel for your state of health is most sensible; wou'd to God, you may be shortly in a situation to give me the infinite comfort of hearing of an amendment in it! I hope Spring is forwarder, where you reside, than with us, and that the difference of climate begins to be felt. I will not give you the trouble to read any more: but must repeat, in the fulness of my heart, the warmest and tenderest acknowledgements of your goodness to,

My Dear Sister, Your most affec Brother

W. Pitt.

I continue still a good deal out of Order, but begin to get ground.

The next letter marks a complete removal of tension and the restoration of close and friendly relations. It cannot, alas! restore the easy flow of youth. A score of years have passed, William has been buffeted and tossed and has had to fight hard for his hand; he is besides so much the older. So we find ourselves involved in the fulsome extravagance of his maturer epistles; so much the worse!

London. April y^e 5. 1753.

My Dear Sister,—Nothing can be felt more sensibly than I do the goodness of your letter, in which you talk to me circumstantially of your own health, and desire to hear circumstantially of mine. it is a great deal of Comfort to me to know that you have great hopes of being better by Mr Vernage's advice; but it wou'd have been an infinite satisfaction to have heard that you had already found amendment. May every Day of Spring contribute to the thing in the world I wish the most ardently! I am infinitely glad that the concurrent opinions of Physicians of both Countries are the foundation of expecting the Spa will relieve you: I shall dwell all I can on this comfortable hope, and beg to hear of any amendment you may find by better weather and whatever course you now use. I will now talk of that health you so kindly desire to hear of. I have been ill all the winter with disorders in my bowels, which have left me very low, and reduced me to a weak state of health. I am now, in many respects, better, and seem getting ground, by riding and taking better nourishment. Warmer weather, I am to hope, will be of much service to me. I propose using some mineral waters: Tunbridge or Sunning Hill or Bath, at their proper seasons, as the main of my complaint is much abated and almost removed, I hope my Horse, warm weather and proper nourishment will give me health again. the kind concern you take in it is infinitely felt by, Dear Sister,

Your most affectionate Brother

W. Pitt.

The next letter shows that Ann was residing at Blois.

Dear Sister,—I have just receiv'd the pleasure of your letter of 30 April. the Comfort it has given me is infinitely great, and your goodness in sending me the earliest account in your power of such an amendment as you now describe is the kindest thing imaginable, May the fine season, where you are, continue without interruption, and every Day of it add to the beneficial effects you have begun to feel! our season here does not keep pace with that at Blois: I am however much mended in several respects, and have the greatest hopes given me of removing my remaining disorder by the help of warmer weather and Tunbridge waters. I have just time to write this line before dinner, and had I more, I think it best not to trouble you with long letters. I shall dine upon your letter I am dear Sister

Your most affectionate Brother

London. May 7^th 1753.

W. Pitt.

Here intervenes a letter to Mary, in which there is cordial mention of Ann, and an obvious allusion to the escapades of Elizabeth; surely a tender letter from a brother of forty-five to a younger sister.

Bath. Oct^r the 20^th. 1753.

I am very glad to hear in the Conclusion of my Dear Mary's letter that she will be under no difficulty in getting to London: my Brother is very obliging, as I dare say he intends to be in all things towards you, to make your journey easy and agreeable to you. I propose being in Town by the meeting of the Parliament; if I am able: when I shall have infinite Joy in meeting my Dear Sister after so very long an Absence and seeing Her in a Place where she seems to think herself not unhappy. if I shou'd be prevented being in Town so soon, the House will always be ready to receive you. I think you judge very right not to produce yourself much till we have met: M^rs Stuart, and my Sister Nedham, if in Town, will be the properest, as well as the most agreeable Places for you to frequent. My Dear Child, I need not intimate to your good understanding and right Intentions, what a high degree of Prudence and exact attention to your Conduct and whole behaviour is render'd necessary by the sad errors of others. It is an infinite misfortune to you that my Sister Ann is not in England: her Countenance and her Advice and Instructions, superior to any you can otherwise receive, wou'd be the highest advantage to you. Supply it as well as you can, by thinking of Her, imitating her worth, and thereby endeavouring to deserve her esteem, as you wish to obtain that of the best Part of the World. I can not express how anxious I am for your right behaviour in all respects, upon which alone your happiness must depend. whatever assistance my advice can be to You, you will ever have with the truest affection of a Brother.

Y^rs

W. Pitt.

The next letter is pregnant enough, written to Ann at Nevers. Their aunt Essex is dead, but her death only lurks in a postscript. For Pelham is dead and Pitt is a cripple at Bath, disabled from proceeding to the capital, where his fate and that of the future administration are being settled. His restless anguish seems to pierce through these few lines. And yet this bedridden invalid was to be a joyful and alert bridegroom before the year was out.

Bath. March 9^th: 1754.

Dear Sister,—I write to you under the greatest affliction, on all Considerations Private and Publick. M^r Pelham Died Wednesday morning, of a Feaver and St. Anthony's fire. This Loss is, in my notion of things, irreparable to the Publick. I am still suffering much Pain with Gout in both feet, and utterly unable To be carry'd to London. I may hope to be the better for it hereafter, but I am at present rather worn down than releiv'd by it: I am extremely concern'd at the last accounts of your health. I hope you have Spring begun at Nevers, which I pray God may relieve you.

I am Dear Sister, Your most affectionate Brother,

W. Pitt.

My Sister Nedham has been ill of a Feaver here, but is well again.

I have just received an account of M^rs Cholmondeley's[81] Death.

The next letter, a month later, leaves Pitt still at Bath; the gout had almost the lion's share of his life, and we wonder that he accomplished so much under its constant pangs. On this occasion he strains our credulity by the complimentary assertion that he thinks a thousand times more of Ann than of the struggle over Pelham's succession, and his own involved ambition. On all that sordid scramble he kept the fierce, unflinching eye of a hawk, and of a hawk fastened by the talon. Ten days before he wrote this note he had despatched a letter to Newcastle, Pelham's brother and successor, burning with a passion which Ann's ailments could never have inspired. Ann indeed, knowing her William, would smile as she read, and value the extravagance at its worth.

Bath. April 4th. 1754.

Dear Sister,—The Account you give me of your own health, and the kind concern you feel for mine, touches me more than I will attempt to express, tho' I am still at Bath, don't think the worse of my health, but be assured that I am in a fairer way of recovering a tolerable degree of it, than I have been in for a long time pass't. My Gout has been most regular and severe, as well as of a proper Continuance to relieve, and perhaps quite remove, the general disorder which had brought me so low. I am recovering my feet and drinking the waters with more apparent good effects than I ever experienced from them. I have been out of all the bustle of the present Conjuncture; and believe me, my thoughts go a thousand times to Nevers, for once that they go towards London. Nothing in this world can, in the smallest degree, interest my mind like the recovery of your health. I wait with very painfull Impatience for better weather for you, and to hear, that the waters you propose to take, afford you relief.

I am My Dear Sister's ever most affectionate Brother

W. Pitt.

My sister Nedham is well, and went yesterday to Marybone to see her Sons.

Poor George Stanhope died of a feaver a few days since.[82]

The next, after an interval of six months, is again from Bath, but in a different strain. He is now the happiest of men, about to be united to the most meritorious and amiable of women, whose brothers are already his own in harmony and affection; a happy marriage, but a disastrous, storm-tossed brotherhood, as it was destined to be in the years to come, when rival ambitions would strain the bond to breaking.

There is also an icicle from Lady Hester herself, which embodies the decorous expression of what a young lady of the middle eighteenth century allowed herself to feel when she was going to be married. Even this act of politeness was inspired by William. 'I have writ this night to my poor sister Ann. She is not well enough to return to England this winter. Whenever your excessive goodness will honour her with a letter it will be a comfort to her. If you please to commit it to me I will forward it to her, and bless you a million of times.'[83]

Bath. Oct. 21^st. 1754.

Dear Sister,—The favour of your letter from Chaillot has by no means answered my eager wishes for your health, and a kind of distant hope I had formed of your return to England this winter. My desires to see you are greatly and very painfully disappointed: I have only to hope that your Stay in France will give you a much better winter than the last, and may finally restore your health to you and you to your Friends. I am now, Dear Sister, to impart to you what I have no longer a prospect of doing, with infinitely more pleasure, by word of mouth: it is to say, that, your health excepted, I have nothing to wish for my happiness, Lady Hester Grenville has consented to give herself to me, and by giving me every thing my Heart can wish, she gives you a Sister, I am sure you will find so, not less every other way than in name. the act I now communicate, will best speak her character, she has generosity and goodness enough to join part of her best days to a very shattered part of mine; neither has my fortune any thing more tempting. I know no Motif she can have but wishing to replace to me many things that I have not. I can only add, that I have the honour and satisfaction of receiving the most meritorious and amiable of Women from the hands of a Family already my Brothers in harmony and affection, and who have been kindly Contending which of them shou'd most promote my happiness by throwing away the Establishment of a Sister they esteem and love so much. When I left Lady Hester ten days ago, She wish'd to know when I notify'd this approaching event to you, that She might do herself the pleasure to write to you. when she knows I have writ, she will introduce herself to you. I propose staying here about ten days, if my patience can hold out so long. You will wonder to see a letter on such a subject dated from Bath; but to a goodness like Lady Hester Grenville's, perhaps, my infirmities and my Poverty are my best titles.

Your ever affectionate Brother

W. Pitt.

Lady Hester Grenville to Miss Ann Pitt.

May I not hope, D^r Madam, that the situation I am in with your Brother will dispose you to receive favourably an Instance of the extreme desire I have to recommend myself to your friendship; and that You will give me Leave to employ the only means in my Power from the distance that is between us, of expressing how much I wish to enjoy that Honour. Every Thing makes me Ambitious of Obtaining so great an Advantage, and so flattering a distinction. Your Own peculiar Merit, and the Large share which you possess of M^r Pitt's Esteem and Affection makes me feel it as an Article important to my Happiness, and I indulge myself in the pleasure of thinking that you will not refuse to extend your goodness to a Person whom your Brother has thought worthy of so convincing a proof of his regard and Love, and whose sentiments for Him are full of all that the highest sense of his superior Merit and most amiable qualities can Inspire. I feel a vanity and a pleasure in being the Object of his Choice which can be added to by nothing but the happiness of knowing that you give your Approbation and that you will allow me to flatter myself You will not be sorry for an Event which will give me the valued privilege of addressing you the next time, I have the honour to be thus employ'd, by the endearing name of Sister. Give me leave to say that I have heard with the greatest regret that your state of health does not permit you to return to England this winter, and that I hope as a compensation for the Disappointment your stay will ensure y^r perfect recovery. I commit this Letter to Y^r B^rs Care, and trust to Him for conveying it to you, sure that the best recommendation it can have will be its coming under his protection; accompanied with Marks of His Partiality; and I hope that you will believe D^r Madam, that I am with all the esteem possible, and the highest regard,

Your most faithful and Obed. Humble Servant,

Her: Grenville.

In the next letters Pitt and Lady Hester acknowledge Ann's congratulations. He had, however, moved to London, and amid all these orange-blossoms was forging terrible vengeance on his perfidious chief. Within ten days of his marriage he was making Newcastle and Newcastle's henchmen cower in their offices, though for the present they did not dare oust him from his.

Pay Office. Nov. 8^th. 1754.

Dear Sister,—Your letter of the 1^st Nov^r has given me all that remain'd to Compleat my happiness, by the affectionate Share you take in it; and without which, great as it truly is, and shar'd in the kindest manner by every Thing else I value and love in the World, it still wou'd have wanted something ever essential to my Satisfaction. Your Goodness and Friendship has nothing left to give me: Cou'd the re-establishment of your health but add that most sensible Pleasure to all I feel, I may call myself happy, as it is given but to a few to be. Lady Hester Grenville speaks for herself this Post. my Health is not good, but, as yet, it is not quite bad. I have gone on with the World (as I cou'd) with much worse.

I am Dear Sister Your most affectionate Brother

W. Pitt.

I hope in about a week to say more of my happiness.

Lady Hester's letter is not worth giving; it is prim, decorous, and void.

Pitt and Lady Hester are married on November 16. Lady Hester writes to Ann nine days afterwards a letter full of good feeling stiffened and starched by decorum. Some letters are too improper to print, this is too proper.

Ann was now returning home, and Mary goes to meet her with a note of welcome from William. Lord Camelford says that her health and spirits declined grievously in France, and so her brother, 'though not till after repeated notifications of her distress, sent over a clergyman to bring her back to her family and assist in her journey.' This gives us a test of Camelford's bias in dealing with his uncle. For hear Ann herself, in a letter to Lady Suffolk announcing that she was on her way to England, and had arrived as far as Sens, whence she writes. Speaking of William, she says, 'he continued as he began, as soon as the King had put him in the place he is in, by giving me the strongest and tenderest proof of his affection.... I was so sunk and my mind so overcome with all I have suffered, and I was so mortified and distressed, that I do not believe anything in the world could have made it possible for me to get out of this country, but my brother's sending a friend to my assistance, and choosing so proper a person as M^r de la Porte is in all respects. He has known me and my family for about thirty years, from having been my Lord Stanhope's Governor.' She goes on to refer to 'the virtue and goodness of my friends, particularly of my brother, who has always seemed to guess and understand all I felt of every kind, and has carried his delicacy so far as never once to put me in mind of what I felt more strongly than any other part of my misfortune, which was, how very disagreeable and embarrassing it must be to him to have me in France, You may believe that I will be out of it the first minute that is possible.'

So the fact is that the man, whom Camelford endeavours to depict as having acted with hardness and insensibility on this occasion, displayed in reality incessant and delicate tenderness, according to the grateful acknowledgment of Ann herself. Pitt had just attained his supremacy; this was the most critical epoch of his life; all the year he had been fighting the King and the Court, and this was the moment of victory. Eleven days before Ann wrote this letter he had become for the second time Secretary of State and had begun his great ministry. During this time of strain and anxiety he heard of Ann's illness; he must have felt strongly, though he refrained from mentioning it to her, the irksomeness of her being in France when he was waging war against that kingdom, and so he sent an old family friend to conduct her home. Could brother have done more? Is there not here an anxious and thoughtful affection, distorted grievously by the implacable animosity of the nephew? Camelford is, however, obliged to record that on her arrival she went straight to Pitt's villa at Hayes, 'where, tho' her spirits were still weak, she was surprisingly recovered.'

There is no date to the following note which Mary was to hand to Ann. But as Ann's letter to Lady Suffolk cited above is of July 10, 1757, we cannot be far wrong in placing it somewhat later in the same month. It is indeed perplexing to find another letter to Lady Suffolk dated 'Spa, September 5, 1757.' But the year 1757 is a surmise, and in all probability an incorrect surmise, of the editor. Ann was hastening to England in July 1757, stayed some time at Hayes on her arrival, and is not likely to have been on the Continent again in September.

Friday Morning.

Dear Sister,—I Can not let my Sister Mary go away without a line to express my infinite satisfaction to hear you are arrived and that you find your strength and Spirits in so good a condition. at the same time let a Veteran Invalide recommend to you, above all things, to use this returning Strength and Spirits very sparingly at first. I shou'd be happy to accompany Miss Mary to Rochester, but the overwhelming business of this Momentous Conjuncture hardly allow (sic) me time to tell you how impatiently and tenderly I wish to embrace my Dear Sister.[84]

Ann had gone from Hayes to Clifton, as we know from a letter to Lady Suffolk dated June 22, 1758, and thence proceeded to Bath, as we know from another letter dated August 19, 1758. She was restless, as on August 26 she was at Bristol. In all these letters there is not a word that betokens other than kindness and gratitude to her brother; as, for example, on August 19 she writes to Lady Suffolk: 'God grant that the public news may continue to be good, especially from Prince Ferdinand, for the sake of a person whose health and prosperity I wish more than I shall ever tell him.' A week afterwards she takes public occasion to rejoice at his triumphs by furnishing a bonfire and ten hogsheads of strong beer and all the music she could procure. On the other side, we read the letters which the busy statesman found time to write to her, breathing affection and solicitude.

St. James's Square. Aug. 10^th. 1758.

Dear Sister,—I wait with much impatience to hear you are arrived well at Bath, and that you are lodged to your mind. I will not entertain any doubts, after having had the satisfaction of seeing you, that your progression to a perfect recovery will be sensible every Day, and as soon as you can bear a stronger nourishment, that Spirits, the concomitants of Strength, will return. as a part of the necessary regimen, solid nourishment for that busy craving Thing call'd Mind must have its place, and I know of no mental Alteratives(?) of power to renovate and brace up a sickly Constitution of Thought, but that mild and generous Philosophy which teaches us the true value of the World, and a rational firm religion, that anchors us safe in the confidence of another. but I will end my sermon and come to the affairs of the world I am so deeply immersed in. this day had brought us an account that our Troops effected their landing, with little Loss, y^e 7th and 8th two Leagues from Cherbourgh, in the face of a pretty considerable Number, who gave some loose fires and run. I am infinitely anxious till we hear again, as I expect something serious will ensue. I must not close my letter without telling you that the most particular enquiries after your health have been made by the Lady you sent a Card to, and I, very obligingly reprimanded for keeping your arrival a secret from Them. Lady Hester shares my Impatience to hear news of you, and all my sentiments for your health and happiness. our Love follows dear Mary, whose merits you must, to your great satisfaction, more and more feel every day.

I am ever my Sister's most affectionate Brother

W. Pitt.

St. James's Square. Sept. y^e 12^th. 1758.

Dear Sister,—You have now try'd the Bristol waters long enough to make some judgement of their effects, and I have kept silence long enough for you to make perhaps a strange judgement of my manner of feeling for my friends. but feel I certainly do, my Dear Sister, for all that concerns your health and happiness, how much soever I have kept it for some weeks past a matter between me and my own conscience, without giving you the least hint of my truly affectionate sollicitude on your account. I am extremely inclin'd to believe Doctor Oliver judges rightly of the first principle of your disorders; that it is Gout, which aided by the waters of Bath and proper nourishment may ripen into a salutary tho' painfull crisis. as I think myself that Languor or perturbation of Spirits are well exchanged for a degree of pain, I shall heartily wish you joy of such a revolution in the system of your Constitution. how can I have got so far in my paper, and not a word of the King of Kings whose last Glories transcend all the parts? the Modesty of H:P: Maj^tys relation, his Silence of Himself, and entire attribution of the victory to Gen^l Seidlitz, are of a mind as truely heroick as H. Majesty's taking a Colours in his own hand, when exhortations failed, and forcing a disordered Infantery to follow Him or see Him perish. more Glory can not be won; but more decisive final consequence we still hope to hear, and languish for further letters from the Prussian army. My Love to Dear M^rs Mary.

I am ever most affec^ly Y^rs

W. Pitt.

Then comes a letter referring apparently to the Battle of Hochkirch:

Dear Sister,—I can not omit writing, tho' but a line, to give you the satisfaction of knowing that M^r d'Escart will return to France in a very few days. I am very glad that it has been practicable to accomplish so soon a thing that will give pleasure to so many of your Friends. the news from Dresden to day is not very agreable, the King of Prussia's right wing attack'd sudenly at 4 in the morning y^e 14th, put into disorder, Marshal Keith and Prince Francis of Brunswick kill'd but the King coming to the Right, the action was restored and the Austrians repulsed. His Prussian Majesty's Person so exposed that one trembles: his Horse shot, and a Page and Ecuyer wounded by his side. a second action seems inevitable: I hope every thing from it, as this Heroick Monarch's happy Genius never fails him when he wants it most. I have not a moment more. be assured of my constant wishes for your health and happiness.

I am Dear Sister Your affectionate Brother

W. Pitt.

Loves to Mary.

Oct. y^e 24^th.

Ann was now in London on a short visit, for the purpose of attending the Court; but she had designs of her own which appear to be serious, but which give some evidence of the insanity which was always hovering over her.

'I hear my Lord Bath,' she writes, November 10, 1758, 'is here very lively, but I have not seen him, which I am very sorry for, because I want to offer myself to him. I am quite in earnest, and have set my heart upon it; so I beg seriously you will carry it in your mind and think if you could find any way to help me. Do not you think Lady Betty (Germaine) and Lord and Lady Vere would be ready to help me, if they knew how willing I am? But I leave this to your discretion, and repeat seriously that I am quite in earnest. He can want nothing but a companion that would like his company, and in my situation, I should not desire to make the bargain without that circumstance. And though all I have been saying puts me in mind of some advertisements I have seen in the newspaper from gentlewomen in distress, I will not take that method; but I want to recollect whether you did not once tell me, as I think you did many years ago, that he spoke so well of me that he got anger for it at home, where I never was a favourite.'[85]

Never, surely, did a spinster of forty-eight breathe so frankly her aspirations towards a wealthy and avaricious septuagenarian. We may be sure that this freak of fancy was not confided to her brother. But he on his side had a favour to ask of her, on behalf of a puissant personage. Statesmen in those days had to pay their homage to the Court wherever they could find it, and Pitt, who was never loved by George II., could not afford to neglect the influence of Lady Yarmouth. At any rate, he did not, though apparently without success in his ultimate object; and so we find him attempting to neutralise, through Ann, the mischief which might ensue from Lady Betty Waldegrave's letters being attributed by the Court of France to the King's favourite. Lady Yarmouth was in danger of being compromised!

Ann thus describes the negotiation: 'If I had not happened to be sick, I should have been very much pleased with an express that was sent me to give me a commission that I liked to execute, because it relates to a person I am obliged to and have a regard for; it is my Lady Yarmouth who desires me, by my brother, to explain a very disagreeable mistake which has been made in France about a very fond letter, and mighty improper as to politics, which Lady Betty Waldegrave wrote to her husband, unsigned, and having desired the answer might be directed to Lady Y's lodging, they concluded, very absurdly, the letter came from her; and as it was intercepted, it was translated, shown, and commented very impertinently.'

St. James's Square. Nov. 7^th. 1758.

Dear Sister,—I write to you at the desire of Lady Yarmouth, on an Incident of a particular nature, and which has given her Ladyship so much uneasiness that it will be a very agreeable office, if you can contribute, by a letter to some Lady of the Court at Versailles, to the clearing up of a very odd Qui pro Quo. The matter in question is as follows. Letters to England from our Army having been taken, there is amongst them one from Lady Betty Waldgrave to General Waldgrave unsign'd. the writer desires the General will direct his letters to Lady Yarmouth at Kensington. on this ground the letter in question being attributed, in France, to Lady Yarmouth has drawn attention, been translated, and handed about, as she is inform'd, with some mirth at Versailles and Paris. this letter is return'd, by the channel of Selwyn's House, and Lady Yarmouth finds it to contain, not only the expressions of a loving wife to a Husband, but a strain of political reflections, together with observations on very high Personages in Europe, commanding Armies in Germany; all which Language cou'd not but bear a very prejudicial Comment, if really attributed to the Lady, by whose desire I now write to you. You are the best judge how to acquit yourself of the Commission you are desired to charge yourself with; whether by writing to the Dutchess of Mirepoix or any other of your friends. I can only say, that I perceive Lady Yarmouth will think Herself obliged to you for such an intervention, in a matter of some Delicacy, and which might have many possible ill Consequences. if you shall write in the manner desir'd, and will send your letter directed to your Correspondent, under Cover to me, I will take care it shall go in Count Very's packet to Paris.

I rejoice extremely my Dear Sister, at the account of your amendment in Spirits, since your late attack. keep the ground so hardly won, and ascend, by courage and perseverance that arduous steep, on the Summit of which, Health and Happiness, I trust, still wait you. I am lame in one foot, and much threatened with Gout for some days past; but I flatter myself that it may blow over, like an Autumnal ruffle. our Expeditions are, I fear, lame in both Feet. My Messenger is order'd to wait your full leisure.

I am Dear Sister, Your most affectionate Brother

W. Pitt.

Ann appears to have been successful, and receives thanks both from William and the formal Lady Hester.

Dear Sister,—I am desired by Lady Yarmouth to assure you of the sense she has of your good offices, which she was so good to accompany with the most obliging expression of regard for you, and with many wishes for your health. I shall be happy to receive a favourable account of your situation, and which I flatter myself is every day mending, and that by a Progression which will soon enable you to take air and exercise. I am just going to Hayes, for some hours recess, that I want much.

I am ever Dear Sister Most aff^ly Y^rs

W. Pitt.

Saturday morning.

St. James's Square Tuesday Nov. 14.

Dear Madam,—If I had not for some time past found great inconvenience from writing I shou'd not have continued so long Silent where I always find so much pleasure in expressing my sentiments, but however great my indisposition is from my Situation to my present employment, I cou'd not refuse a commission which I had the honour to be charged with today from my Lady Yarmouth, as I am sure the Subject of it will be a great pleasure and Satisfaction to you. It was to desire I wou'd return you a thousand Thanks for your letters, and to assure you that she felt herself most extremely obliged to you for them, and for the trouble you had given yourself, with many other expressions of the manner in which she was sensible of your goodness in what you had done, and how very agreable it was to Her. I was very sorry to find by your account of yourself to M^r Pitt that you had had another return of your bilious Complaint, but we Comfort our selves with the hope of its having produced the same salutary effects the Last did. We shall be impatient to have a confirmation of its having had so desirable a consequence. By Miss Mary's Last Letters both to her Brother and Me we have flattered ourselves with the pleasure of seeing Her for some days past, but as yet she has not appeared, which wou'd make us uneasy but that we conclude if her purpose of Leaving Bath the time she mention'd had been alter'd from any disagreable Circumstance she wou'd have apprised us of it. Our Nephew, Mr. Thos. Pitt, desires to have the permission and pleasure of conveying this to you, as he intends setting out for the Bath tomorrow in order to wait upon Sir Richard Lyttelton, whom I wish he may find better than by the reports which prevail, I fear he has any Chance of Doing. Your Brother continues as usual overwhelm'd with business, and not entirely free from some Notices of the Gout, but which yet I flatter myself will not increase to a fit. He begs his affectionate Compliments to you, and I that you wou'd forgive both the shortness and the faults of this Letter, and believe me equally however exprest

Your very affectionate Sister and Obedient Servant

Hes: Pitt.

M^r Pitt desires to assure you the Letters were the properest that cou'd be writ upon the occasion.

Ann, as we learn from the preceding letter, returned to Bath at once. 'M^r Thomas Pitt' (Lord Camelford) brings it to her, and here makes her acquaintance: 'It was there' (at Bath) 'in the year 1759 that I first connected that friendship with her which still leaves so many mixed sensations on my mind.' Ann, it may confidently be said, left mixed sensations on all minds. The next note announces the birth of the young William Pitt.

Hayes. May y^e 28^th. 1759.

Dear Sister,—I have the satisfaction to acquaint you, of what you was so good to wish to hear; Lady Hester was safely delivered of a Boy this morning, after a labour rather severe, but she and the Child are, thank God, as well as can be. You will give us a very real pleasure by good accounts of your own health which we hope is much better for the journey alone, and that waters will not fail to be of great assistance towards a perfect recovery. I am

Dear Sister Your most affectionate Brother,

W. Pitt.

I can't help mentioning to you the waters and Bath of Buxton: which for a languid perspiration and obstructions in the smaller vessels, have done wonders.

Next comes a short letter from William, only notable from his anxiety about Squire Allworthy.

St. James's Square. July 24th, 1759.

Dear Sister,—Your letter on the subject of Mr. Allen's Health gave me, with the Pain of learning he had been ill, the Satisfaction of understanding that the attack was, in some degree over; that to Lady Hester giving an account of the terrible nature of his complaint, having follow'd Her to Wotton, where she now is.

I trust that the next accounts from Prior Park will be favourable and that the best of men, who feels and relieves the most the sufferings of others, may not Himself suffer the severest of Pains. I learn with great satisfaction the considerable amendment you mention in your own Health, and the promising prospects of deriving much benefit from Tunbridge. I hope You will not let too much of this fine season for mineral waters pass, before you repair to Them, and that their effects, when you try them, will fully answer your own and your Friends expectation.

I am Dear Sister Your most affectionate Brother,

W. Pitt.

if Lord Paulett be still at Bath, I beg my compliments to his Lordship.

It is perhaps well, for the preservation of continuity, to print the following letter from Lady Hester to her sister-in-law:

Tuesday. St. James's Square. Aug. 29^th.

I am so much in Arrear to You, my Dear Madam, and upon so many accounts, that I don't know where to begin first to acquit my Self to You. I feel I want now most to justifie my self to you for not having before exprest how sensible I am to the various Marks I have received of your very obliging Attention upon all the Subjects that you knew wou'd give me the greatest pleasure. The Fact is that an unexpected Journey to Wotton, from which place I return'd but Last night, interfered with my intention of writing to You, and of returning you my sincerest thanks for the great Satisfaction your Letter gave me. It included everything that cou'd make it pleasing to Me, and renew'd all my own Joy for our Successes with Yours added to it, which was a great improvement of all I felt before, and particularly for Louisbourg, Dear, as you know so many ways. I am charmed with my rings, which are after an English Taste that I hope will be followed, and grow fashionable enough to encourage a Variety of Patterns. Last night brought a Large Package from Bath directed to Your Brother, and intended we guess for the Young Militia Man at Hayes. It contained besides a present for Miss Hetty, both which will be faithfully deliver'd this evening, and the sentiments they inspire shall be in due time communicated. In the Interval I believe I must apply to you my Dear Madam to assure the kind sender of my share of pleasure in the present. Miss Mary's Letter received Last night, gave a great deal of Satisfaction to both your Brother and Me by the account of Your Health, and the Progress You have made in a returning to a Diet of Solid Food, a sort of Sustenance so much more likely to restore and confirm your Strength and Spirits than any other. We are glad to find that Doctor Oliver has your approbation, and that he seems to reason with great sense and probability upon your case, and what it is likely to end in. the Gout is not a very desirable Thing, but only comparatively, where the constitution is not strong, for then there ar many Disorders to which people are Liable that are much worse. I am vastly pleased that Our House has the honour of being approved by you, and should be delighted if I cou'd be so happy as to receive You in it, and wish extremely that it was furnish'd and fit for Your reception, but I find Mr. Pitt thinks that it is not proper to have hired furniture put into it, as well as that you cou'd not be so conveniently accommodated in a House so circumstanced, as you will be in the very commodious Lodgings which Bath affords. We are meditating a journey to Hayes the moment Mr. Pitt returns from Kensington, which makes it impossible for me to say as much as I wish to You upon the different Subjects in this Letter, being obliged to give an account of my journey to the Friends I met at Wotton who are now disperst. May I beg you to give my Love to Miss Mary, and to say I hope she will admit what I have been saying as an excuse for my not acknowledging by this Post in a letter to Her what I have in my sentiments acknowledged ever since I heard from her, that I was indebted to her for the Prettiest, as well as the most Obliging, Letter in the World, besides her Bath Fairing which I value properly. I shall only now repeat my request that You will believe me Always my Dear Madam

Your affectionate Sister and most Obedient Servant,

H. Pitt.

Mr. Pitt will endeavour to serve the Chevalier de Chaila as you desire.

All so far had been harmonious enough. Unfortunately, there now occurred a second misunderstanding, to which the ensuing letters relate. It is best to give Lord Camelford's account, which, though mysterious enough, is all we have. 'Her Physicians advising her to discontinue the Waters for a short time to give trial to a course of med'cines, she determin'd to accompany me to London, to see some old friends after a long absence, and to transact certain business, and then to return to Bath. Fearing, however, that her unexpected arrival at her Lodgings in Leicester House might have objections, or that there might be difficulties in her lodging any where in London, she stop'd short at Sion at Ly. Holdernesse's, her particular friend, from whence she removed to Kensington to a house Mr. Cresset lent her. This Journey gave offence to her Brother, and occasion'd their second quarrel. Instead of managing a temper too like his own, instead of yielding to her repeated request of seeing him, when with gentleness he might have explained his wishes to her and have persuaded to whatever he thought best for her or for himself, he satisfied himself with dark hints, imperious messages, and ambiguous menaces convey'd thro' Ly. Hester and his Sister Mary, neither of whom were very happy in the arts of conciliation. Frightened, confounded, and at the same time exasperated by so strange a conduct, she tried to return to Bath, but her strength would not admit of her getting half way thro' the Journey. She return'd to Kensington—she got medical advice—she saw a few of her old friends, who soon disproved the falsities that were every day propagated of her State of Health—by degrees she saw all her fears vanish—the World return to her and nobody flie from her but the Person from whom she expected her chief countenance and support. She sounded the Princess, and found she was at full liberty to live where she pleased, except that the former intimacy was at an end. She met her Brother accidentally at Ly. Yarmouth's, he kiss'd her on both sides with the affectation of the warmest affection; whilst he refused to visit her and his whole family were hostile to her in the cruelest manner.'

The whole affair is obscure, and is not elucidated by the letters of Pitt and his wife which follow. Lady Hester is civil and kind enough, though evidently forbidden to visit or receive her sister-in-law. But what Pitt means by his allusion to 'desultory jaunts,' and 'hovering about London,' and conduct 'too imprudent and restless or as too mysterious' for him to be connected with it, we cannot now conjecture. What harm a spinster of forty-eight could do by staying with Lady Holdernesse at Sion, and thence moving to Kensington, and being undecided as to her plans, it is not easy to determine. It is possible, on considering the whole affair, Ann's own temperate reply, and all that followed, that Pitt knew that his sister was seeking a pension, for which purpose she had gone to Sion and to Kensington (for Lady Holdernesse was the wife of a Secretary of State, and Cresset was a man of influence), and desirous that his name should not be connected with the pension list at this moment of unrivalled popularity and power, he was anxious to have no communication with her. There is a still more probable explanation of Pitt's annoyance with his sister's behaviour. We have seen that Lord Camelford speaks of the 'falsities that were every day propagated about her state of health.' In a letter soon to follow she herself speaks of her stay in France 'before my spirits were so much disordered as they have been since.' Some years afterwards, Horace Walpole wrote of her that she had at times been out of her senses. It seems possible, then, that one of these attacks had taken place at Bath, and that she had broken loose from constraint and come up to London, which would revive the gossip about her condition, and so cause annoyance to her brother, who thought that peremptoriness was the only method of getting her back again to Bath. If this were so, he acted wisely, as she appears to have returned to Bath at once. This last conjecture seems the more probable explanation. In any case the circumstances of the people and the times were full of electricity. Pitt was busy, gouty and irritable; Bute was much above the horizon. Ann was eccentric, wilful, and wayward. Soon afterwards, she had a pension, which annoyed her brother. This is all that we can be said to know. We do not even know the date of this episode.

From Lady Hester Pitt.

It is my Dear Madam extremely unfortunate that from different circumstances which have interpos'd themselves, I have not had it in my power to have the pleasure of seeing you since your arrival in the neighbourhood of London, and I am quite concern'd that by Your Brother's business I am so circumstanced today, as to make it impossible for me to receive that Satisfaction. There is to be a meeting of the Cabinet here this Evening, which Always engrosses my Apartment and banishes me to other quarters. We are but just arrived from the Country, which I think has done your Brother good. He desires I wou'd assure you of his affectionate Compliments, and Let you know that his present Pressure of business is so great that it does not leave him the Command of a quarter of an hour of his time, so as to be able to assure himself beforehand of the pleasure of seeing any friend. therefore under that uncertainty, and fearing he may miss of the Satisfaction of meeting You, he desires thro' me to wish you a safe return to Bath, so much the best place, He is perfectly convinced, for Your Health. We are both very glad to hear you have had a confirmation from Doctor Pitt of the efficacy you may expect to find in those waters for your Complaints. I must not end my Note without expressing how much I was flattered by your remembrance of Little Hetty, tho' I trust Miss Mary did not forget me upon that subject, no more than on that of my real Concern for its being impossible for me to wait upon You, and say for myself how much I feel obliged to You for your kind Letter and message. The Compliments of the season attend You my Dear Madam with many good wishes.

St. James's Square. Tuesday.

St. James's Square. Monday. Jan. 15th.

Dear Madam,—Mr. Pitt is this moment come to Town, and so overwhelm'd with business, that it is quite impossible for Him to write a word to You Himself, in answer to your Note which he has just received. He is very sorry to find you are ill, and wishes me to tell you that you have mistaken Him in thinking he meant to express any desire of His as to your Going, or Staying, which he always meant to Leave to your own Decision, but only to offer you his opinion, and never proposes to take upon Him to give you any further Advice with regard to the place of Your residence, which you have all right independent of any thing with respect to Him to determine as You please for Yourself. I am extremely concern'd to hear your disorder is increased so much as to have made your return to Kensington necessary, as I fear your Situation There must be very uncomfortable and Disagreeable, without Servants, or any of those Conveniences, which are so particularly of Consequence when any body is ill. I hope most sincerely to have the pleasure of hearing you are better, and Able to prosecute what ever May be thought best for Your Health, being very truly Dear Madam

Your Most Affectionate and Most Obed^t

H. Pitt.

Friday Morning.

Dear Sister,—I desire to assure you that all Idea of Quarrel or unkindness, (words I am griev'd to find you cou'd employ) was never farther from my mind than during your stay in this neighbourhood. on the Contrary, my Dear Sister, nothing but kindness and regard to your Good, on the whole, has made me judge it necessary that we should not meet during the Continuance you think fit to give to an excursion so unexpected, and so hurtfull to you. I beg my Dear Sister not to mistake my wishes to see Her set down, for a time, quiet and collected within her own Resources of Patience and fortitude, (merely as being best and the only fit thing for Herself) so very widely as to suppose, that my Situation as a Publick Person, is any way concern'd in her residing in one Place or another. all I mean is, that, for your own sake, you shou'd abstain from all desultory jaunts, such as the present. the hearing of you all at once, at Sion; next at Kensington, then every day going, and now not yet gone, certainly carries an appearance disadvantageous to you in this view; I have refused myself the pleasure of seeing You; as considering your journey and hovering about London, as too imprudent and restless, or as too mysterious, for me not to discourage such a conduct, by remaining unmixt with it. this is the only cause of my not seeing you, nor can I give you a more real proof of my affectionate regard for your welfare than by thus refusing myself a great pleasure, and, I fear, giving you a Pain. I offer you no Advice, as to the choice of your residence. I am persuaded you want none; you have a right and are well able to judge for yourself on this point. but if you will not fix somewhere You are undone. I am sorry to be forc'd to say this much; but saying less I should cease to be with truest affection Dear Sister

Ever Yrs

W. Pitt.

Ann Pitt to her Brother.

Dear Brother,—I am going to set out to return to Bath, but as the letter I received from you yesterday leaves me in great anxiety and perplexity of mind, I can not set out without assuring you, as I do with the most exact truth, that there was no mistery in my journey here, nor no purpose but the relief I proposed to my mind. If I had known before I left the Bath that you disapproved of my leaving that place at this time, or of my coming to Town, I wou'd not have done as I have done, and wou'd not even have come near it, tho' the advice given me at Oxford with regard to my health, made me desire to make use of the interval in which I was order'd not to try the waters again, to have the pleasure and satisfaction of seeing You and some of my friends and as I hoped that satisfaction from You in the first place, I will not dissemble that I am very much disappointed and mortified in not having seen you, but as the hurry of important business you are in, and the relief necessary to make you go through it, made it possible for me not to interpret your not seeing me as a mark of unkindness, I never used the word (the word) but to guard against other people using it, upon a circumstance which I thought they had nothing to do with.

When I writ you word from the Bath that I had thoughts of coming to Town for Christmas, I desir'd nothing so much as to do what was most proper according to my situation, and consequently to have your advice, which I told you, very sincerely I wished to be guided by preferably to every other consideration, You best know how I am to attain the end I have steadily desired for Years, as you know I writ you word from France (before my spirits were so much disorder'd as they have been since) that I desired nothing as much as a safe and honourable retreat, that wou'd leave me the enjoyment of my Friends, without which help and suport I find by a painfull experience that it is impossible for me to suport myself. I beg leave to trouble you with my compliments to Lady Hester, and my wishes for the happiness of you both, and of all the little family that belong to you.

I am D B^r &c.

This undated note appears to belong to the same time as the preceding ones, and tends to confirm the hypothesis that it was Ann's mental condition that gave rise to anxiety.

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 L^d Bute upon the King's succession, who, not unwilling to give M^r 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. 30^th 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

Some four years afterwards Ann received this short note, which shows that there was no rupture of relations; and the tone indeed is cordial for the period, when the expression of the warmest affection was far from gushing.

Burton-Pynsent Aug. y^e 1^st 1765.

I am extremely obliged to you, Dear Sister, for the trouble you are so good to take of writing to enquire after my health, which I found mend on the journey and by change of air. I still continue lame, but have left off one Crutch, which is no small advance; tho' with only one Wing my flights, you will imagine, are as yet very short: the Country of Somersetshire is beautifull and tempts much to extend them. I hope your health is much better and that you have found the way to subdue all your complaints, or at least to reduce them within such bounds, as leave your life comfortable and agreeable. Lady Chatham desires to present her compliments to you.

I am Dear Sister Your affectionate Brother

William Pitt.

And now there come the last sad words, the last sign of life that William gives to Ann. It is not without significance that even at this period of prostration he bids his wife tell Ann that his official life is ended. It does not appear that there had ever been or was ever to be any formal reconciliation between them. But through all the gusts and squalls and storms that had troubled their intercourse an underlying tenderness had survived.

Hayes. Oct. 21^st. 1768.

Madam,—The very weak and broken state of my Lord's health having reduced him to the necessity of supplicating the King to grant him the permission to resign the Privy Seal, he has desir'd I wou'd communicate this Step to You.

I am Madam, Your most Obedient Humble Servant

H. Chatham.

About this time (1768) she took up her abode at Kensington Gravel Pits, in the region of Notting Hill, 'where out of a very ugly odd house and a flat piece of ground with a little dirty pond in the middle of it, she has made a very pretty place; she says she has "hurt her understanding" in trying to make it so.'[86] Before that time she seems to have lived for a while at Twickenham; at least Horace Walpole speaks of her as a close neighbour. Being fairly launched as a pensioner, she throve on the system, and eventually accumulated a treble allowance; this Bute pension, another procured by M. de Nivernois, and another, mentioned by Horace Walpole in a letter of Nov. 25, 1764, which must have raised her whole income from this source to some 1500l. a year. On this she entertained, and frolicked, and danced. We hear of her choice but miniature balls, and her band of French horns, which Horace Walpole enjoyed and described. But her intercourse with William, once so bright and genial, was ended, and that is all with which we are here concerned. A frigid letter or two counted as nothing in a connection which had once been as intimate as it was delightful.

Ann went on living at Kensington a somewhat frivolous life so far as we know anything about it, in intimate relations with Horace Walpole and his society. But in 1774 she went abroad, under the auspices of the Butes, to Italy, to Pisa and elsewhere. Then came her brother's sudden death. Though she had been so long aloof from him, the shock finally shattered her reason, which, it would appear, had already given cause for apprehension. Chatham died May 11, 1778. She soon returned to England, and in the October of that year Horace Walpole writes that she is 'in a very wild way, and they think must be confined.'[87] In the following May he announces that she is actually under restraint.[88] There is a letter at Chevening from her to her niece, Lady Mahon, dated 'Burnham, May 9, 1779,' which betrays her distraught condition. Burnham was probably that 'one of Dr. Duffell's houses' to which she had been removed. On Feb. 9, 1781, she dies, still in confinement. Lady Bute, it should be noted, was kind and attentive to the end.[89]

'She was in Italy at the time of his (Chatham's) death,' writes Lord Camelford, who was probably there too. 'I can bear witness that the grief she felt at the reflection of his having died without a reconciliation with her made such an impression of tenderness on her mind that not only obliterated all remembrance of his unkindness, but recoiled upon herself, as if she had been the offending party, and doubtless contributed greatly to the melancholy state in which she died.'

Horace Walpole, who had come to hate all Pitts, confirms this in his sardonic way. 'Did I tell you that M^rs Ann Pitt is returned and acts great grief for her brother?' and he goes on to say that Camelford himself 'gave a little into that mummery, even to me; forgetting how much I must remember of his aversion to his uncle.'

There were perhaps few genuine tears save those of wife and children shed over the grave of the grim, disconcerting old statesman, for men of his type are beyond friendship: they inspire awe, not affection; they deal with masses, not with individuals; they have followers, admirers, and an envious host of enemies, rarely a friend. But Ann had no reason to feign grief or self-reproach. She had lost her first love, her only love, the love of her life. It is probable that the brother and sister had understood each other throughout in their quick-kindling, petulant way. 'My brother, who has always seemed to guess and understand all I felt of every kind,' she wrote in 1757;[90] a sentence which is a clue to all. The memory of childhood, the glad sympathies of youth, the impressions received when their characters were plastic and fresh, the habit of close intimacy for the score of years during which intimacy was possible for him, all these contributed to form a bond which survived the skirmishes and collisions of their later lives. Two persons of highly charged temperament, and of natures too much akin, who understood each other, respected each other, and perhaps secretly enjoyed each other's ebullitions, such were Ann and William after they separated in 1746. Their long affection is interesting if only that it seemed impossible that two such characters should agree even for a time. And therefore, though the narrative of this episode has swollen beyond all limit and proportion, the space is not lost, for it is invaluable to the student of Pitt's career. It lights up the only expressed tenderness in his life, it is the one relief to his sombre nature, it is the sole record that we have of the unbending of that grim and stately figure.