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CHATHAM, WILLIAM PITT
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See also:CHATHAM, See also: Accordingly, in See also:February 1735, William Pitt entered See also:parliament as member for Old Sarum. Attaching himself at once to the formidable See also:band of discontented Whigs known as the Patriots, whom See also:Walpole's love of exclusive See also:power had forced into opposition' under Pulteney, he became in a very short time one of its most prominent members. His See also:maiden speech was delivered in See also:April 1736, in the debate on the congratulatory address to the See also: Specially effective, according to contemporary testimony, were his speeches against the Hanoverian subsidies, against the See also:Spanish See also:convention in 1739, and in favour of the See also:motion in 1742 for an investigation into the last ten years of Walpole's See also:administration. It must be See also:borne in mind that the reports of these speeches which have come down to us were made from hearsay, or at best from recollection, and are necessarily therefore most imperfect. The best-known specimen of Pitt's eloquence, his reply to the sneers of Horatio Walpole at his youth anddeclamatory manner,which has found a See also:place in somanyhandbooks of elocution, is evidently, in See also:form at least, the See also:work, not of Pitt, but of Dr See also: About twenty years after the Marlborough legacy, See also:Sir William Pynsent, a See also:Somerset-See also:shire See also:baronet to whom he was personally quite unknown, left him his entire See also:estate, See also:worth about three thousand a See also:year, in testimony of approval of his political career. It was with no very See also:good See also:grace that the king at length consented to give Pitt a place in the government, although the latter did all he could to ingratiate himself at See also:court, by changing his tone on the questions on which he had made himself offensive. To force the See also:matter, the Pelhams had to resign expressly on the question whether he should be admitted or not, and it was only after all other arrangements had proved impracticable, that they were reinstated with the obnoxious politician as See also:vice-treasurer of See also:Ireland. This was in February 1746. In May of the same year he was promoted to the more important and lucrative office of paymaster-general, which gave him a place in the privy See also:council, though not in the See also:cabinet. Here he had an opportunity of displaying his public spirit and integrity in a way that deeply impressed both the king and the country. It had been the usual practice of previous paymasters to appropriate to themselves the interest of all See also:money lying in their hands by way of advance, and also to accept a commission of I% on all See also:foreign subsidies. Although there was no strong public sentiment against the practice, Pitt altogether refused to profit by it. All advances were lodged by him in the See also:Bank of England until required, and all subsidies were paid over without See also:deduction, even though it was pressed upon him, so that he did not draw a See also:shilling from his office beyond the See also:salary legally attaching to it. Conduct like this, though obviously disinterested, did not go without immediate and ample See also:reward, in the public confidence which it created, and which formed the mainspring of Pitt's power as a statesman. The administration formed in 1746 lasted without material change till 1754. It would appear from his published See also:correspondence that Pitt had a greater influence in shaping its policy than his comparatively subordinate position would in itself have entitled him to. His conduct in supporting See also:measures, such as the Spanish treaty and the See also:continental subsidies, which he had violently denounced when in opposition, had been much criticized; but within certain limits, not indeed very well defined, inconsistency has never been counted a vice in an English statesman. The times change, and he is not blamed for changing with the times. Pitt in office, looking back on the commencement of his public life, might have used the plea " A good See also:deal has happened since then," at least as justly as some others have done. See also:Allowance must always be made for the restraints and responsibilities of office. In Pitt's case, too, it is to be borne in mind that the opposition with which he had acted gradually dwindled away, and that it ceased to have any organized existence after the See also:death of the prince of Wales in 1751. Then in regard to the important question with See also:Spain as to the right of See also:search,
Pitt has disarmed See also:criticism by acknowledging that the course he followed during Wapole's administration was indefensible. All due See also:weight being given to these various considerations, it must be admitted, nevertheless, that Pitt did overstep the limits within which inconsistency is usually regarded as venial. His one See also:great object was first to gain office, and then to make his See also:tenure of office secure by conciliating the favour of the king. The entire revolution which much of his policy underwent in order to effect this object bears too close a resemblance to the sudden and inexplicable changes of front habitual to placemen of the See also:Tadpole See also:stamp to be altogether pleasant to contemplate in a politician of pure aims and lofty ambition. Humiliating is not too strong a See also:term to apply to a See also:letter in which he expresses his See also:desire to " efface the past by every See also:action of his life," in order that he may stand well with the king.
In 1754 See also: Pitt continued at his See also:post; and at the general election which took place during the year he even accepted a nomination for the duke's See also:pocket borough of See also:Aldborough. He had sat for See also:Seaford since 1747. When parliament met, however, he was not long in showing the See also:state of his feelings. Ignoring Sir Thomas See also:Robinson, the political nobody to whom Newcastle had entrusted the management of the See also:Commons, he made frequent and vehement attacks on Newcastle himself, though still continuing to serve under him. In this See also:strange state matters continued for about a year. At length, just after the See also:meeting of parliament in November 1751, Pitt was dismissed from office, having on the debate on the address spoken at great length against a new system of continental subsidies, proposed by the government of which he was a member. See also:Fox, who had just before been appointed secretary of state, retained his place, and though the two men continued to be of the same party, and afterwards served again in the same government, there was henceforward a rivalry between them, which makes the celebrated opposition of their illustrious sons seem like an inherited See also:quarrel. Another year had scarcely passed when Pitt was again in power. The inherent weakness of the government, the vigour and eloquence of his opposition, and a series of military disasters abroad combined to rouse a public feeling of indignation which could not be withstood, and in See also:December 1756 Pitt, who now sat for See also:Okehampton, became secretary of state, and See also:leader of the Commons under the premiership of the duke of See also:Devonshire. He had made it a See also:condition of his joining any administration that Newcastle should be excluded from it, thus showing a resentment which, though natural enough, proved fatal to the lengthened existence of his government. With the king unfriendly, and Newcastle, whose corrupt influence was still dominant in the Commons, estranged, it was impossible to carry on a government by the aid of public See also:opinion alone, how-ever emphatically that might have declared itself on his See also:side. In April 1757, accordingly, he found himself again dismissed from office on See also:account of his opposition to the king's favourite continental policy. But the power that was insufficient to keep him in office was strong enough to make any arrangement that excluded him impracticable. The public voice spoke in a way that was not to be mistaken. Probably no English minister ever received in so short a time so many proofs of the confidence and admiration of the public, the See also:capital and all the chief towns voting him addresses and the freedom of their corporations. From the political deadlock that ensued See also:relief could only be had by an arrangement between Newcastle and Pitt. After some See also:weeks' negotiation, in the course of which the firmness and moderation of " the Great Commoner," as he had came to be called, contrasted favourably with the characteristic tortuosities of the crafty peer, matters were settled on such a basis that, while Newcastle was the nominal, Pitt was the virtual head of the government. On his See also:acceptance of office he was chosen member for See also:Bath. This celebrated administration was formed in See also:June 1757, and continued in power till 1761. During the four years of its existence it has been usual to say that the See also:biography of Pitt is the See also:history of England, so thoroughly was he identified with the great events which make this See also:period, in so far as the See also:external relations of the country are concerned, one of the most glorious in her See also:annals. A detailed account of these events belongs to history; all that is needed in a biography is to point out the extent to which Pitt's personal influence may really be traced in them. It is scarcely too much to say that, in the general opinion of his contemporaries, the whole See also:glory of these years was due to his single See also:genius; his alone was the mind that planned, and his the spirit that animated the brilliant achievements of the See also:British arms in all the four quarters of the globe. Posterity, indeed, has been able to recognize more fully the See also:independent genius of those who carried out his purposes. The heroism of See also:Wolfe would have been irrepressible, See also:Clive would have proved himself " a See also:heaven-born general," and See also:Frederick the Great would have written his name in history as one of the most skilful strategists the See also:world has known, whoever had held the See also:seals of office in England. But Pitt's relation to all three was such as to entitle him to a large See also:share in the See also:credit of their deeds. It was his discernment that selected Wolfe to See also:lead the attack on See also:Quebec, and gave him the opportunity of dying a See also:victor on the heights of See also:Abraham. He had personally less to do with the successes in See also:India than with the other great enterprises that See also:shed an undying lustre on his administration; but his generous praise in parliament stimulated the genius of Clive, and the forces that acted at the close of the struggle were animated by his indomitable spirit. Pitt, the first real Imperialist in See also:modern English history, was the directing mind in the expansion of his country, and with him the beginning of See also:empire is rightly associated. The Seven Years' See also:War might well, moreover, have been another See also:Thirty Years' War if Pitt had not furnished Frederick with an See also:annual See also:subsidy of £700,000, and in addition relieved him of the task of defending western See also:Germany against France. Contemporary opinion was, of course, incompetent to estimate the permanent results gained for the country by the brilliant foreign policy of Pitt. It has long been generally agreed that by several of his most costly expeditions nothing was really won but glory. It has even been said that the only permanent acquisition that England owed directly to him was her See also:Canadian dominion; and, strictly speaking, this is true, it being admitted that the See also:campaign by which the See also:Indian empire was virtually won was not planned by him, though brought to a successful issue during his ministry. But material aggrandizement, though the only tangible, is not the only real or lasting effect of a war policy. More may be gained by crushing a formidable See also:rival than by conquering a See also:province. The loss of her Canadian possessions was only one of a series of disasters suffered by France, which radically affected the future of See also:Europe and the world. Deprived of her most valuable colonies both in the See also:East and in the See also:West, and thoroughly defeated on the See also:continent, her humiliation was the beginning of a new See also:epoch in history. The victorious policy of Pitt destroyed the military See also:prestige which repeated experience has shown to be in France as in no other country the very life of See also:monarchy, and thus was not the least considerable of the many influences that slowly brought about the See also:French Revolution. It effectually deprived her of the lead in the See also:councils of Europe which she had hitherto arrogated to herself, and so affected the whole course of continental politics. It is such far-reaching results as these, and not the See also:mere acquisition of a single See also:colony, however valuable, that constitute Pitt's claim to be considered as on the whole the most powerful minister that ever guided the foreign policy of England. The first and most important of a series of changes which ultimately led to the See also:dissolution of the ministry was the death of See also:George II. on the 25th of See also:October 176o, and the accession of his grandson, George III. The new king had, as was natural, new counsellors of his own, the chief of whom, See also:Lord See also:Bute, was at once admitted to the cabinet as a secretary of state. Between Bute and Pitt there speedily arose an occasion of serious difference. The existence of the so-called family compact by which the Bourbons of France and Spain See also:bound themselves in an offensive See also:alliance against England having been brought to See also:light, Pitt urged that it should be met by an immediate See also:declaration of war with Spain. To this course Bute would not consent, and as his refusal was endorsed by all his colleagues See also:save See also:Temple, Pitt had no choice but to leave a cabinet in which his See also:advice on 'a vital question had been rejected. On his resignation, which took place in October 1761, the king urged him to accept some See also:signal mark of royal favour in the form most agreeable to himself. Accordingly he obtained a See also:pension of £3000 a year for three lives, and his wife, See also:Lady Hester See also:Grenville, whom he had married in 1754, was created Baroness Chatham in her own right. In connexion with the latter gracefully bestowed See also:honour it may be mentioned that Pitt's domestic life was a singularly happy one. Pitt's spirit was too lofty to admit of his entering on any merely factious opposition to the government he had quitted. On the contrary, his conduct after his retirement was distinguished by a moderation and disinterestedness which, as See also:Burke has remarked, " set a See also:seal upon his character." The war with Spain, in which he had urged the cabinet to take the initiative, proved inevitable; but he scorned to use the occasion for " altercation and recrimination," and spoke in support of the government measures for carrying on the war. To the preliminaries of the See also:peace concluded in February 1763 he offered an indignant resistance, considering the terms quite inadequate to the successes that had been gained by the country. When the treaty was discussed in parliament in December of the preceding year, though suffering from a severe attack of gout, he was carried down to the House, and in a speech of three See also:hours' duration, interrupted more than once by paroxysms of See also:pain, he strongly protested against its various conditions. The See also:physical cause which rendered this effort so painful probably accounts for the infrequency of his appearances in parliament, as well as for much that is otherwise inexplicable in his subsequent conduct. In 1763 he spoke against the obnoxious tax on See also:cider, imposed by his brother-in-See also:law, George Grenville, and his opposition, though unsuccessful in the House, helped to keep alive his popularity with the country, which cordially hated the See also:excise and all connected with it. When next year the question of general warrants was raised in connexion with the case of Wilkes, Pitt vigorously maintained their illegality, thus defending at once the privileges of Parliament and the freedom of the See also:press. During 1765 he seems to have been totally incapacitated for public business. In the following year he supported with great power the proposal of the See also:Rockingham administration for the See also:repeal of the See also:American Stamp Act, arguing that it was unconstitutional to impose taxes upon the colonies. He thus endorsed the contention of the colonists on the ground of principle, while the See also:majority of those who acted with him contented themselves with resisting the disastrous See also:taxation See also:scheme on the ground of expediency. The Repeal Act, indeed, was only passed See also:pan passe with another censuring the American assemblies, and declaring the authority of the British parliament over the colonies " in all cases whatsdever "; so that the House of Commons repudiated in the most formal manner the principle Pitt laid down. His See also:language in approval of the resistance of the colonists was unusually bold, and perhaps no one but himself could have employed it with impunity at a time when the freedom of debate was only imperfectly conceded. Pitt had not been long out of office when he was solicited to return to it, and the solicitations were more than once renewed. Unsuccessful overtures were made to him in 1763, and twice in 1765, in May and June—the negotiator in May being the king's See also:uncle, the duke of See also:Cumberland, who went down in See also:person to See also:Hayes, Pitt's seat in See also:Kent. It is known that he had the opportunity of joining the See also:marquis of Rockingham's short-lived administration at any time on his own terms, and his conduct in declining an arrangement with that minister has been more generally condemned than any other step in his public life. In See also:July 1766 Rockingham was dismissed, and Pitt was entrusted by the king with the task of forming a government entirely on his own conditions. The result was a cabinet, strong much beyond the See also:average in its individual members, but weak to powerlessness in the diversity of its See also:composition. Burke, in a memorable passage of a memorable speech, has described this " chequered and speckled " administration with great See also:humour, speaking of it as " indeed a very curious show, but utterly unsafe to See also:touch and unsure to stand on." Pitt See also:chose for himself the office of lord privy seal, which necessitated his removal to the House of Lords; and in See also:August he became earl of Chatham and See also:Viscount Pitt. By the acceptance of a See also:peerage the great commoner lost at least as much and as suddenly in popularity as he gained in dignity. One significant indication of this may be mentioned. In view of his probable accession to power, preparations were made in the See also:city of See also:London for a banquet and a general See also:illumination to celebrate the event. But the celebration was at once countermanded when it was known that he had become earl of Chatham. The instantaneous revulsion of public feeling was somewhat unreasonable, for Pitt's See also:health seems now to have been beyond doubt so shattered by his hereditary malady, that he was already in old age though only fifty-eight. It was natural, therefore, that he should choose a See also:sinecure office, and the ease of the Lords. But a popular idol nearly always suffers by removal from immediate contact with the popular sympathy, be the motives for removal what they may. One of the earliest acts of the new ministry was to See also:lay an See also:embargo upon See also:corn, which was thought necessary in order to prevent a dearth resulting from the unprecedentedly See also:bad See also:harvest of 1766. The measure was strongly opposed, and Lord Chatham delivered his first speech in the House of Lords in support of it. It proved to be almost the only measure introduced by his government in which he personally interested himself. His attention had been directed to the growing importance of the affairs of India, and there is evidence in his correspondence that he was meditating a comprehensive scheme for transferring much of the power of the See also:company to the See also:crown, when he was withdrawn from public business in a manner that has always been regarded as somewhat mysterious. It may be questioned, indeed, whether even had his See also:powers been unimpaired he could have carried out any decided policy on any question with a cabinet representing interests so various and conflicting; but, as it happened, he was incapacitated physically and mentally during nearly the whole period of his tenure of office. He scarcely ever saw any of his colleagues though they repeatedly and urgently pressed for interviews with him, and even an offer from the king to visit him in person was declined, though in the language of profound and almost abject respect which always marked his communications with the court. It has been insinuated both by contemporary and by later critics that being disappointed at his loss of popularity, and convinced of the impossibility of co-operating with his colleagues, he exaggerated his malady as a pretext for the inaction that was forced upon him by circumstances. But there is no sufficient See also:reason to doubt that he was really, as his friends represented,' in a state that utterly unfitted him for business. He seems to have been freed for a time from the pangs of gout only to be afflicted with a See also:species of See also:mental See also:alienation bordering on See also:insanity. This is the most satisfactory, as it is the most obvious, explanation of his utter indifference in presence of one of the most momentous problems that ever pressed for See also:solution on an English statesman. Those who are able to read the history in the light of what occurred later may perhaps be convinced that no policy whatever initiated, after 1766 could have prevented or even materially delayed the declaration of American See also:independence; but to the politicians of that time the coming event had not yet See also:cast so dark a See also:shadow before as to paralyse all action, and if any man could hate allayed the growing discontent of the colonists and prevented the ultimate dismemberment of the empire, it would have been Lord Chatham. The fact that he not only did nothing to remove existing difficulties, but remained passive while his colleagues took the fatal step which led directly to separation, is in itself clear See also:proof of his entire incapacity, The See also:imposition
of the import See also:duty on See also:tea and other commodities was the project of See also: It is probably the most singular thing in connexion with this singular administration, that its most pregnant measure should thus have been one directly opposed to the well-known principles of its head. For many months things remained in the curious position that he who was understood to be the head of the cabinet had as little share in the government of the country as an unenfranchised See also:peasant. As the chief could not or would not lead, the sub-ordinates naturally chose their own paths and not his. The lines of Chatham's policy were abandoned in other cases besides the imposition of the import duty; his opponents were taken into confidence; and friends, such as See also:Amherst and Shelburne, were dismissed from their posts. When at length in October 1768 he tendered his resignation on the ground of shattered health, he did not fail to mention the dismissal of Amherst and Shelburne as a personal grievance. Soon after his resignation a renewed attack of gout freed Chatham from the mental disease under which he had so long suffered. He had been nearly two years and a See also:half in seclusion when, in July 1769, he again appeared in public at a royal See also:levee. It was not, however, until 1770 that he resumed his seat in the House of Lords. He had now almost no personal following, mainly owing to the grave See also:mistake he had made in not forming an alliance with the Rockingham party. But his eloquence was as powerful as ever, and all its power was directed against the government policy in the contest with See also:America, which had become the question of all-absorbing interest. His last See also:appearance in the House of Lords was on the 7th of April 1778, on the occasion of the duke of See also:Richmond's motion for an address praying the king to conclude peace with America on any terms. In view of the hostile demonstrations of France the various parties had come generally to see the See also:necessity of such a measure. But Chatham could not See also:brook the thought of a step which implied submission to the " natural enemy " whom it had been the See also:main object of his life to humble, and he declaimed for a considerable time, though with sadly diminished vigour, against the motion. After the duke of Richmond had replied, he See also:rose again excitedly as if to speak, pressed his See also:hand upon his See also:breast, and fell down in a fit. He was removed to his seat at Hayes, where he died on the 1th of May. With gri.ceful unanimity all parties combined to show their sense of the See also:national loss. The Commons presented an address to the king praying that the deceased statesman might be buried with the honours of a public funeral, and voted a sum for a public See also:monument which was erected over his grave in Westminster See also:Abbey. Soon after the funeral a bill was passed bestowing a pension of £40o0 a year on his successors in the earldom, He had a family of three sons and two daughters, of whom the second son, William, was destined to add fresh lustre to a name which is one of the greatest in the history of England. Dr Johnson is reported to have said that " Walpole was a minister given by the king to the See also:people, but Pitt was a minister given by the people to the king," and the remark correctly indicates Chatham's distinctive place among English statesmen. He was the first minister whose main strength lay in the support of the nation at large as distinct from its representatives in the Commons, where his personal following was always small. He was the first to discern that public opinion, though generally slow to form and slow to act, is in the end the See also:paramount power in the state; and he was the first to use it not in an emergency merely, but throughout a whole political career. He marks the commencement of that vast change in the See also:movement of English politics by which it has come about that the sentiment of the great See also:mass of the people now tells effectively on the action of the government from See also:day to day,—almost from See also:hour to hour. He was well fitted to secure the sympathy and admiration of his countrymen, for his virtues and his failings were alike English. He was often inconsistent, he was generally intractable and overbearing, and he was always pompous and affected to adegree which, See also:Macaulay has remarked, seems scarcely compatible with true greatness. Of the last quality evidence is furnished in the See also:stilted style of his letters, and in the fact recorded by See also:Seward that he never permitted his under-secretaries to sit in his presence. Burke speaks of " some significant, pompous, creeping, explanatory, ambiguous matter, in the true Chathamic style." But these defects were known only to the inner circle of his associates. To the outside public he was endeared as a statesman who could do or suffer " nothing See also:base," and who had the rare power of transfusing his own indomitable See also:energy and courage into all who served under him. " A spirited foreign policy " has always been popular in England, and Pitt was the' most popular of English ministers, because he was the most successful exponent of such a policy. In domestic affairs his influence was small and almost entirely indirect. He himself confessed his unfitness for dealing with questions of See also:finance. The commercial prosperity that was produced by his war policy was in a great See also:part delusive, as prosperity so produced must always be, though it had permanent effects of the highest moment in the rise of such centres of See also:industry as See also:Glasgow. This, however, was a remote result which he could have neither intended nor foreseen. The correspondence of Lord Chatham, in four volumes, was published in 1838-184o; and a See also:volume of his letters to Lord See also:Camel-See also:ford in 1804. The Rev. See also:Francis See also:Thackeray's History of the Rt. Hon. William Pitt, Earl of Chatham (2 vols., 1827), is a ponderous and shapeless work. See also:Frederic See also:Harrison's Chatham, in the " Twelve English Statesmen " series (1905), though skilfully executed, takes a rather See also:academic and modern Liberal view. A See also:German work, William Pitt, See also:Graf von Chatham, by See also:Albert von Ruville (3 vols., 1905; English trans. 1907), is the best and most thorough account of Chatham, his period, and his policy, which has appeared. See also the See also:separate See also:article on William Pitt, and the authorities referred tc, especially the Rev. William See also:Hunt's appendix i. to his vol. x. of The Political History of England (1905). Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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