WILLIAM PROUD as we have every reason to be in the main of our long roll of Leaders of the Senate-because they have been English gentlemen first and politicians afterwardsthere is one great character which stands prominently forward in our parliamentary history a full head and shoulders above its predecessors and successors-one which, for the disinterestedness of its ambition, the austerity of its independence, and the loftiness of its disdain for the prizes of power, has never yet met its equal. The name of William Pitt conjures up before the mind's eye a man so brilliantly endowed with all the gifts of intellect, so severe in his personal conduct, so haughty in his constant attitude of command, so cold and unimpassioned, so above the desires and ends of ordinary human nature, that even at this distance of time, and with only imagination to fill up the details of the portrait, he appears as one belonging to a superior race of beings he fascinates yet he awes us. The second son of the first Earl of Chatham, William Pitt was born May 28, 1759, at the pretty little Kentish village of Hayes, near Bromley. At a very early age, we are told, he gave signs of the fame he was afterwards to obtain. While other lads of his years were poring over Cæsar and worrying themselves with the elements of algebra, he was already a good classic and a promising mathematician. The fineness of William's mind," writes his doting mother, "makes him enjoy with the highest pleasure what would be above the reach of any other creature of his small age." His quickness was so exquisite in grasping the meaning of an author that his tutor once remarked, "he never seemed to learn, but only to recollect." Endowed with gifts so rare it is not surprising that PITT. young Pitt should have early become the favourite son of his splendid sire, and that his education proceeded under the most favourable auspices. He was taught by the lofty Chatham-the most expressive speaker of his day-how to recite, how to express his thoughts in correct English, and how to look upon every subject which interested him from its various points of view. He was much given in his boyish days, we are told, to addressing imaginary audiences on the topics of the hour, and in declaiming from the sermons of Barrow, or in reciting the speeches in "Paradise Lost." "I am glad that I am not an eldest son," he said to his mother on her elevation to the peerage as Baroness Chatham, "for I want to speak in the House of Commons like papa." It is recorded as an instance of his precocity, that one night while paying a visit to the House of Lords he was introduced to Charles Fox, and the great debater used to tell how, as speech after speech was delivered, young Pitt, instead of being occupied by the structure of the chamber or by the robes of the peers, was constantly turning round to him and saying, "But surely, Mr. Fox, that might be answered thus," or "Yes, but he lays himself open to this retort." Never in the annals of biography was dawn more brilliant. The health of William Pitt was delicate, and it was considered expedient that he should be educated at home, and not be sent to a public school. Students went up to the university in those days at an early age, and on attaining his fifteenth year Pitt was entered at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge. Here his brilliant abilities, coupled with the sound and wide reading of his schooling at home, soon brought him prominently into notice. Before he quitted Cambridge | there was not a Greek or a Latin writer of note with whose works he was not familiar. Nor was his knowledge of mathematics much less profound. The quickness with which he solved the deepest problems was pronounced by one of the examiners to be unrivalled in the university. Study he loved with a devotion which admitted of no rivals. He attended the public lectures on civil law; he read hard at political economy; he studied experimental philosophy; and above all, he educated himself in eloquence by dwelling upon the most brilliant passages in Livy, Thucydides, and Sallust. At the age of seventeen he was admitted, after the bad fashion of his day, to the degree of Master of Arts without examination, as the son of a peer. He did not, however, quit the university, but continued a few years longer at Cambridge, reading with his tutor and building up for himself that storehouse of learning from which in after life he so freely drew, to the delight of his followers and the dread of his opponents. On the death of the Earl of Chatham it became necessary for William Pitt to think of a profession. His brother had succeeded to the title, and the fortune of the late peer was only sufficient to sustain the new honours. With a younger son's provision of some £300 a year, Pitt now betook himself to the bar, and joined the Western Circuit. Shortly after he had been called a general election ensued, and with that confidence in himself which was one of his chief characteristics he stood, though a mere boy, as a candidate for his late university. He was defeated, being returned at the bottom of the poll. "Mansfield and Townshend have run away with the prize," he writes to his mother, "but my struggle has not been dishonourable." The convenient system of close boroughs, however, now came to his rescue, and through the interest of Sir James Lowther, a name allpowerful in the north, he was returned for Appleby. There could be little doubt as to which party William Pitt would unite himself. The son of Chatham could have scant sympathy with the American War or with the genial servility of Lord North to unconstitutional interference. Upon his entrance into Parliament the House of Commons was, as we have already seen, divided into three sections-there were the Rockingham Whigs, led by Charles Fox; there were the followers of Chatham, led by the caustic Lord Shelburne, and now in close union with the Rockingham party; and there were the supporters of the government. Pitt at once enrolled himself under the standard of Shelburne, and took his seat among the Opposition. Within a month after his return for Appleby he addressed the House. His maiden speech, we are told, was much admired. As he rose from his seat his name at once commanded the respectful attention of the audience, but soon the exquisitely modulated tones of his silvery voice, his polished periods, the easy flow of his eloquence, his quick powers of mastering the difficulties of his subject, changed the attention inspired by courtesy into the interest and admiration inspired by genuine excellence. "He is not a chip of the old block," exclaimed Burke with enthusiasm, "he is the old block itself!" In the opinion of Lord North it was the best first speech he had ever heard. The subject which called forth this maiden effort was one of those schemes of Edmund Burke for economical reform which we have already discussed. The member for Bristol had laid before the House a bill for the better regulation of the civil list and for the abolition of certain useless and expensive offices then in the pay of the crown. Pitt supported the bill. He fully approved, he said (26th February, 1781), of the measure. It was one congenial to the paternal feelings of the sovereign and applicable to the wants and miseries of the people. He only regretted that such a measure had been introduced by a private individual and not by the king's ministers. He had no sympathy with such reasoning, he concluded, and he would give this measure of reform his most determined support. The motion of Burke was, however, as we have already stated, rejected by a large majority. "They ought," he said, "to have con- | reasoning that the principle of the bill has sulted the glory of their royal master, and been disputed!" have seated him in the hearts of his people, by abating from magnificence what was due to necessity. Instead of waiting for the slow request of a burdened people, they should have courted popularity by a voluntary surrender of useless revenue. Far more agreeable would it have been to that House to accede than to propose; much more gracious to have observed the free exercise of royal bounty than to make the appeal and point out what was right or what was necessary. But if ministers failed to do this, if they interfered between the benignity of the sovereign and the distresses of his people, and stopped the tide of royal sympathy, was that a reason why the House of Commons, his Majesty's public counsellors, should desist from a measure so congenial to the paternal feelings of the sovereign, so applicable to the wants and miseries of the people? In answer to the reckless objection raised by Lord North and his followers, that the saving effected by the reform would at most only amount to some £200,000 a year, and was therefore an economy not worthy of consideration, Pitt very wisely replied that "such an argument is surely the most singular and unaccountable species of reasoning that was ever attempted in any assembly. The calamities of the crisis are too great to be benefited by economy! Our expenses are so enormous that it is ridiculous to attend to little matters of account! We have spent so many millions that thousands are beneath our consideration! We are obliged to spend so much that it is foolish to think of saving any! This," he sneered, "is the language of the day, and it is by such The cheers which greeted this first attempt—we need hardly say that the reader must not judge of it from the meagre extracts that have been handed down to posterityencouraged the young member to further efforts. He was pleased at his reception. "I know you will have learned," he writes to his mother, "that I heard my own voice yesterday, and the account you have had would be in all respects better than I can give if it had not come from too partial a friend. All I can say is that I was able to execute in some measure what I intended, and that I have at least every reason to be happy beyond measure in the reception I met with." Upon the grave question of the hour which was then causing Englishmen to feel deeply humbled, the conflict with our colonies across the Atlantic, Pitt proved himself a true son of Chatham. He branded the war with America as a wicked and an accursed war. "Yes," he cried (12th June, 1781), "he was persuaded, and would affirm, that it was a most accursed, wicked, barbarous, cruel, unnatural, unjust, and diabolical war! It was conceived in injustice; it was nurtured and brought forth in folly; its footsteps were marked with blood, slaughter, persecution, and devastation; in truth, everything which went to constitute moral depravity and human turpitude were to be found in it. It was pregnant with misery of every kind. The mischiefs, however, recoiled on the unhappy people of this country, who were made the instruments by which the wicked purposes of its authors were effected. The nation was drained of its best blood, and of its vital resources of men and money. The expense of it was enormous, much beyond any former experi ence; and yet, what had the British nation | been voted, the means that had been devised received in return? Nothing but a series and adopted, the powers that had been of ineffective victories or severe defeats: granted, and the use that had been made victories celebrated only by a temporary of them: that use was loudly proclaimed triumph over our brethren, whom we would by the captivity of Lord Cornwallis and his trample down and destroy; which filled the army. Were gentlemen, then, disposed to land with mourning for the loss of dear and trust still the management of a war to the valuable relations slain in the impious care of men who had already made so bad cause of enforcing unconditional submis- a use of the confidence of Parliament? Was sion, or with narratives of the glorious exer- the American War to have no end? And tions of men struggling in the holy cause of were the ministers who, by all their measliberty, though struggling under all the ures, had only convinced the nation of the difficulties and disadvantages which are in absurdity of carrying it on, to come to that general deemed the necessary concomitants House, and to propose an address* which of victory and success. Where was the tied them down to prosecute the war, of Englishman, on reading the narratives of the impropriety, absurdity, injustice, and those bloody and well-fought contests, who ruinous tendency of which every man in could refrain from lamenting the loss of so the House was convinced? What could much British blood spilt in such a cause? make the American War an object so steador from weeping on whatever side victory fastly to be adhered to? Was there any might be declared? Add to this melancholy rational object in the pursuit? Certainly consideration," he said, mindful that Eng- there was none. The real truth was, it was land was at war with half the Continent, an appendage to the first lord of the Treasthat on whichever side we looked we ury too dear to be parted with! It was the could perceive nothing but our natural and grand pillar, built on the ruins of the conpowerful enemies, or lukewarm and faith- stitution, by which he held his situation; less friends, rejoicing in our calamities or the great means of extending that baleful meditating our ultimate downfall." influence of the crown on which alone he placed all his security." As we have already related, this "grand pillar" fell to the ground; Lord North was forced to resign by the turn of events, and the Rockingham cabinet came into power, with Lord Shelburne and Charles Fox as secretaries of state. And now a great compliment was paid to Pitt. The vicetreasurership of Ireland, with a salary of £5000 a year, was offered to him. It was declined. "For myself," said Pitt in the House of Commons when the resignation of Lord North was impending, "I could not expect to form part of a new administra The war, he concluded, was unjust at its outset, it had been productive of innumerable mischiefs, and all who urged ministers to continue it were no friends to the country. The surrender of a large British force at Yorktown, under Lord Cornwallis, to Washington had created the deepest anxiety at home, and it was evident that the government of Lord North were not capable of surmounting the difficulties their shortsighted and guilty policy had created. Pitt was especially indignant with ministers, and did not scruple to declare at the opening of Parliament (28th November, 1781), that the country had no confidence in the administration. "Was there a man in the House," he asked, "who, after the late disaster which had befallen our arms, could trust the administration of affairs in the hands of the present ministers? Gentlemen would recollect the supplies that had-Speech from the Throne. *"No endeavours have been wanting on my part to extinguish that spirit of rebellion which our enemies have found means to foment and maintain in the colonies, and to restore to my deluded subjects in America that happy and prosperous condition which they formerly derived from a due obedience to the laws; but the late misfortune in that quarter calls loudly for your firm concurrence and assistance to the real interests of America and to those of Great Britain.” frustrate the designs of our enemies, equally prejudicial to |