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The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria cover

The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria

Chapter 609: DEATH OF MR. PITT.
By Edward Farr
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About This Book

The volume traces British political, parliamentary, and military developments from the accession of George III through the early nineteenth century, chronicling changes of ministry and cabinet, debates over colonial taxation and the American conflict, parliamentary controversies involving figures such as Wilkes and Warren Hastings, questions of Catholic relief and slave-trade abolition, and responses to the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, including major naval and continental campaigns, the union with Ireland, and domestic legislation on finance, civil liberties, and parliamentary reform.

DEATH OF MR. PITT.

When parliament reassembled, Pitt, who at the close of last session was obliged to relinquish all exertions and retire to Bath, was lying in a state of debility and exhaustion at Putney, whither he had recently returned. Two days after the meeting of parliament, on the 23rd of January, he expired, in the forty-seventh year of his age; a young man in years, but aged in constitution from incessant toil and mental anxiety. On the motion of Mr. Henry Lascelles he was buried in Westminster Abbey, at the public expense, and a monument, with a suitable inscription, was erected to his memory. As he had died in debt, a sum not exceeding £40,000 was voted for the payment of his creditors, without any opposition. “Never had a minister that ruled the country for twenty long years, or for half or fourth of that time, done so little to enrich himself and family—never had statesman and dispenser of patronage and places been more indifferent to his private interests.” These sentences speak volumes as to the character of this eminent statesman. In politics he may often have erred; but not even his bitterest foe can impeach his integrity. “I allow,” said his inveterate opponent, Fox, “I allow that a minister is not to be considered as moderate and disinterested, merely because he is poor during his life or at his death; but when I see a minister who has been in office above twenty years, with the full command of places and public money, without any peculiar extravagance and waste, except what might be expected from the carelessness that perhaps necessarily arose from the multiplicity of duties to which the attention of a man in such a situation must be directed,—when I see a minister under such circumstances using his influence neither to enrich himself nor those with whom he is by family ties more particularly connected, it is impossible for me not to conclude that this man is disinterested.”