SKETCH OF PITT BY W. WILBERFORCE

SKETCH OF PITT BY W. WILBERFORCE.

Considering the effect of party spirit in producing a distrust of all that is said in favour of a public man by those who have supported him, and the equal measure of incredulity as to all that is stated of him by his opponents, it may not be without its use for the character of Mr. Pitt to be delineated by one who, though personally attached to him, was by no means one of his partisans; who even opposed him on some most important occasions, but who, always preserving an intimacy with him, had an opportunity of seeing him in all circumstances and situations, and of judging as much as any one could of his principles, dispositions, habits, and manners.

It seems indeed no more than the payment of a debt justly due to that great man that the friend who occasionally differed from him should prevent any mistake as to the grounds of those differences; and that as he can do it consistently with truth, he should aver, as in consistency with truth he can aver, that in every instance (with perhaps one exception only) in which his conscience prompted him to dissent from Mr. Pitt's measures, he nevertheless respected Mr. Pitt's principles; the differences arose commonly from a different view of facts, or a different estimate of contingencies and probabilities. Where there was a difference of political principles, it scarcely ever was such as arose from moral considerations; still less such as was produced by any distrust of Mr. Pitt's main intention being to promote the well-being and prosperity of his country.

Mr. Pitt from his early childhood had but an indifferent constitution; the gouty habit of body which harassed him throughout his life, was manifested by an actual fit of that disorder when he was still a boy. As early as fourteen years of age he was placed at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge; he had even then excited sanguine expectations of future eminence. His father had manifested a peculiar regard for him; he had never, I believe, been under any other than the paternal roof, where his studies had been superintended by a private tutor; and besides a considerable proficiency in the Greek and Latin languages, he had written a play in English, which was spoken of in high terms by those who had perused it. I am sorry to hear that this early fruit of genius is not anywhere to be found.

While he was at the University his studies, I understand, were carried on with steady diligence both in classics and mathematics, and though as a nobleman he could not establish his superiority over the other young men of his time by his place upon the tripos, I have been assured that his proficiency in every branch of study was such as would have placed him above almost all competitors. He continued at the University till he was near one-and-twenty, and it was during the latter part of that period that I became acquainted with him. I knew him, however, very little till the winter of 1779-80, when he occupied chambers in Lincoln's Inn, and I myself was a good deal in London. During that winter we became more acquainted with each other; we used often to meet in the Gallery of the House of Commons, and occasionally at Lady St. John's and at other places, and it was impossible not to be sensible of his extraordinary powers.

On the calling of a new Parliament in the beginning of September, 1780, I was elected one of the Members for Hull. Mr. Pitt, if I mistake not, was an unsuccessful candidate for the University of Cambridge; but about Christmas 1780-81, through the intervention of some common friends (more than one have claimed the honour of the first suggestion, Governor Johnston, the Duke of Rutland, &c.), he received and accepted an offer of a seat in Parliament made to him in the most handsome terms by Sir James Lowther. From the time of his taking his seat he became a constant attendant, and a club was formed of a considerable number of young men who had about the same time left the University and most of them entered into public life. The chief members were Mr. Pitt, Lord Euston, now Duke of Grafton, Lord Chatham, the Marquis of Graham, now Duke of Montrose, the Hon. Mr. Pratt, now Marquis of Camden, the Hon. St. Andrew St. John, Henry Bankes, Esq., the Hon. Maurice Robinson, now Lord Rokeby, Lord Duncannon, now Lord Besborough, Lord Herbert, postea Earl of Pembroke, Lord Althorp, now Lord Spencer, Robert Smith, Esq., now Lord Carrington, Mr. Bridgeman, Mr. Steele, several others, and myself. To these were soon afterwards added Lord Apsley, Mr. Grenville, now Lord Grenville, Pepper Arden, afterwards Lord Alvanley, Charles Long, afterwards Lord Farnborough, Sir William Molesworth, &c. &c. Of the whole number Mr. Pitt was perhaps the most constant attendant, and as we frequently dined, and still more frequently supped together, and as our Parliamentary attendance gave us so many occasions for mutual conference and discussion, our acquaintance grew into great intimacy. Mr. Bankes and I (Lord Westmoreland only excepted, with whom, on account of his politics, Mr. Pitt had little connection) were the only members of the society who had houses of their own, Mr. Bankes in London, and I at Wimbolton[11] in Surrey. Mr. Bankes often received his friends to dinner at his own house, and they frequently visited me in the country, but more in the following Parliamentary session or two. In the spring of one of these years Mr. Pitt, who was remarkably fond of sleeping in the country, and would often go out of town for that purpose as late as eleven or twelve o'clock at night, slept at Wimbolton for two or three months together. It was, I believe, rather at a later period that he often used to sleep also at Mr. Robert Smith's house at Hamstead.[12]

Mr. Pitt was not long in the House of Commons before he took a part in the debates: I was present the first time he spoke, and I well recollect the effect produced on the whole House; his friends had expected much from him, but he surpassed all their expectations, and Mr. Hatsell, the chief clerk and a few of the older members who recollected his father, declared that Mr. Pitt gave indications of being his superior. I remember to this day the great pain I suffered from finding myself compelled by my judgment to vote against him on the second occasion of his coming forward, when the question was whether some Commissioners of public accounts should, or should not, be members of Parliament: indeed I never can forget the mixed emotions I experienced when my feelings had all the warmth and freshness of early youth, between my admiration of his powers, my sympathy with his rising reputation, and hopes of his anticipated greatness, while I nevertheless deemed it my duty in this instance to deny him my support.

Mr. Pitt was a decided and warm opponent of Lord North's administration; so indeed were most of our society, though I occasionally supported him. From the first, however, I concurred with Mr. Pitt in opposing the American War, and we rejoiced together in putting an end to it in about March, 1782, when Lord North's ministry terminated; and after a painful, and I think considerable, interval, during which it was said the King had even talked of going over to Hanover, and was supposed at last to yield to the counsels of the Earl of Mansfield, a new administration was formed consisting of the Rockingham and Shelburne parties, the Marquis of Rockingham being First Lord of the Treasury, and Lord Shelburne and Mr. Fox the two Secretaries of State. But though the parties had combined together against their common enemy, no sooner had he been removed than mutual jealousies immediately began to show themselves between the Rockingham and Shelburne parties. I well remember attending by invitation at Mr. Thomas Townshend's, since Lord Sydney, with Mr. Pitt and most of the young members who had voted with the Opposition, when Mr. Fox with apparent reluctance stated that Lord Rockingham had not then been admitted into the King's presence, but had only received communications through Lord Shelburne; and little circumstances soon afterwards arose which plainly indicated the mutual distrust of the two parties. Lord Rockingham's constitution was much shaken, and after a short illness his death took place before the end of the session of Parliament, about the middle of June, 1782.[13] Mr. Pitt had taken occasion to declare in the House of Commons that he would accept no subordinate situation, otherwise there is no doubt he would have been offered a seat at the Treasury Board, or indeed any office out of the Cabinet; but on Lord Rockingham's death, notwithstanding Mr. Fox's endeavour to prevent a rupture by declaring that no disunion existed,[14] the disagreement between the parties, of which so many symptoms had before manifested themselves, became complete and notorious. Lord Shelburne being invited by the King to supply Lord Rockingham's place, Mr. Fox with most of the Rockingham's party retired from office, and Mr. Pitt accepted the offer made him by Lord Shelburne of becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer: he had completed his twenty-third year the 28th of May preceding.

There was more than one day of debate even during that session, in which Mr. Pitt indicated that gravity and dignity which became the high station which he had assumed at so early an age. He continued in office till the ensuing winter, when, after peace had been made both with America and her continental allies France and Spain, Lord Shelburne's administration was removed through the unprincipled coalition between Lord North and Mr. Fox and their respective parties. It was supposed to have been brought about in a great degree through the influence of Lord North's eldest son, who had maintained a friendly acquaintance with Mr. Fox, a man the fascination of whose manners and temper was such as to render it impossible for any one to maintain a personal intercourse with him without conceiving for him sincere and even affectionate attachment. I seconded the motion for the address on the peace, and I well remember a little before the business began writing a note in my place with a pencil to Bankes, who was, I saw, at a little distance, inquiring of him whether a union between North and Fox was really formed, and whether I might publicly notice it; "Yes," he replied, "the more strongly the better." Mr. Pitt on that night was very unwell; he was obliged to retire from the House into Solomon's Porch by a violent sickness at the very moment when Mr. Fox was speaking. He himself afterwards replied in a speech of some hours' length, but he certainly on that night fell short of our expectations; a second discussion, however, took place a few days after, and his speech on that occasion was one of the finest that was ever made in Parliament, both in point of argument and power of oratory. I never shall forget the impression produced by that part of it in which he spoke of his own retirement, closing with that passage out of Horace, "Laudo manentem," &c., though I must add that I retain no recollection whatever of the circumstance mentioned by Sir N. Wraxall; indeed I cannot but be strongly persuaded that he must have been misinformed. Well also do I remember our all going to Mr. Pitt's from the House of Commons after our defeat about eight in the morning, where a dinner had been waiting for us from eleven or twelve the preceding night, and where we all laughed heartily at some characteristic traits exhibited by Lord Stanhope,[15] then Lord Mahon. An administration was then formed of which the Duke of Portland was at the head, and Lord North and Mr. Fox joint Secretaries of State. It was in the autumn of this year, 1783, during the recess of Parliament, that I accompanied Mr. Pitt and Mr. Eliot, who afterwards became his brother-in-law, to France: our plan was to spend a few weeks in a provincial town, there to acquire something of the language, and afterwards to make a short stay at Paris. Accordingly we went to Rheims, where we continued for about six weeks. It was not until we were on the point of going abroad (when Mr. Eliot came out of Cornwall, Mr. Pitt from seeing his mother in Somersetshire, and I met them both at Sittingbourne) that we recollected that we were unprovided with letters of recommendation, which each of the party had perhaps trusted to the other for obtaining. Accordingly we requested Mr. Smith to obtain them for us of Mr. Thellusson, afterwards Lord Rendlesham, who, we knew, had correspondencies all over France. Thellusson replied that he would gladly do his best for us, but that he rather conceived from circumstances that his correspondent at Rheims was not a person of any commercial distinction. We, however, abided by our decision in favour of Rheims. The day after we arrived there, having sent our letter of recommendation the preceding evening to the person to whom it was addressed, we were waited upon by a very well-behaved man with a velvet coat, a bag, and sword, who conversed with us for a short time. The next day we repaid his visit, and were a good deal surprised to find that he was a very little grocer, his very small shop being separated by a partition from his very small room. But he was an unaffected, well-behaved man, and he offered to render us every service in his power, but stated distinctly that he was not acquainted with the higher people of the place and neighbourhood. For a few days we lived very comfortably together, but no French was learned except from the grammar, we not having a single French acquaintance. At length we desired our friend the épicier to mention us to the Lieutenant of Police, who, I think we had made out, had been employed to collect evidence in the great Douglas cause, and was therefore likely to know something of our country and its inhabitants. This expedient answered its intended purpose, though somewhat slowly and by degrees. The Lieutenant of Police, Du Chatel, an intelligent and apparently a respectable family man, came to visit us, and he having stated to the Archbishop of Rheims, the present Cardinal de Perigord, whose palace was about a mile from the city, that three English Members of Parliament were then residing in it, one of whom was Mr. Pitt, who had recently been Chancellor of the Exchequer, his Grace sent his Grand Vicaire, the Abbé de la Garde, to ascertain the truth or falsehood of this statement. The Abbé executed his commission with great address, and reporting in our favour, we soon received an invitation to the Archbishop's table, followed by the expression of a wish that during the remainder of our stay at Rheims we would take up our residence in his palace. This we declined, but we occasionally dined with him, and from the time of our having been noticed by the Lieutenant we received continual invitations, chiefly to supper, from the gentry in and about the place. They were chiefly persons whose land produced the wine of the country, which, without scruple, they sold on their own account. And I remember the widow of the former Marshal Detrée intimating a wish that Mr. Pitt would become her customer.

Thence we went to Paris, having an opportunity during that time of spending four or five days at Fontainebleau, where the whole Court was assembled. There we were every evening at the parties of one or other of the French Ministers, in whose apartments we also dined—the Queen being always among the company present in the evening, and mixing in conversation with the greatest affability; there were also Madame la Princesse de Lamballe, M. Segur, M. de Castres, &c. Mr. George Ellis, who spoke French admirably, was in high favour for the elegance of his manners and the ease and brilliancy of his wit; and Mr. Pitt, though his imperfect knowledge of French prevented his doing justice to his sentiments, was yet able to give some impression of his superior powers—his language, so far as it did extend, being remarkable, I was assured, for its propriety and purity. There M. le Marquis de la Fayette appeared with a somewhat affected simplicity of manner, and I remember the fine ladies on one occasion dragging him to the card-table, while he shrugged up his shoulders and apparently resisted their importunities that he would join their party: very few, however, played at cards, the Queen, I think, never. During our stay at Paris we dined one day with M. le Marquis de la Fayette with a very small party, one of whom was Dr. Franklin; and it is due to M. le Marquis de la Fayette to declare that the opinion which we all formed of his principles and sentiments, so far as such a slight acquaintance could enable us to form a judgment, was certainly favourable, and his family appeared to be conducted more in the style of an English house than any other French family which we visited. We commonly supped in different parties, and I recollect one night when we English manifested our too common indisposition to conform ourselves to foreign customs, or rather to put ourselves out of our own way, by all going together to one table, to the number of twelve or fourteen of us, and admitting only one Frenchman, the Marquis de Noailles, M. de la Fayette's brother-in-law, who spoke our own language like an Englishman, and appeared more than any of the other French to be one of ourselves. We, however, who were all young men, were more excusable than our Ambassador at the Court of France, who, I remember, joined our party.

It was at Paris, in October, that Mr. Pitt first became acquainted with Mr. Rose, who was introduced to him by Lord Thurlow, whose fellow-traveller he was on the Continent; and it was then, or immediately afterwards, that it was suggested to the late Lord Camden by Mr. Walpole, a particular friend of M. Necker's, that if Mr. Pitt should be disposed to offer his hand to Mademoiselle N., afterwards Madame de Staël, such was the respect entertained for him by M. and Madame Necker, that he had no doubt the proposal would be accepted.

We returned from France about November. Circumstances then soon commenced which issued in the turning out of the Fox administration, the King resenting grievously, as was said, the treatment he experienced from them, especially in what regarded the settlement of the Prince of Wales. I need only allude to the long course of political contention which took place in the winter of 1783-84, when at length Mr. Pitt became First Lord of the Treasury; and after a violent struggle, the King dissolved the Parliament about March, and in the new House of Commons a decisive majority attested the truth of Mr. Pitt's assertion that he possessed the confidence of his country. In many counties and cities the friends of Mr. Fox were turned out, thence denominated Fox's Martyrs.[16] I myself became member for Yorkshire in the place of Mr. Foljambe, Sir George Savile's nephew, who had succeeded that excellent public man in the representation of the county not many weeks before. I may be allowed to take this occasion of mentioning a circumstance honourable to myself, since it is much more honourable to him, that some years after he came to York on purpose to support me in my contest for the county. It is remarkable that Lord Stanhope first foresaw the necessity there would be for Mr. Pitt's continuing in office notwithstanding his being out-voted in the House of Commons, maintaining that the Opposition would not venture to refuse the supplies, and that at the proper moment he should dissolve the Parliament.[17]

And now having traced Mr. Pitt's course from childhood to the period when he commenced his administration of sixteen or seventeen years during times the most stormy and dangerous almost ever experienced by this country, it may be no improper occasion for describing his character, and specifying the leading talents, dispositions, and qualifications by which he was distinguished. But before I proceed to this delineation it may be right to mention that seldom has any man had a better opportunity of knowing another than I have possessed of being thoroughly acquainted with Mr. Pitt. For weeks and months together I have spent hours with him every morning while he was transacting his common business with his secretaries. Hundreds of times, probably, I have called him out of bed, and have, in short, seen him in every situation and in his most unreserved moments. As he knew I should not ask anything of him, and as he reposed so much confidence in me as to be persuaded that I should never use any information I might obtain from him for any unfair purpose, he talked freely before me of men and things, of actual, meditated, or questionable appointments and plans, projects, speculations, &c., &c. No man, it has been said, is a hero to his valet de chambre, and if, with all the opportunities I enjoyed of seeing Mr. Pitt in his most inartificial and unguarded moments, he nevertheless appeared to me to be a man of extraordinary intellectual and moral powers, it is due to him that it should be known that this opinion was formed by one in whose instance Mr. Pitt's character was subjected to its most severe test, which Rochefoucault appeared to think could be stood by no human hero.

Mr. Pitt's intellectual powers were of the highest order, and in private no less than in public, when he was explaining his sentiments in any complicated question and stating the arguments on both sides, it was impossible not to admire the clearness of his conceptions, the precision with which he contemplated every particular object, and a variety of objects, without confusion. They who have had occasion to discuss political questions with him in private will acknowledge that there never was a fairer reasoner, never anyone more promptly recognising, and allowing its full weight to every consideration and argument which was urged against the opinion he had embraced. You always saw where you differed from him and why. The difference arose commonly from his sanguine temper leading him to give credit to information which others might distrust, and to expect that doubtful contingencies would have a more favourable issue than others might venture to anticipate. I never met with any man who combined in an equal degree this extraordinary precision of understanding with the same intuitive apprehension of every shade of opinion, or of feeling, which might be indicated by those with whom he was conversant. In taking an estimate of Mr. Pitt's intellectual powers, his extraordinary memory ought to be specially noticed. It was indeed remarkable for two excellencies which are seldom found united in the same person—a facility of receiving impressions, and a firmness and precision in retaining them. His great rival, Mr. Fox, was also endowed with a memory which to myself used to appear perfectly wonderful. Often in the earlier part of my Parliamentary life I have heard him (Fox) at a very late hour speak, without having taken any notes, for two or three hours, noticing every material argument that had been urged by every speaker of the opposite party: this he commonly did in the order in which those arguments had been delivered, whereas it was rather Mr. Pitt's habit to form the plan of a speech in his mind while the debate was going forward, and to distribute his comments on the various statements and remarks of his opponents according to the arrangement which he had made. Such was his (Pitt's) recollection of the great classical authors of antiquity that scarcely a passage could be quoted of their works, whether in verse or prose, with which he was not so familiar as to be able to take up the clue and go on with what immediately followed. This was particularly the case in the works of Virgil, Horace, and Cicero, and I am assured that he was also scarcely less familiar with Homer and Thucydides.

He had considerable powers of imagination and much ready wit, but this quality appeared more to arise from every idea, and every expression that belonged to it, being at once present to his mind, so as to enable him at will to make such combinations as suited the purpose of the moment, than as if his mind was only conscious at the time of that particular coruscation which the collision of objects caused to flash before the mental eye. It arose out of this distinctive peculiarity that he was not carried away by his own wit, though he could at any time command its exercise, and no man, perhaps, at proper seasons ever indulged more freely or happily in that playful facetiousness which gratifies all without wounding any. He had great natural courage and fortitude, and though always of a disordered stomach and gouty tendencies (on account of which port wine had been recommended to him in his earliest youth, and drinking French wine for a day or two would at any time produce gouty pains in the extremities), yet his bodily temperament never produced the smallest appearance of mental weakness or sinking. I think it was from this source, combined with that of his naturally sanguine temper, that though manifestly showing how deeply he felt on public affairs, he never was harassed or distressed by them, and till his last illness, when his bodily powers were almost utterly exhausted, his inward emotions never appeared to cloud his spirits, or affect his temper. Always he was ready in the little intervals of a busy man to indulge in those sallies of wit and good humour which were naturally called forth.

Excepting only the cases of those who have had reason to apprehend the loss of life or liberty, never was a public man in circumstances more harassing than those of Mr. Pitt in 1784: for several weeks the fate of his administration and that of his opponents were trembling on the beam, sometimes one scale preponderating, sometimes the other; almost daily it appeared doubtful whether he was to continue Prime Minister or retire into private life. Yet though then not five-and-twenty I do not believe that the anxiety of his situation ever kept him awake for a single minute, or ever appeared to sadden or cast a gloom over his hours of relaxation.

It cannot perhaps be affirmed that he was altogether free from pride, but great natural shyness,[18] and even awkwardness (French gaucherie), often produced effects for which pride was falsely charged on him; and really that confidence which might be justly placed in his own powers by a man who could not but be conscious of their superiority might sometimes appear like pride, though not fairly deserving that appellation; and this should be the rather conceded, because from most of the acknowledged effects of pride upon the character he was eminently free. No man, as I have already remarked, ever listened more attentively to what was stated against his own opinions; no man appeared to feel more for others when in distress; no man was ever more kind and indulgent to his inferiors and dependents of every class, and never were there any of those little acts of superciliousness, or indifference to the feelings and comforts of others, by which secret pride is sometimes betrayed. But if Mr. Pitt was not wholly free from pride, it may truly be affirmed that no man was perhaps ever more devoid of vanity in all its forms. One particular more in Mr. Pitt's character, scarcely ever found in a proud man, was the extraordinary good humour and candour with which he explained and discussed any plan or measure, of which he had formed the outline in his mind, with those professional men who were necessarily to be employed in giving it a Parliamentary form and language. I do not believe that there is a single professional man or the head of any board who ever did business with him, who would not acknowledge that he was on such occasions the most easy and accommodable man with whom they ever carried on official intercourse. One instance of this kind shall be mentioned as a specimen of the others. He had formed a plan of importance (I think in some Revenue matter) on which it was necessary for him to consult with the Attorney-General of the day, I believe Chief Baron Macdonald; Mr. Pitt had been for some time ruminating on the measure, his mind had been occupied for perhaps a month in moulding it into form and in devising expedients for its more complete execution. It may here be not out of place to mention as a peculiarity of his character that he was habitually apt to have almost his whole thoughts and attention and time occupied with the particular object or plan which he was then devising and wishing to introduce into practice. He was as usual full of his scheme, and detailed it to his professional friend with the warmth and ability natural to him on such occasions. But the Attorney-General soon became convinced that there were legal objections to the measure, which must be decisive against its adoption. These therefore he explained to Mr. Pitt, who immediately gave up his plan with the most unruffled good-humour, without attempting to hang by it, or to devise methods of propping it up, but, casting it at once aside, he pursued his other business as cheerfully and pleasantly as usual.

But there are many who with undisturbed composure and with a good grace can on important occasions thus change their line of conduct and assume a course contrary to that which they would have preferred. It is, however, far more rare to find men who on little occasions, which are not of sufficient moment to call a man's dignity into action, and which are not under the public eye, can bear to have their opinions opposed and their plans set aside, without manifesting some irritation or momentary fretfulness. But on the lesser scale as well as on the greater Mr. Pitt's good-humour was preserved. This same disposition of mind was attended with the most important advantages, and in truth was one which eminently qualified him to be the Minister of a free country.

If towards the latter end of his life his temper was not so entirely free from those occasional approaches to fretfulness which continued disease and the necessity of struggling against it too often produce, it ought to be taken into account that another powerful cause besides human infirmity might have tended to lessen that kindness and good-humour for which he was for the greater part of his life so remarkable. The deference that was paid to him was justly great, but though no man less than himself exacted anything like servility from his companions, it is impossible to deny that there were those who attempted to cultivate his favour by this species of adulation. Another particular in Mr. Pitt, seldom connected with pride, was the kind interest he took in the rising talents of every young public man of any promise whose politics were congenial with his own; as well as the justice which he did to the powers of his opponents—a quality which it is but fair to say was no less apparent in Mr. Fox also. If he sometimes appeared to be desirous of letting a debate come to a close without hearing some friends who wished to take a part in it, this arose in some degree in his wishing to get away, from his being tired out with Parliamentary speaking and hearing, or from thinking that the debate would close more advantageously at the point at which he stopped.

In society he was remarkably cheerful and pleasant, full of wit and playfulness, neither, like Mr. Fox, fond of arguing a question, nor yet holding forth, like some others.[19] He was always ready to hear others as well as to talk himself. In very early life he now and then engaged in games of chance, and the vehemence with which he was animated was certainly very great; but finding that he was too much interested by them, all at once he entirely and for life desisted from gambling.

His regard for truth was greater than I ever saw in any man who was not strongly under the influence of a powerful principle of religion: he appeared to adhere to it out of respect to himself, from a certain moral purity which appeared to be a part of his nature. A little incident may afford an example of his delicacy in this respect. A common friend of ours, a member of the House of Lords, was reflected upon with considerable acrimony in the House of Commons by one of Mr. Pitt's political opponents. Being with him, as often happened, the next morning, while he was at breakfast, I told him that the animadversions which had been made on our friend the night before were stated in the newspaper, and I expressed some surprise that he himself had not contradicted the fact which was the ground of the reprehension. "This," said he, "I might have done, but you will remember that it was a circumstance in which, if I deviated from strict truth, no other man could know of it, and in such a case it is peculiarly requisite to keep within the strictest limits of veracity."

The remark I am about to make may deserve the more attention on account of its general application, and because it may probably tend to illustrate other characters. It may, I believe, be truly affirmed that the imputations which were sometimes thrown out against Mr. Pitt, that he was wanting in simplicity and frankness, and the answers he made to questions put to him concerning his future conduct, or the principles which were regulating the course of measures he pursued, were in truth a direct consequence of that very strictness and veracity for which he was so remarkable. When men are not very scrupulous as to truth, they naturally deal in broad assertions, especially in cases in which their feelings are at all warmly engaged; but it seldom happens that a political man can thus assume a principle and apply it to all the cases, which, in the use he is about to make of it, it may be supposed to comprehend, without some qualifications and distinctions; and a man of strict veracity therefore makes a conditional declaration or gives a qualified assurance. The same remark applies to the judgments we may express of the character and conduct of public men. In order to be strictly correct we cannot always use broad and strong colouring, but there must be shades and gradations in our draught. Yet such is the natural and even commendable love which men generally have of truth and honesty, that we feel an instinctive preference of simple and strong affirmations or negations as indicating more blunt and straightforward principles and dispositions, than where men express themselves in measured and qualified and conditional propositions. No man, I believe, ever loved his country with a warmer or more sincere affection; it was highly gratifying to converse familiarly with him on the plans he was forming for the public good; or to witness the pleasure he experienced from indulging speculations of the benefits which his country might derive from the realising of such or such a hope.

But notwithstanding all my admiration of Mr. Pitt's extraordinary powers, and still more, with the deepest and most assured conviction of his public spirit and patriotism, I cannot but think that even his uncommon excellencies were not without some alloy of human infirmity. In particular he appeared to me to be defective in his knowledge of human nature, or that from some cause or other he was less sagacious than might have been expected from his superior talents, in his estimate of future events, and sometimes in his judgment of character. This might probably arise in part from his naturally sanguine temper, which in estimating future contingencies might lead him to assign too little weight to those probabilities which were opposed to his ultimate conclusion. But if I must be honest in delineating Mr. Pitt's character and qualities, I must also confess that in considering their practical influence on the fortunes of his country, I have sometimes been almost ready to believe that powers far inferior to his, under the direction of a mind equally sincere and equally warm in its zeal for the public good, might have been the instrument of conferring far greater benefits on his country. His great qualities, under the impulse and guidance of true religion, would probably have been the means of obtaining for his country much greater temporal blessings, together with others of a far higher order, and more durable effects. The circumstances of the period at which he first came into the situation of Prime Minister were such as almost to invest him with absolute power. All his faculties then possessed the bloom of youthful beauty as well as the full vigour of maturer age: his mind was ardent, his principles were pure, his patriotism warm, his mind as yet altogether unsullied by habitually associating with men of worldly ways of thinking and acting, in short, with a class which may be not unfitly termed trading politicians; this is a class with which perhaps no one, however originally pure, can habitually associate, especially in the hours of friendly intercourse and of social recreation, without contracting insensibly more or less defilement. No one who had not been an eye-witness could conceive the ascendency which Mr. Pitt then possessed over the House of Commons, and if he had then generously adopted the resolution to govern his country by principle rather than by influence, it was a resolution which he could then have carried into execution with success, and the full effects of which, both on the national character, interests, and happiness, it is scarcely possible perhaps to estimate; but it would be a curious and no unprofitable speculation to trace the probable effects which would have resulted from the assumption of this high moral tone, in the actual circumstances of this country, in reference both to our internal interests and our foreign relations. This is a task I cannot now undertake, but I may remind the reader that the principles were then beginning to propagate themselves with the greatest success which not long after exhibited their true nature and ruinous effects in the French Revolution. Such a spirit of patriotism would have been kindled, such a generous confidence in the King's government would have been diffused throughout all classes, that the very idea of the danger of our being infected with the principles of French licentiousness, which might have produced among our people a general taint of disloyalty, would have been an apprehension not to be admitted into the bosom of the most timid politician; while the various reforms which would have taken place, and the manifest independence of Parliament would have generated and ensured in the minds of all reasonable men a continually increasing gratitude and affection for the constitution and laws of our country. On the other hand, the French, infatuated as they were, and wicked as were the men who then possessed the chief influence in the counsels of that country, could never have been so blind to their own manifest interest, as to have engaged their people in a war with Great Britain from any idea of our confederating with the Crowned Heads of Europe to crush the rising spirit of liberty in France. Hence we should have escaped that long and bloody war, which, however, in its ultimate issue justly deserving the epithet of glorious, is nevertheless the cause of all our present dangers and sufferings, from the insupportable burdens with which it has loaded us. Nor is it only Financial evils of which our long protracted warfare has been the cause; to this source also we must probably trace much of that Moral evil, which in so many different forms has been of late beginning to manifest itself, especially among the lower orders of our people. The gracious Providence of God has indeed abundantly answered the prayers of many among us, who I trust have all along been looking up to the Giver of all Good for their country's safety and prosperity; and while those causes were in operation which were hereafter to manifest themselves in various forms of social and domestic evil, it pleased God to diffuse a spirit of an opposite kind, which began to display its love of God and love of man by the formation of societies of a religious and moral nature, which have already contributed in no small degree to bless almost all nations, while they have invested our own country with a moral glory never before enjoyed by any nation upon earth. The diffusion of the Sacred Scriptures, the establishment of societies for spreading throughout the world the blessings of religious light and of moral improvement, the growing attention to the education of our people, with societies and institutions for relieving every species of suffering which vice and misery can ever produce among the human race,—what would have been the effects of all this, if not obstructed and counteracted in all the various ways by which war, that greatest scourge of the human race, carries on its baleful and wide wasting operations.[20]

Is it not a melancholy consideration that this very country, the constitution and laws of which have been the objects of the highest possible admiration of the wisest men, should be in such a state that but too large a part of the great body of our people, instead of looking up to Heaven with gratitude for being favoured with blessings never before enjoyed by any nation, should be led by their sufferings to regard that very constitution and those very laws with disgust and aversion? Of this unhappy state of things the war, as having been the cause of our financial distresses and difficulties, is in fact the source. But there is nothing in which we are so apt to deceive ourselves as in conceiving that we are capable of estimating the full amount of moral good or evil; short-sighted as we are, there is nothing in which our views are more manifestly narrow and contracted; an important, nay, an awful consideration, which, while it may well encourage to activity in all good, should make us tremble to admit (the slightest speck) the smallest seed of moral evil to pollute our country's soil. But I have been led to expatiate more than I intended on this topic, though merely glancing at some of the most important of the considerations which it presents to the view even of the most superficial observer.

Returning to the consideration of the effect of true religion on the character and conduct of the great man who has been the subject of this inquiry, I am naturally led to remark that there can be no possible occasion on which the application of the principle on which I have been lately speaking would suggest wider scope for our reflection. But if we consider the effect which true religion would have produced either in himself or in others around him, how immense would appear the mass of benefits, in the employment of his time, in the application of his faculties, in the selection of his companions, perhaps, above all, in his giving their just weight to religious and moral principles and character in the exercise of his unlimited patronage, both in Church and State; and considering that every religious and good man, who by him should have been invested with power and influence, would himself have selected others of similar principles and character, throughout the descending series of official appointments, and through all the variety of social occupations, who can say what would have been the effect of these religious and moral secretions, if they may be so termed, which throughout the whole political body would have been gradually producing their blessed effects in augmenting its fulness, symmetry, and strength?[21] And these effects, remember, would have been of a merely public, still less of a merely political character. They would have been, to say the least, full as manifest, and even more fertile in the production of happiness in all the walks of private life and all the varieties of social combination.

In considering the estimates which were formed of Mr. Pitt's and Mr. Fox's characters respectively, more especially in point of what may be called popularity; and also as to their reputation for genius, wit, and classical taste, it should be remembered that Mr. Fox happened to have become connected, both at school and at Oxford, with a circle of men eminent for talents and classical proficiency, men also who were not shut up in cloisters, but who lived in the world, and gave the tone in the highest and most polished societies of the metropolis. Among these were Mr. Hare, General Fitzpatrick, Lord John Townshend; and to these must be added Mr. Windham, Mr. Erskine, and, above all, Mr. Sheridan. Mr. Pitt had also several college friends who came into Parliament about the same period with himself, men of no inferior consideration­—Mr. Bankes, Mr. Eliot, Lord Abercorn, Lord Spencer, and several others. But these, it must be confessed, were by no means men of the same degree of brilliancy as the former set; nor did they in the same degree live in the circle of fashion and there diffuse their own opinions. Again Mr. Fox's political connections were numerous, and such as naturally tended to stamp a high value on his character. Burke, Barré­—for there were those also who though not of Fox's party, often associated with him in private, and tended to sustain the general estimate of his superiority; of these were Gibbon, Lord Thurlow, Dunning, Jeykell.