William Pitt the Younger: A Biography

by William Hague

  Pitt’s compelling power of argument was one reason his maiden speech made such an impression. Perhaps a still greater reason was his manner, confidence and voice. The great parliamentary diarist Sir Nathaniel Wraxall commented:

  Sanguine as might be the opinions entertained of his ability, he far exceeded them; seeming to obtain at his outset that object which other candidates for public fame or favour slowly and laboriously effect by length of time and regular gradation … It was in reply to Lord Nugent that Pitt first broke silence from under the gallery on the Opposition side of the House. The same composure, self possession, and imposing dignity of manner which afterwards so eminently characterised him when seated on the Treasury Bench distinguished him in this first essay of his powers, though he then wanted three months to have completed his twenty second year. The same nervous, correct, and polished diction, free from any inaccuracy of language or embarrassment of deportment, which, as First Minister, he subsequently displayed, were equally manifested by him on this occasion. Formed for a popular assembly, he seemed made to guide its deliberations from the first moment that he addressed the Members composing it.

  Pitt’s speech, he said, ‘impressed more from the judgement, the diction, and the solemnity that pervaded and characterised it, than from the brilliancy or superiority of the matter … He seemed to possess himself as much as though he had pronounced the speech in his own closet; but there was no display of studied or classic images in any part of it; nothing gaudy, superfluous, or unnecessary.’20

  Ministers and opposition leaders were unanimous and generous in their praise. Lord North declared it ‘the best first speech he ever heard’.21 Burke exclaimed that Pitt ‘was not merely a chip off the old “block”, but the old block itself’.22 Above all, Charles James Fox appeared to be ecstatic at the emergence of such an eloquent figure on the opposition side of the House. Horace Walpole reported:

  Mr. Pitt’s first speech, brilliant and wonderful as it was, was scarcely more remarkable than the warmth and generosity with which Mr. Fox greeted the appearance and extolled the performance of his future rival. Incapable of jealousy, and delighted at the sudden display of talents nearly equal to his own, he hurried up to the young Member to compliment and encourage him. As he was doing so, an old Member of the House (I think a General Grant) passed by them and said, ‘Aye, Mr. Fox, you are praising young Pitt for his speech. You may well do so; for, excepting yourself, there’s no man in the House can make such another; and, old as I am, I expect and hope to hear you both battling it within these walls as I have done your fathers before you.’ Mr. Fox, disconcerted at the awkward turn of the compliment, was silent and looked foolish; but young Pitt, with great delicacy, readiness, and felicity of expression, answered, ‘I have no doubt. General, you would like to attain the age of Methusaleh [sic].’23

  Pitt knew that his maiden speech had been a success, and when he wrote to his mother the next day his pleasure in it was only just under the control of his usual modesty:

  I know you will have learnt that I heard my own Voice yesterday; and the Account you have had would be in all respects better than any 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. You will, I dare say, wish to know more particulars than I fear I shall be able to tell you, but in the meantime you will, I am sure, feel somewhat the same Pleasure that I do in the encouragement, however unmerited, which has attended this first Attempt.24

  Fortunately the younger Pitt’s parliamentary speeches are more extensively recorded than those of his father. The reporting of parliamentary proceedings was forbidden earlier in the eighteenth century, but in 1771 this rule had been shown to be unenforceable after the City of London magistrates proposed only nominal fines on several writers who had been in the Public Gallery and written accounts in the newspapers. By the time of Pitt’s entry to Parliament the reporting of speeches was therefore in effect allowed, but no provision was made for the reporters, who had to compete with everyone else to get into the Gallery and then strain to hear above the noise. Unless the account was supported by a text issued by the speaker, something only furnished by Pitt three times in twenty-five years, the reports were often unreliable, incomplete, or biased. Nevertheless we know most of the content of Pitt’s speeches, including the two interventions he made in debates before the House rose for the 1781 summer recess. His speeches of 31 May and 12 June followed up the success of his maiden speech and confirmed, albeit in a thinner House, the impression he had already made. On the first occasion, the debate was about a government Bill to appoint Commissioners of Public Accounts. Fox and Pitt rose to speak simultaneously when Lord North sat down, and Fox, who at this stage was going to any lengths to draw Pitt into his circle of friends, gave way for Pitt to speak. Once again he made a forceful argument, telling the Commons that it alone had the right to hold the strings of the national purse, and ‘to delegate this right … is a violation of what gives them their chief consequence in the legislature, and what, above all other privileges, they cannot surrender or delegate without a violent breach of the constitution’. And once again he showed a mastery of detail, as Horace Walpole recounted: ‘the Young William Pitt has again displayed paternal oratory. The other day, on the commission of accounts, he answered Lord North, and tore him limb from limb. If Charles Fox could feel, one should think such a rival, with an unspotted character, would rouse him. What if a Pitt and Fox should again be rivals …’25 William Wilberforce thought the same, as he wrote to a friend in Hull: ‘The papers will have informed you how Mr. William Pitt, second son of the late Lord Chatham, has distinguished himself. He comes out as his father did, a ready made orator, and I doubt not but I shall one day or other see him the first man in the country. His famous speech, however, delivered the other night did not convince me, and I stayed in with the old fat fellow [Lord North].’

  Pitt’s other speech of the summer does genuinely seem to have been unpremeditated. Fox had moved a motion for the conclusion of immediate peace with the Americans, and in the ensuing debate two Members claimed that Chatham had really been in sympathy with the war. Pitt was provoked to intervene with a speech of his own, and Wraxall recorded what happened:

  Pitt attempted to justify and explain that line of opinion attributed to his noble relation … he denied that his father had ever approved of the war commenced with America which, on the contrary, he had condemned, reprobated, and opposed in every stage. After thus throwing a shield over the memory of his illustrious parent, and rescuing him from the imputation of having countenanced or supported coercive measures for the subjugation of the colonies beyond the Atlantic, he then diverged with equal vehemence and majesty of expression to the topic immediately before the assembly. Referring to the epithet of holy which Lord Westcote had given to the contest, he declared that he considered it as unnatural, accursed, and unjust, its traces marked with persecution and devastation, depravity and turpitude constituting its essence, while its effects would be destructive in the extreme. The English language seemed inadequate fully to express his feelings of indignation and abhorrence, while stigmatising the authors of so ruinous a system. As a specimen of parliamentary eloquence, it unquestionably excelled his two preceding speeches, leaving on his audience a deep impression, or rather conviction, that he must eventually, and probably at no remote distance of time, occupy a high situation in the councils of the Crown, as well as in the universal estimation of his countrymen.

  Dundas, who rose as soon as Pitt sat down, seemed to be thoroughly penetrated with that truth, and by a sort of a political second sight appeared to anticipate the period when this new candidate for office would occupy the place on the Treasury bench then filled by his noble friend in the blue ribband [Lord North].26

  Dundas indeed, while as usual that night defending both his colleagues and the war, was coming to have great respect for t
he eloquent young figure on the opposition benches. He wound up the debate without creating any animosity between himself and Pitt, and went out of his way to compliment him on ‘so happy an union of first-rate abilities, high integrity, bold and honest independence of conduct, and the most persuasive eloquence’.27 The foundations of a formidable alliance were being laid.

  At the end of the debate the government won the vote by 172 to ninety-nine. It was indicative of how the political atmosphere had improved for the North administration as the year had gone on. Government optimism about the war was high, with Lord George Germain writing on 7 March: ‘So very contemptible is the rebel force now in all parts, and so vast is our superiority everywhere, that no resistance on their part is to be apprehended that can materially obstruct the progress of the King’s arms in the speedy suppression of the rebellion.’28 North was back in control of the Commons, with his majorities increasing through the spring and summer as the independents went home and the opposition was able to rely only on its most partisan supporters.

  Pitt’s attacks had not brought down the government – far from it – but they had impressively launched his own career. As well as enjoying himself in the Commons at this time, his social life was busy and fun. He became a member of Brooks’s Club in February 1781 after being proposed by an eager Charles James Fox, but he kept his distance and characteristically preferred the company of a small circle of intimate friends. He became a member of Goostree’s, a small club on Pall Mall which in 1780 was effectively taken over by Pitt and some of his friends. The old friends from Cambridge were there, Pratt, Bankes, Euston and Edward Eliot, along with Pitt’s elder brother and his cousin William Grenville. But there were also new friends: Richard Pepper Arden, who would later serve in Pitt’s governments; Robert Smith, whom he would send to the Lords as the first Lord Carrington; Thomas Steele; and William Wilberforce, the wealthy son of a banker who owned an estate in Yorkshire and had just spent a small fortune ensuring his own election for Hull. Wilberforce adored Pitt’s company:

  He was the wittiest man I ever knew, and what was quite peculiar to himself, had at all times his wit under entire control. Others appeared struck by the unwonted association of brilliant images; but every possible combination of ideas seemed present to his mind, and he could at once produce whatever he desired. I was one of those who met to spend an evening in memory of Shakespeare at the Boar’s Head, East Cheap. Many professed wits were present, but Pitt was the most amusing of the party, and the readiest and most apt in the required allusions.29

  At Goostree’s the young friends drank and discussed politics, in effect moving the familiar dining atmosphere of Cambridge into Pall Mall. This was already Pitt’s favourite way of spending an evening, and it would remain so throughout his life, but, as ever, he had a clear sense of what he must not get drawn into. Gambling was highly fashionable, and Wilberforce was wealthy enough to indulge in it with gusto. Pitt lacked wealth, but not self-discipline. Wilberforce noted: ‘We played a good deal at Goostree’s, and I well remember the intense earnestness which Pitt displayed when joining in those games of chance. He perceived their increasing fascination, and soon after suddenly abandoned them forever.’

  When Parliament rose for the summer Pitt returned to his legal practice on the Western Circuit to earn a little money. At the end of August he wrote to William Meeke: ‘I have this circuit amassed the immense sum of thirty guineas without the least expense either of sense or knowledge … I shall return to town with the fullest intention of devoting myself to Westminster Hall and getting as much money as I can, notwithstanding such avocations as the House of Commons, and (which is a much more dangerous one) Goostree’s itself. Adieu.’ It is not surprising that he expected for some time to be practising as a lawyer while occasionally speaking in the House of Commons against a government that had once again recovered its poise and seemed destined to continue in office. Yet even as he wrote, more than three thousand miles away in the marshes and woodlands of Virginia, George Washington’s troops were closing in on a trapped British army. The outcome would shatter the hopes of the King and his Ministers and begin more than two years of political convulsions. It would be a time of crisis which would only be ended by the rise to power of Pitt himself.

  * * *

  *This is the origin of the layout of the House of Commons to this day, although the current Chamber was built on a different location within the new Palace of Westminster after the fire of 1834, and rebuilt after being bombed in 1941.

  *Lords could be Members of the House of Commons if they held Irish or Scottish peerages or a courtesy title. Lord North, for instance, was heir to the Earldom of Guilford, and went on to the House of Lords when he succeeded to this title in due course.

  5

  Death of Two Governments

  ‘The enemy carried two advanced redoubts by storm … my situation now becomes very critical; we dare not show a gun to their old batteries, and I expect that their new ones will open tomorrow morning … the safety of the place is therefore so precarious that I cannot recommend that the fleet and army should run great risque in endeavouring to save us.’

  LORD CORNWALLIS, 15 OCTOBER 1781

  ‘Those persons who have for some time conducted the public affairs are no longer His Majesty’s Ministers.’

  LORD NORTH, 20 MARCH 1782

  MUCH OF THE FIGHTING between British troops and American colonists had been concentrated in and around the northern American states, but at the end of 1779 the British Commander-in-Chief, Sir Henry Clinton, had embarked on a new strategy. By launching a sudden offensive in the Deep South, the British would take the Americans by surprise, encourage what was believed to be a large number of colonists in that area still loyal to the Crown, and do so before further French reinforcements could arrive in the course of 1780. Landing in the Carolinas with 7,600 men early in the new year, Clinton accomplished his initial objectives. With the capture of Charleston after a protracted siege in May, he dealt a heavy blow to the rebels. In the summer he returned to his principal base in New York, leaving four thousand British troops in the south under the command of Lord Cornwallis, a rival general with whom Clinton’s relations were severely strained.

  For much of the next year, the American war seemed to have sunk into stalemate. Where fighting took place, the British were generally the technical victors, but this rarely improved their ability to hold on to territory, since lines of communication were so difficult; neither did it bring the war any nearer to a conclusion, as most of the population remained hostile. The operations conducted by Cornwallis in the south were a good example of this. A full year of manoeuvring and skirmishes culminated in the Battle of Guilford Courthouse in North Carolina in March 1781, where Cornwallis inflicted severe losses on the Americans but his own army was left too weak to follow up the advantage. The American General he defeated, Nathanael Greene, commented, ‘We fight, get beat, rise, and fight again.’

  Complacency and confusion brought the ruin of British strategy in the summer of 1781. Clinton was afraid that the Americans under George Washington and the French forces under Lafayette would combine against him in New York. As a result he was unwilling to send any reinforcements to Cornwallis, and sometimes asked for troops to be sent back. In addition, Clinton believed, on the basis of intelligence reports, that 1781 would be the last year in which France would make any serious effort to help the Americans, and that consequently there was a good deal to be said for simply sitting tight. The summer passed with confusing and bad-tempered messages being sent back and forth between Clinton and Cornwallis: the confusion was compounded not only by Clinton’s uncertain instructions to his subordinate, but also by his messages sometimes arriving in the wrong order.

  Clinton’s caution was to lead to catastrophe. Washington and Lafayette were not combining against him in the north-east, but against Cornwallis as he marched north through Virginia, and their decision to do so would bring them final victory in the war. At the beginning of Octobe
r 1781, as he fortified the town of Yorktown on Chesapeake Bay, Cornwallis had fewer than nine thousand troops to face at least 16,000 French and Americans. Within days his position was desperate, and on 15 October he wrote to Clinton: ‘the safety of the place is therefore so precarious that I cannot recommend that the fleet and army should run great risque in endeavouring to save us’.1 Clinton now realised the gravity of the position: ‘I see this in so serious a light that I dare not look at it’.

  On 17 October Clinton belatedly set sail from New York with a fleet and a small army to relieve the siege of Yorktown. Five days later they arrived at the approaches to Chesapeake Bay, where they came across a small boat carrying three people who told them that the battle was already over. On the very day that the relieving force had left New York, Cornwallis had surrendered. The ships turned round and headed back to New York. The war was lost.2

  Across the Atlantic, Members of Parliament had no inkling that the war was approaching its climax. After spending the summer on the Western Circuit Pitt passed some weeks with his mother at Burton Pynsent, where the visitors included Pretyman. A letter to his mother written from Dorset gives us some insight into his life at the time, and a reminder of his dislike of society parties:

  Kingston Hall, Oct. 7, 1781.

  My Dear Mother

  I have delayed writing to you longer than I intended, which I hope is of little Consequence, as Harriot will have brought you all the News I could have sent – an account of that stupid Fête at Fonthill,* which, take it all together, was, I think, as ill imagined, and as indifferently conducted, as anything of the sort need be … By meeting Lord Shelburne and Lord Camden, We were pressed to make a second Visit to Bowood, which, from the addition of Colonel Barré and Mr. Dunning, was a very pleasant party. – Since that Time I have been waging war, with increasing success, on Pheasants and Partridges – I shall continue Hostilities, I believe, about a week longer, and then prepare for the opening of another sort of campaign in Westminster Hall. Parliament, I am very glad to hear, is not to meet till the 27th of Novr, which will allow me a good deal more leisure than I expected.3