Chapter IV (1)

More than sixteen years elapse between this letter and the next, which takes us far beyond our present limit, but it is best to finish the story of Ann. Part of this long interval can be explained by extreme harmony, and the remainder by the reverse. The mutual devotion of William and Ann lasted, says Lord Camelford, till he became Paymaster in May 1746: then they quarrelled. Why, no one knows, or, it is to be presumed, will ever know. Horace Walpole only says that Pitt shook his sister off in an unbecoming manner. Camelford thinks that Pitt disliked Ann's friendship for Lady Bolingbroke, and thought that she was under the influence of Bolingbroke himself, 'that tawdry fellow, as Lord Cobham called him.'[76] Pitt, like most other people, except the rare spirits who loved the brilliant being, profoundly distrusted Bolingbroke, and may not have wished to see Bolingbroke influence assume a footing in his house. Perhaps then he remonstrated, perhaps Ann vindicated her friendship with heat. Between these two fiery natures words might be exchanged in a moment which years would not obliterate. Grattan told Rogers that 'Mrs. Ann Pitt, Lord Chatham's sister, was a very superior woman. She hated him, and they lived like cat and dog. He could only get rid of her by leaving his house and setting a bill on it, "This house to let."'[77] If these two Pitts quarrelled in the fierce Pitt fashion, it is not unlikely that some such expedient would be adopted. But it must be doubted whether they lived like cat and dog, else they would have parted long before. Grattan's statement was made in conversation with all the large outline and picturesque latitude that conversation allows, and he probably knew nothing about the matter. We can only surmise. Lord Camelford tells us that up to the time of the Paymastership (1746) William and Ann had lived together in one of the small houses in Pall Mall which look into St. James's Square, and that when he moved to his official residence at the Pay Office he moved alone. But, as a matter of fact, she had left him some time before, and gone to live with Lady Bolingbroke at Argeville. We have a letter from William to Lady Suffolk, dated July 6, 1742, in which he favours the plan of Ann's living with Lady Bolingbroke, so long as is convenient to her hostess, and then returning home. Moreover, Pitt himself in October of this year 1742 was not living in Pall Mall, but had moved to York Street, Burlington Buildings.[78] Ann had formed a mad project of living in Paris as a single woman, which William justly discountenanced. However, she proceeded to Argeville, where George Grenville found her in September. She may have returned to her brother, but she probably remained abroad, and her having been with the Bolingbrokes so long, even with William's sanction, may have made her less welcome to her brother on her return.

In June 1751 she was appointed Keeper of the Privy Purse to the Princess of Wales, and superintendent of the education of the Princess Augusta, afterwards Duchess of Brunswick. She obtained this appointment, we are told, through the interest of Mr. Cresset, the confidential servant and Treasurer of the Princess of Wales, whose authority in the Court soon afterwards gave way to the ascendancy of Lord Bute; though Pitt imagined that here again he could trace the hand of Bolingbroke. 'However,' says Lord Camelford, 'thinking she could be useful to him in so important a post, he sought a reconciliation--he flattered, he menaced, he insulted, but was rejected.'

Of these proceedings two records remain in letters which have already been published, but cannot be omitted here, as they are instinct with passion and light. Whether they answer to Lord Camelford's description must be left to the judgment of those who read them. That they are powerful, tender, and unaffected all must allow. They also contain quotations from the quarrels which are not devoid of interest. Ann had declared that William expected absolute deference and a blind submission to his will; and that he had in several conversations directly explained to her that, to satisfy him, she must live with him as his slave. On this point William admits that he did expect some measure of deference to his views, and that, living together, he thought she might shape her life in some degree to his. This seems to have been the real ground of separation. William wished to be master in his own house. Ann could brook no control. Perhaps the brother may have asked the sister to discontinue or relax her intimacy with the Bolingbrokes, as injurious and inconvenient to him, and Ann, we may guess, would curtly bid him mind his own business. But these are only probabilities.

In the course of these proceedings we learn that William lost his temper, declaring that she had a bad head and a worse heart; for this he humbly begs her pardon.

Another complaint of Ann's is easily explained. She says that William had been talking of the 200_l._ a year that he allowed her. William's answer makes it perfectly clear that he had been reproached with the fact of his sister's destitute condition, and that he had had to explain, in his own defence, that he gave her this income.

Whether Pitt wished for a reconciliation because his sister had become Privy Purse to the Princess of Wales must be judged by the light of his character. It seems more probable that it was because she had returned from abroad, and that he would now meet her constantly in society. In any case, here are the letters. Whatever Pitt's motives may have been, it is clear that Ann, had she not been a vixen, would have gladly accepted the olive-branch offered by her brother, who, still unmarried, wished to be restored to the companionship which had been the joy of his life, 'that friendship which was my very existence for so many years,' 'a harmony between brother and sister unexampled almost all that time.'

(A)

_June 19, 1751. Wednesday morning._

Dear Sister!--As you had been so good to tell me in your note of
Monday that you would write to me again soon _in a manner capable,
you hoped, of effacing every impression of any thing painfull that
may have passed from me to you_, I did not expect such a letter as
I found late last night, and which I have now before me to answer:
without any compliment to you, I find myself in point of writing
unequal enough to the task; nor have I the slightest desire to
sharpen my pen. I have well weighed your letter, and deeply examined
your picture of me, for some years past; and indeed, Sister, I still
find something within, that firmly assures me I am not that thing
which your interpretations of my life (if I can ever be brought to
think them all your own) would represent me to be. I have
infirmities of temper, blemishes, and faults, if you please, of
nature, without end; but the Eye that can't be deceived must judge
between us, whether that friendship, which was my very existence for
so many years, could ever have received the least flaw, but from
umbrages and causes which the quickest sensibility and tenderest
jealousy of friendship alone, at first, suggested. It is needless to
mark the unhappy epoque, so fatal to a harmony between sister and
brother unexampled almost all that time, the loss of which has
embitter'd much of my life and will always be an affliction to me.
But I will avoid running into vain retrospects and unseasonable
effusions of heart, in order to hasten to some particular points of
your letter, upon which it is necessary for me to trouble you with a
few words. _Absolute_ deference and _blind submission to my will_,
you tell me I have often declared to you in the strongest and most
mortifying terms cou'd alone satisfy me. I must here beseech you
cooly to reconsider these precise terms, with their epithets; and I
will venture to make the appeal to the sacred testimony of your
breast, whether there be not exaggeration in them. I have often, too
often reproached you, and from warmth of temper, in strong and plain
terms, that I found no longer the same consent of minds and
agreement of sentiments: and I have certainly declared to you that I
cou'd not be satisfy'd with you, and I could no longer find in you
_any degree of deference towards me_. I was never so drunk with
presumption as to expect _absolute_ deference and _blind submission
to my will_. A degree of deference to me and to my situation, I
frankly own, I did not think too much for me to expect from you,
with all the high opinion I really have of your parts. What I
expected was too much (as perhaps might be). In our former days
friendship had led me into the error. That error is at an end, and
you may rest assured, that I can never be so unreasonable as to
expect from you, now, anything like deference to me or my opinions.
I come next to the small pecuniary assistance which you accepted
from me, and which was exactly as you state it, two hundred pounds a
year. I declare, upon my honour, I never gave the least foundation
for those exaggerations which you say have been spread concerning
it. I also declare as solemnly, before God and man, that no
consideration cou'd ever have extorted from my lips the least
mention of the trifling assistance you accepted from me, but the
cruel reports, industriously propagated, and circulating from
various quarters round to me, of the state you was left to live in.
As to the repayment of this wretched money, allow me, dear Sister,
to entreat you to think no more of it. The bare thought of it may
surely suffice for your own dignity and for my humiliation, without
taxing your present income, merely to mortify me: the demonstration
of a blow is, in honour, a blow, and let me conjure you to rest it
here. When I want and you abound, I promise you to afford you a
better and abler triumph over me, by asking the assistance of your
purse. I will now trouble you no farther than to repeat my sincere
wishes for your welfare and to rejoice that you have so ample matter
for the best of happiness, _springing from a heart and mind_ (to use
your own words) entirely devoted to gratitude and duty.

(B)

_June 20, 1751. Pay Office._

'Dear Sister!--I am this moment returned out of the Country and find
another letter from you. I am extremely sorry that any expressions
in mine to you should make you think it necessary for you to trouble
yourself to write again, that you might convey upon paper to me,
what you would avoid saying in conversation, as disagreeable and
painfull. I believe I may venture to refer you to the whole tenor
of my letter to convince yourself that I had no desire to irritate;
and I assure you very sincerely that the expression, which seems to
have had some of that effect, did not in the least flow from a
thought that you was capable of intending to represent falsely. I
only took the liberty to put it to your candid recollection, whether
the very cause you mention, _strong feelings_ and emotions of mind
attending them, with regard to conversations of a disagreeable kind,
might not have led to some exaggerations of them to your own self. I
verily believe this cause, and this alone may have had some of this
effect: for sure I am, that I never could wish, much less exact that
the object of my whole heart and of my highest opinion and
confidence, thro the best part of my days, could be capable of such
vileness as _absolute_ deference and _blind submission to my will_.
All I wished and what I but late quite despaired of, I took the
liberty to recall to you in my last letter. As to the late
conversation you have thought necessary (since your letter of
yesterday) to recollect, I am ready to take shame before you, and
all mankind, if you please, for having lost my temper, upon any
provocation, so far as to use expressions, as foolish as they are
angry: that you _had a bad head_ will easily pass for the first: and
a worse heart for the last. This you made me angry enough to say:
but this I never was, nor I hope shall be, angry enough to think:
and this, Sister, I am sure you know. As to the other word, which I
am sorry I used because it offended you, I will again beg to appeal
to your recollection, whether it was not apply'd to your forbidding
_me ever to talk to you of every thing that interested you_: and as
_to shaping your life in some degree to mine_, which I believe were
my very words, let me ask you, if you don't know that they were said
in an answer to your telling me _that I had in several conversations
directly explained to you that to satisfy me you must live with me
as my slave_? So much, dear Sister, for the several points of your
letter; which I am sorry to find it necessary to say so many words
upon. I will be with you by nine to-morrow, as that hour seems most
convenient to you: is it impossible I may still find you so
obliging as not to think any more of repaying what I certainly never
lent you, in any other sense than that of giving me a right to your
purse, whenever I should want it, and which you must forego some
convenience to repay?[79]

Whether a reconciliation took place on this occasion or not we have no evidence apart from Camelford's. But if he is to be believed as to William's motives, there was little to be gained by one, for Ann was soon to leave the Court. Her new office 'very soon grew uneasy to her,' says her nephew, 'through the artifices of her royal pupil.' Horace Walpole gives a different account. 'Being of an intriguing and most ambitious nature, she soon destroyed her own prospect by an impetuosity to govern her mistress and by embarking in other cabals at that Court. Her disgrace followed, but without dismissal, on which she had retired to France.'[80]

'It was then,' says Camelford, 'that her brother, then Secretary of State, made a new overture of reconciliation by a letter that you will read, which had too much the appearance of sincerity and disinterestedness not to be gladly accepted.'

Camelford is not particularly careful of his own accuracy or consistency. He had just told us that William sought for a renewal of friendship because Ann would be useful to him at Court: he now has to acknowledge that when Ann was banished from Court he instantly sought reconciliation with more ardour than ever. As regards his accuracy, it need only be noted that the letter to which he alludes is dated from the Pay Office, and despatched more than three years before Pitt became Secretary; a flaw, but not a grave flaw, in a father writing from memory to his son.

Here is the letter, which seems to be in answer to one from Ann, and which is surely as tender and affectionate as the sorest heart of sister could desire:

_Pay Office. Feb. 8. 1753._

Dear Sister,--I shou'd have receiv'd the most sensible satisfaction,
if you had been able to tell me, that the more declared, or new
symptoms of your disorder had been such, as gave you a near prospect
of being quite relieved. believe me Dear Sister, my heart is fill'd
with the most affectionate wishes for your health, and impatient
desire to see you return home well and happy. I never can reflect on
things passed, (wherein I must have been infinitely in the wrong, if
I ever gave you a pain) without the tenderest sorrow: and the
highest aggravation of this concern wou'd be to think, that,
perhaps, you may not understand the true state of my heart towards
you. Heaven preserve my Dear Sister, and may I ever be able to
convince her how sincerely I am her most affectionate Brother:

W. PITT.

I continue an Invalid, and wait for better weather with as much
patience as I can.

This is followed by another letter so humble and so self-reproachful that one can scarcely believe it to be penned by one whose pride was a byeword, and one can certainly not believe it to be the production of crafty and servile selfishness, as Lord Camelford would have us imagine. No brother could approach a sister with more delicacy or warmth of feeling.

_Pay Office. Feb. 27. 1753._

Dear Sister,--I am unable to express the load you have taken off my
heart by your affectionate and generous answer to my last letter: I
will recur no more to a subject, which your goodness and
forgiveness forbid me to mention. the concern I feel for your state
of health is most sensible; wou'd to God, you may be shortly in a
situation to give me the infinite comfort of hearing of an amendment
in it! I hope Spring is forwarder, where you reside, than with us,
and that the difference of climate begins to be felt. I will not
give you the trouble to read any more: but must repeat, in the
fulness of my heart, the warmest and tenderest acknowledgements of
your goodness to,

My Dear Sister, Your most affec Brother
W. PITT.

I continue still a good deal out of Order, but begin to get ground.

The next letter marks a complete removal of tension and the restoration of close and friendly relations. It cannot, alas! restore the easy flow of youth. A score of years have passed, William has been buffeted and tossed and has had to fight hard for his hand; he is besides so much the older. So we find ourselves involved in the fulsome extravagance of his maturer epistles; so much the worse!

_London. April ye 5. 1753._

My Dear Sister,--Nothing can be felt more sensibly than I do the
goodness of your letter, in which you talk to me circumstantially of
your own health, and desire to hear circumstantially of mine. it is
a great deal of Comfort to me to know that you have great hopes of
being better by Mr Vernage's advice; but it wou'd have been an
infinite satisfaction to have heard that you had already found
amendment. May every Day of Spring contribute to the thing in the
world I wish the most ardently! I am infinitely glad that the
concurrent opinions of Physicians of both Countries are the
foundation of expecting the Spa will relieve you: I shall dwell all
I can on this comfortable hope, and beg to hear of any amendment you
may find by better weather and whatever course you now use. I will
now talk of that health you so kindly desire to hear of. I have
been ill all the winter with disorders in my bowels, which have left
me very low, and reduced me to a weak state of health. I am now, in
many respects, better, and seem getting ground, by riding and taking
better nourishment. Warmer weather, I am to hope, will be of much
service to me. I propose using some mineral waters: Tunbridge or
Sunning Hill or Bath, at their proper seasons, as the main of my
complaint is much abated and almost removed, I hope my Horse, warm
weather and proper nourishment will give me health again. the kind
concern you take in it is infinitely felt by, Dear Sister,

Your most affectionate Brother
W. PITT.

The next letter shows that Ann was residing at Blois.

Dear Sister,--I have just receiv'd the pleasure of your letter of 30
April. the Comfort it has given me is infinitely great, and your
goodness in sending me the earliest account in your power of such an
amendment as you now describe is the kindest thing imaginable, May
the fine season, where you are, continue without interruption, and
every Day of it add to the beneficial effects you have begun to
feel! our season here does not keep pace with that at Blois: I am
however much mended in several respects, and have the greatest hopes
given me of removing my remaining disorder by the help of warmer
weather and Tunbridge waters. I have just time to write this line
before dinner, and had I more, I think it best not to trouble you
with long letters. I shall dine upon your letter I am dear Sister

Your most affectionate Brother
_London. May 7th 1753._
W. PITT.

Here intervenes a letter to Mary, in which there is cordial mention of Ann, and an obvious allusion to the escapades of Elizabeth; surely a tender letter from a brother of forty-five to a younger sister.

_Bath. Octr the 20th. 1753._

I am very glad to hear in the Conclusion of my Dear Mary's letter
that she will be under no difficulty in getting to London: my
Brother is very obliging, as I dare say he intends to be in all
things towards you, to make your journey easy and agreeable to you.
I propose being in Town by the meeting of the Parliament; if I am
able: when I shall have infinite Joy in meeting my Dear Sister after
so very long an Absence and seeing Her in a Place where she seems to
think herself not unhappy. if I shou'd be prevented being in Town so
soon, the House will always be ready to receive you. I think you
judge very right not to produce yourself much till we have met:
Mrs Stuart, and my Sister Nedham, if in Town, will be the
properest, as well as the most agreeable Places for you to frequent.
My Dear Child, I need not intimate to your good understanding and
right Intentions, what a high degree of Prudence and exact attention
to your Conduct and whole behaviour is render'd necessary by the sad
errors of others. It is an infinite misfortune to you that my Sister
Ann is not in England: her Countenance and her Advice and
Instructions, superior to any you can otherwise receive, wou'd be
the highest advantage to you. Supply it as well as you can, by
thinking of Her, imitating her worth, and thereby endeavouring to
deserve her esteem, as you wish to obtain that of the best Part of
the World. I can not express how anxious I am for your right
behaviour in all respects, upon which alone your happiness must
depend. whatever assistance my advice can be to You, you will ever
have with the truest affection of a Brother.

Yrs
W. PITT.

The next letter is pregnant enough, written to Ann at Nevers. Their aunt Essex is dead, but her death only lurks in a postscript. For Pelham is dead and Pitt is a cripple at Bath, disabled from proceeding to the capital, where his fate and that of the future administration are being settled. His restless anguish seems to pierce through these few lines. And yet this bedridden invalid was to be a joyful and alert bridegroom before the year was out.

_Bath. March 9th: 1754._

Dear Sister,--I write to you under the greatest affliction, on all
Considerations Private and Publick. Mr Pelham Died Wednesday
morning, of a Feaver and St. Anthony's fire. This Loss is, in my
notion of things, irreparable to the Publick. I am still suffering
much Pain with Gout in both feet, and utterly unable To be carry'd
to London. I may hope to be the better for it hereafter, but I am at
present rather worn down than releiv'd by it: I am extremely
concern'd at the last accounts of your health. I hope you have
Spring begun at Nevers, which I pray God may relieve you.

I am Dear Sister, Your most affectionate Brother,
W. PITT.

My Sister Nedham has been ill of a Feaver here, but is well again.

I have just received an account of Mrs Cholmondeley's[81] Death.

The next letter, a month later, leaves Pitt still at Bath; the gout had almost the lion's share of his life, and we wonder that he accomplished so much under its constant pangs. On this occasion he strains our credulity by the complimentary assertion that he thinks a thousand times more of Ann than of the struggle over Pelham's succession, and his own involved ambition. On all that sordid scramble he kept the fierce, unflinching eye of a hawk, and of a hawk fastened by the talon. Ten days before he wrote this note he had despatched a letter to Newcastle, Pelham's brother and successor, burning with a passion which Ann's ailments could never have inspired. Ann indeed, knowing her William, would smile as she read, and value the extravagance at its worth.

_Bath. April 4th. 1754._

Dear Sister,--The Account you give me of your own health, and the
kind concern you feel for mine, touches me more than I will attempt
to express, tho' I am still at Bath, don't think the worse of my
health, but be assured that I am in a fairer way of recovering a
tolerable degree of it, than I have been in for a long time pass't.
My Gout has been most regular and severe, as well as of a proper
Continuance to relieve, and perhaps quite remove, the general
disorder which had brought me so low. I am recovering my feet and
drinking the waters with more apparent good effects than I ever
experienced from them. I have been out of all the bustle of the
present Conjuncture; and believe me, my thoughts go a thousand times
to Nevers, for once that they go towards London. Nothing in this
world can, in the smallest degree, interest my mind like the
recovery of your health. I wait with very painfull Impatience for
better weather for you, and to hear, that the waters you propose to
take, afford you relief.

I am My Dear Sister's ever most affectionate Brother
W. PITT.

My sister Nedham is well, and went yesterday to Marybone to see her
Sons.

Poor George Stanhope died of a feaver a few days since.[82]

The next, after an interval of six months, is again from Bath, but in a different strain. He is now the happiest of men, about to be united to the most meritorious and amiable of women, whose brothers are already his own in harmony and affection; a happy marriage, but a disastrous, storm-tossed brotherhood, as it was destined to be in the years to come, when rival ambitions would strain the bond to breaking.

There is also an icicle from Lady Hester herself, which embodies the decorous expression of what a young lady of the middle eighteenth century allowed herself to feel when she was going to be married. Even this act of politeness was inspired by William. 'I have writ this night to my poor sister Ann. She is not well enough to return to England this winter. Whenever your excessive goodness will honour her with a letter it will be a comfort to her. If you please to commit it to me I will forward it to her, and bless you a million of times.'[83]

_Bath. Oct. 21st. 1754._

Dear Sister,--The favour of your letter from Chaillot has by no
means answered my eager wishes for your health, and a kind of
distant hope I had formed of your return to England this winter. My
desires to see you are greatly and very painfully disappointed: I
have only to hope that your Stay in France will give you a much
better winter than the last, and may finally restore your health to
you and you to your Friends. I am now, Dear Sister, to impart to you
what I have no longer a prospect of doing, with infinitely more
pleasure, by word of mouth: it is to say, that, your health
excepted, I have nothing to wish for my happiness, Lady Hester
Grenville has consented to give herself to me, and by giving me
every thing my Heart can wish, she gives you a Sister, I am sure you
will find so, not less every other way than in name. the act I now
communicate, will best speak her character, she has generosity and
goodness enough to join part of her best days to a very shattered
part of mine; neither has my fortune any thing more tempting. I know
no Motif she can have but wishing to replace to me many things that
I have not. I can only add, that I have the honour and satisfaction
of receiving the most meritorious and amiable of Women from the
hands of a Family already my Brothers in harmony and affection, and
who have been kindly Contending which of them shou'd most promote my
happiness by throwing away the Establishment of a Sister they
esteem and love so much. When I left Lady Hester ten days ago, She
wish'd to know when I notify'd this approaching event to you, that
She might do herself the pleasure to write to you. when she knows I
have writ, she will introduce herself to you. I propose staying here
about ten days, if my patience can hold out so long. You will wonder
to see a letter on such a subject dated from Bath; but to a goodness
like Lady Hester Grenville's, perhaps, my infirmities and my Poverty
are my best titles.

Your ever affectionate Brother
W. PITT.

LADY HESTER GRENVILLE TO MISS ANN PITT.

May I not hope, Dr Madam, that the situation I am in with your
Brother will dispose you to receive favourably an Instance of the
extreme desire I have to recommend myself to your friendship; and
that You will give me Leave to employ the only means in my Power
from the distance that is between us, of expressing how much I wish
to enjoy that Honour. Every Thing makes me Ambitious of Obtaining so
great an Advantage, and so flattering a distinction. Your Own
peculiar Merit, and the Large share which you possess of Mr Pitt's
Esteem and Affection makes me feel it as an Article important to my
Happiness, and I indulge myself in the pleasure of thinking that you
will not refuse to extend your goodness to a Person whom your
Brother has thought worthy of so convincing a proof of his regard
and Love, and whose sentiments for Him are full of all that the
highest sense of his superior Merit and most amiable qualities can
Inspire. I feel a vanity and a pleasure in being the Object of his
Choice which can be added to by nothing but the happiness of knowing
that you give your Approbation and that you will allow me to flatter
myself You will not be sorry for an Event which will give me the
valued privilege of addressing you the next time, I have the honour
to be thus employ'd, by the endearing name of Sister. Give me leave
to say that I have heard with the greatest regret that your state of
health does not permit you to return to England this winter, and
that I hope as a compensation for the Disappointment your stay will
ensure yr perfect recovery. I commit this Letter to Yr Brs
Care, and trust to Him for conveying it to you, sure that the best
recommendation it can have will be its coming under his protection;
accompanied with Marks of His Partiality; and I hope that you will
believe Dr Madam, that I am with all the esteem possible, and the
highest regard,

Your most faithful and Obed. Humble Servant,
HER: GRENVILLE.

In the next letters Pitt and Lady Hester acknowledge Ann's congratulations. He had, however, moved to London, and amid all these orange-blossoms was forging terrible vengeance on his perfidious chief. Within ten days of his marriage he was making Newcastle and Newcastle's henchmen cower in their offices, though for the present they did not dare oust him from his.

_Pay Office. Nov. 8th. 1754._

Dear Sister,--Your letter of the 1st Novr has given me all that
remain'd to Compleat my happiness, by the affectionate Share you
take in it; and without which, great as it truly is, and shar'd in
the kindest manner by every Thing else I value and love in the
World, it still wou'd have wanted something ever essential to my
Satisfaction. Your Goodness and Friendship has nothing left to give
me: Cou'd the re-establishment of your health but add that most
sensible Pleasure to all I feel, I may call myself happy, as it is
given but to a few to be. Lady Hester Grenville speaks for herself
this Post. my Health is not good, but, as yet, it is not quite bad.
I have gone on with the World (as I cou'd) with much worse.

I am Dear Sister Your most affectionate Brother
W. PITT.

I hope in about a week to say more of my happiness.

Lady Hester's letter is not worth giving; it is prim, decorous, and void.

Pitt and Lady Hester are married on November 16. Lady Hester writes to Ann nine days afterwards a letter full of good feeling stiffened and starched by decorum. Some letters are too improper to print, this is too proper.

Ann was now returning home, and Mary goes to meet her with a note of welcome from William. Lord Camelford says that her health and spirits declined grievously in France, and so her brother, 'though not till after repeated notifications of her distress, sent over a clergyman to bring her back to her family and assist in her journey.' This gives us a test of Camelford's bias in dealing with his uncle. For hear Ann herself, in a letter to Lady Suffolk announcing that she was on her way to England, and had arrived as far as Sens, whence she writes. Speaking of William, she says, 'he continued as he began, as soon as the King had put him in the place he is in, by giving me the strongest and tenderest proof of his affection.... I was so sunk and my mind so overcome with all I have suffered, and I was so mortified and distressed, that I do not believe anything in the world could have made it possible for me to get out of this country, but my brother's sending a friend to my assistance, and choosing so proper a person as Mr de la Porte is in all respects. He has known me and my family for about thirty years, from having been my Lord Stanhope's Governor.' She goes on to refer to 'the virtue and goodness of my friends, particularly of my brother, who has always seemed to guess and understand all I felt of every kind, and has carried his delicacy so far as never once to put me in mind of what I felt more strongly than any other part of my misfortune, which was, how very disagreeable and embarrassing it must be to him to have me in France, You may believe that I will be out of it the first minute that is possible.'

So the fact is that the man, whom Camelford endeavours to depict as having acted with hardness and insensibility on this occasion, displayed in reality incessant and delicate tenderness, according to the grateful acknowledgment of Ann herself. Pitt had just attained his supremacy; this was the most critical epoch of his life; all the year he had been fighting the King and the Court, and this was the moment of victory. Eleven days before Ann wrote this letter he had become for the second time Secretary of State and had begun his great ministry. During this time of strain and anxiety he heard of Ann's illness; he must have felt strongly, though he refrained from mentioning it to her, the irksomeness of her being in France when he was waging war against that kingdom, and so he sent an old family friend to conduct her home. Could brother have done more? Is there not here an anxious and thoughtful affection, distorted grievously by the implacable animosity of the nephew? Camelford is, however, obliged to record that on her arrival she went straight to Pitt's villa at Hayes, 'where, tho' her spirits were still weak, she was surprisingly recovered.'

There is no date to the following note which Mary was to hand to Ann. But as Ann's letter to Lady Suffolk cited above is of July 10, 1757, we cannot be far wrong in placing it somewhat later in the same month. It is indeed perplexing to find another letter to Lady Suffolk dated 'Spa, September 5, 1757.' But the year 1757 is a surmise, and in all probability an incorrect surmise, of the editor. Ann was hastening to England in July 1757, stayed some time at Hayes on her arrival, and is not likely to have been on the Continent again in September.

_Friday Morning._

Dear Sister,--I Can not let my Sister Mary go away without a line to
express my infinite satisfaction to hear you are arrived and that
you find your strength and Spirits in so good a condition. at the
same time let a Veteran Invalide recommend to you, above all things,
to use this returning Strength and Spirits very sparingly at first.
I shou'd be happy to accompany Miss Mary to Rochester, but the
overwhelming business of this Momentous Conjuncture hardly allow
(_sic_) me time to tell you how impatiently and tenderly I wish to
embrace my Dear Sister.[84]

Ann had gone from Hayes to Clifton, as we know from a letter to Lady Suffolk dated June 22, 1758, and thence proceeded to Bath, as we know from another letter dated August 19, 1758. She was restless, as on August 26 she was at Bristol. In all these letters there is not a word that betokens other than kindness and gratitude to her brother; as, for example, on August 19 she writes to Lady Suffolk: 'God grant that the public news may continue to be good, especially from Prince Ferdinand, for the sake of a person whose health and prosperity I wish more than I shall ever tell him.' A week afterwards she takes public occasion to rejoice at his triumphs by furnishing a bonfire and ten hogsheads of strong beer and all the music she could procure. On the other side, we read the letters which the busy statesman found time to write to her, breathing affection and solicitude.

_St. James's Square. Aug. 10th. 1758._

Dear Sister,--I wait with much impatience to hear you are arrived
well at Bath, and that you are lodged to your mind. I will not
entertain any doubts, after having had the satisfaction of seeing
you, that your progression to a perfect recovery will be sensible
every Day, and as soon as you can bear a stronger nourishment, that
Spirits, the concomitants of Strength, will return. as a part of the
necessary regimen, solid nourishment for that busy craving Thing
call'd Mind must have its place, and I know of no mental
Alteratives(?) of power to renovate and brace up a sickly
Constitution of Thought, but that mild and generous Philosophy which
teaches us the true value of the World, and a rational firm
religion, that anchors us safe in the confidence of another. but I
will end my sermon and come to the affairs of the world I am so
deeply immersed in. this day had brought us an account that our
Troops effected their landing, with little Loss, ye 7th and 8th two
Leagues from Cherbourgh, in the face of a pretty considerable
Number, who gave some loose fires and run. I am infinitely anxious
till we hear again, as I expect something serious will ensue. I must
not close my letter without telling you that the most particular
enquiries after your health have been made by the Lady you sent a
Card to, and I, very obligingly reprimanded for keeping your arrival
a secret from Them. Lady Hester shares my Impatience to hear news of
you, and all my sentiments for your health and happiness. our Love
follows dear Mary, whose merits you must, to your great
satisfaction, more and more feel every day.

I am ever my Sister's most affectionate Brother
W. PITT.

_St. James's Square. Sept. ye 12th. 1758._

Dear Sister,--You have now try'd the Bristol waters long enough to
make some judgement of their effects, and I have kept silence long
enough for you to make perhaps a strange judgement of my manner of
feeling for my friends. but feel I certainly do, my Dear Sister, for
all that concerns your health and happiness, how much soever I have
kept it for some weeks past a matter between me and my own
conscience, without giving you the least hint of my truly
affectionate sollicitude on your account. I am extremely inclin'd to
believe Doctor Oliver judges rightly of the first principle of your
disorders; that it is Gout, which aided by the waters of Bath and
proper nourishment may ripen into a salutary tho' painfull crisis.
as I think myself that Languor or perturbation of Spirits are well
exchanged for a degree of pain, I shall heartily wish you joy of
such a revolution in the system of your Constitution. how can I have
got so far in my paper, and not a word of the King of Kings whose
last Glories transcend all the parts? the Modesty of H:P: Majtys
relation, his Silence of Himself, and entire attribution of the
victory to Genl Seidlitz, are of a mind as truely heroick as H.
Majesty's taking a Colours in his own hand, when exhortations
failed, and forcing a disordered Infantery to follow Him or see Him
perish. more Glory can not be won; but more decisive final
consequence we still hope to hear, and languish for further letters
from the Prussian army. My Love to Dear Mrs Mary.

I am ever most affecly Yrs
W. PITT.

Then comes a letter referring apparently to the Battle of Hochkirch:

Dear Sister,--I can not omit writing, tho' but a line, to give you
the satisfaction of knowing that Mr d'Escart will return to France
in a very few days. I am very glad that it has been practicable to
accomplish so soon a thing that will give pleasure to so many of
your Friends. the news from Dresden to day is not very agreable, the
King of Prussia's right wing attack'd sudenly at 4 in the morning
ye 14th, put into disorder, Marshal Keith and Prince Francis of
Brunswick kill'd but the King coming to the Right, the action was
restored and the Austrians repulsed. His Prussian Majesty's Person
so exposed that one trembles: his Horse shot, and a Page and Ecuyer
wounded by his side. a second action seems inevitable: I hope every
thing from it, as this Heroick Monarch's happy Genius never fails
him when he wants it most. I have not a moment more. be assured of
my constant wishes for your health and happiness.

I am Dear Sister Your affectionate Brother
W. PITT.

Loves to Mary.
_Oct. ye 24th._

Ann was now in London on a short visit, for the purpose of attending the Court; but she had designs of her own which appear to be serious, but which give some evidence of the insanity which was always hovering over her.

'I hear my Lord Bath,' she writes, November 10, 1758, 'is here very lively, but I have not seen him, which I am very sorry for, because I want to offer myself to him. I am quite in earnest, and have set my heart upon it; so I beg seriously you will carry it in your mind and think if you could find any way to help me. Do not you think Lady Betty (Germaine) and Lord and Lady Vere would be ready to help me, if they knew how willing I am? But I leave this to your discretion, and repeat seriously that I am quite in earnest. He can want nothing but a companion that would like his company, and in my situation, I should not desire to make the bargain without that circumstance. And though all I have been saying puts me in mind of some advertisements I have seen in the newspaper from gentlewomen in distress, I will not take that method; but I want to recollect whether you did not once tell me, as I think you did many years ago, that he spoke so well of me that he got anger for it at home, where I never was a favourite.'[85]

Never, surely, did a spinster of forty-eight breathe so frankly her aspirations towards a wealthy and avaricious septuagenarian. We may be sure that this freak of fancy was not confided to her brother. But he on his side had a favour to ask of her, on behalf of a puissant personage. Statesmen in those days had to pay their homage to the Court wherever they could find it, and Pitt, who was never loved by George II., could not afford to neglect the influence of Lady Yarmouth. At any rate, he did not, though apparently without success in his ultimate object; and so we find him attempting to neutralise, through Ann, the mischief which might ensue from Lady Betty Waldegrave's letters being attributed by the Court of France to the King's favourite. Lady Yarmouth was in danger of being compromised!

Ann thus describes the negotiation: 'If I had not happened to be sick, I should have been very much pleased with an express that was sent me to give me a commission that I liked to execute, because it relates to a person I am obliged to and have a regard for; it is my Lady Yarmouth who desires me, by my brother, to explain a very disagreeable mistake which has been made in France about a very fond letter, and mighty improper as to politics, which Lady Betty Waldegrave wrote to her husband, unsigned, and having desired the answer might be directed to Lady Y's lodging, they concluded, very absurdly, the letter came from her; and as it was intercepted, it was translated, shown, and commented very impertinently.'

_St. James's Square. Nov. 7th. 1758._

Dear Sister,--I write to you at the desire of Lady Yarmouth, on an
Incident of a particular nature, and which has given her Ladyship
so much uneasiness that it will be a very agreeable office, if you
can contribute, by a letter to some Lady of the Court at Versailles,
to the clearing up of a very odd Qui pro Quo. The matter in question
is as follows. Letters to England from our Army having been taken,
there is amongst them _one_ from Lady Betty Waldgrave to General
Waldgrave _unsign'd_. the writer desires the General will _direct
his letters to Lady Yarmouth at Kensington_. on this ground the
letter in question being attributed, in France, to Lady Yarmouth has
drawn attention, been translated, and handed about, as she is
inform'd, with some mirth at Versailles and Paris. this letter is
return'd, by the channel of Selwyn's House, and Lady Yarmouth finds
it to contain, not only the expressions of a loving wife to a
Husband, but a strain of political reflections, together with
observations on very high Personages in Europe, commanding Armies in
Germany; all which Language cou'd not but bear a very prejudicial
Comment, if really attributed to the Lady, by whose desire I now
write to you. You are the best judge how to acquit yourself of the
Commission you are desired to charge yourself with; whether by
writing to the Dutchess of Mirepoix or any other of your friends. I
can only say, that I perceive Lady Yarmouth will think Herself
obliged to you for such an intervention, in a matter of some
Delicacy, and which might have many possible ill Consequences. if
you shall write in the manner desir'd, and will send your letter
directed to your Correspondent, under Cover to me, I will take care
it shall go in Count Very's packet to Paris.

I rejoice extremely my Dear Sister, at the account of your amendment
in Spirits, since your late attack. keep the ground so hardly won,
and ascend, by courage and perseverance that arduous steep, on the
Summit of which, Health and Happiness, I trust, still wait you. I am
lame in one foot, and much threatened with Gout for some days past;
but I flatter myself that it may blow over, like an Autumnal ruffle.
our Expeditions are, I fear, lame in both Feet. My Messenger is
order'd to wait your full leisure.

I am Dear Sister, Your most affectionate Brother
W. PITT.

Ann appears to have been successful, and receives thanks both from William and the formal Lady Hester.

Dear Sister,--I am desired by Lady Yarmouth to assure you of the
sense she has of your good offices, which she was so good to
accompany with the most obliging expression of regard for you, and
with many wishes for your health. I shall be happy to receive a
favourable account of your situation, and which I flatter myself is
every day mending, and that by a Progression which will soon enable
you to take air and exercise. I am just going to Hayes, for some
hours recess, that I want much.

I am ever Dear Sister Most affly Yrs
W. PITT.
_Saturday morning._

_St. James's Square Tuesday Nov. 14._

Dear Madam,--If I had not for some time past found great
inconvenience from writing I shou'd not have continued so long
Silent where I always find so much pleasure in expressing my
sentiments, but however great my indisposition is from _my
Situation_ to my present employment, I cou'd not refuse a commission
which I had the honour to be charged with today from my Lady
Yarmouth, as I am sure the Subject of it will be a great pleasure
and Satisfaction to you. It was to desire I wou'd return you a
thousand Thanks for your letters, and to assure you that she felt
herself most extremely obliged to you for them, and for the trouble
you had given yourself, with many other expressions of the manner in
which she was sensible of your goodness in what you had done, and
how very agreable it was to Her. I was very sorry to find by your
account of yourself to Mr Pitt that you had had another return of
your bilious Complaint, but we Comfort our selves with the hope of
its having produced the same salutary effects the Last did. We shall
be impatient to have a confirmation of its having had so desirable a
consequence. By Miss Mary's Last Letters both to her Brother and Me
we have flattered ourselves with the pleasure of seeing Her for some
days past, but as yet she has not appeared, which wou'd make us
uneasy but that we conclude if her purpose of Leaving Bath the time
she mention'd had been alter'd from any disagreable Circumstance she
wou'd have apprised us of it. Our Nephew, Mr. Thos. Pitt, desires to
have the permission and pleasure of conveying this to you, as he
intends setting out for the Bath tomorrow in order to wait upon Sir
Richard Lyttelton, whom I wish he may find better than by the
reports which prevail, I fear he has any Chance of Doing. Your
Brother continues as usual overwhelm'd with business, and not
entirely free from some Notices of the Gout, but which yet I flatter
myself will not increase to a fit. He begs his affectionate
Compliments to you, and I that you wou'd forgive both the shortness
and the faults of this Letter, and believe me equally however
exprest

Your very affectionate Sister and Obedient Servant
HES: PITT.

Mr Pitt desires to assure you the Letters were the properest that
cou'd be writ upon the occasion.

Ann, as we learn from the preceding letter, returned to Bath at once. 'Mr Thomas Pitt' (Lord Camelford) brings it to her, and here makes her acquaintance: 'It was there' (at Bath) 'in the year 1759 that I first connected that friendship with her which still leaves so many mixed sensations on my mind.' Ann, it may confidently be said, left mixed sensations on all minds. The next note announces the birth of the young William Pitt.

_Hayes. May ye 28th. 1759._

Dear Sister,--I have the satisfaction to acquaint you, of what you
was so good to wish to hear; Lady Hester was safely delivered of a
Boy this morning, after a labour rather severe, but she and the
Child are, thank God, as well as can be. You will give us a very
real pleasure by good accounts of your own health which we hope is
much better for the journey alone, and that waters will not fail to
be of great assistance towards a perfect recovery. I am

Dear Sister Your most affectionate Brother,
W. PITT.

I can't help mentioning to you the waters and Bath of Buxton: which
for a languid perspiration and obstructions in the smaller vessels,
have done wonders.