Chapter III: Part 3

Penn married in 1672, and took up his abode at Rickmansworth in Hertfordshire. In 1677 we find him removed to Worminghurst in Sussex, which long continued to be his place of residence. His first engagement in the plantation of America was in 1676, in consequence of being chosen arbitrator in a dispute between two Quakers, who had become jointly concerned in the colony of New Jersey. Though nowise concerned, by interest or proprietorship, (until 1681, when he purchased a share in the eastern district of New Jersey,) he took great pains in this business; he arranged terms, upon which colonists were invited to settle; and he drew up the outline of a simple constitution, reserving to them the right of making all laws by their representatives, of security from imprisonment or fine except by the consent of twelve men of the neighbourhood, and perfect freedom in the exercise of their religion: “regulations,” he said, “by an adherence to which they could never be brought into bondage but by their own consent.” In these transactions he had the opportunity of contemplating the glorious results which might be hoped from a colony founded with no interested views, but on the principles of universal peace, toleration, and liberty: and he felt an earnest desire to be the instrument in so great a work, more especially as it held out a prospect of deliverance to his persecuted Quaker brethren in England, by giving them a free and happy asylum in a foreign land. Circumstances favoured his wish. The Crown was indebted to him 16,000_l._ for money advanced by the late Admiral for the naval service. It was not unusual to grant not only the property, but the right of government, in large districts in the uncleared part of America, as in the case of New York and New Jersey respectively to the Duke of York and Lord Baltimore: and though it was hopeless to extract money from Charles, yet he was ready enough, in acquittal of this debt, to bestow on Penn, whom he loved, a tract of land from which he himself could never expect any pecuniary return. Accordingly, Penn received, in 1681, a grant by charter of that extensive province, named Pennsylvania by Charles himself, in honour of the Admiral: by which charter he was invested with the property in the soil, with the power of ruling and governing the same; of enacting laws, with the advice and approbation of the freemen of the territory assembled for the raising of money for public uses; of appointing judges, and administering justice. He immediately drew up and published ‘Some Account of Pennsylvania, &c.;’ and then ‘Certain Conditions or Concessions, &c.’ to be agreed on between himself and those who wished to purchase land in the province. These having been accepted by many persons, he proceeded to frame the rough sketch of a constitution, on which he proposed to base the charter of the province. The price fixed on land was forty shillings, with the annual quit-rent of one shilling, for one hundred acres: and it was provided that no one should, in word or deed, affront or wrong any Indian without incurring the same penalty as if the offence had been committed against a fellow-planter; that strict precautions should be taken against fraud in the quality of goods sold to them, and that all differences between the two nations should be adjudged by twelve men, six of each. And he declares his intention “to leave myself and my successors no power of doing mischief; that the will of one man may not hinder the good of a whole country.”

This constitution, as originally organized by Penn, consisted, says Mr. Clarkson, “of a Governor, a Council, and an Assembly; the two last of which were to be chosen by, and therefore to be the Representatives of, the people. The Governor was to be perpetual President, but he was to have but a treble vote. It was the office of the Council to prepare and propose bills, to see that the laws were executed, to take care of the peace and safety of the province, to settle the situation of ports, cities, market-towns, roads and other public places, to inspect the public treasury, to erect courts of justice, to institute schools for the virtuous education of youth, and to reward the authors of useful discovery. Not less than two-thirds of these were necessary to make a quorum, and the consent of not less than two-thirds of such quorum in all matters of moment. The Assembly were to have no deliberative power, but when bills were brought to them from the Governor and Council, were to pass or reject them by a plain Yes or No. They were to present Sheriffs and Justices of the Peace to the Governor; a double number, for his choice of half. They were to be chosen annually, and to be chosen by secret ballot.” This ground-work was modified by Penn himself at later periods, and especially by removing that restriction which forbade the Assembly to debate, or to originate bills: and it was this, substantially, which Burke, in his ‘Account of the European Settlements in America’ describes as “that noble charter of privileges, by which he made them as free as any people in the world, and which has since drawn such vast numbers of so many different persuasions and such various countries to put themselves under the protection of his laws. He made the most perfect freedom, both religious and civil, the basis of his establishment; and this has done more towards the settling of the province, and towards the settling of it in a strong and permanent manner, than the wisest regulations could have done on any other plan.”

In 1682 a number of settlers, principally Quakers, having been already sent out, Penn himself embarked for Pennsylvania, leaving his wife and children in England. On occasion of this parting, he addressed to them a long and affectionate letter, which presents a very beautiful picture of his domestic character, and affords a curious insight into the minute regularity of his daily habits. He landed on the banks of the Delaware in October, and forthwith summoned an assembly of the freemen of the province, by whom the frame of government, as it had been promulgated in England, was accepted. Penn’s principles did not suffer him to consider his title to the land as valid, without the consent of the natural owners of the soil. He had instructed persons to negotiate a treaty of sale with the Indian nations before his own departure from England; and one of his first acts was to hold that memorable Assembly, to which the history of the world offers none alike, at which this bargain was ratified, and a strict league of amity established. We do not find specified the exact date of this meeting, which took place under an enormous elm-tree, near the site of Philadelphia, and of which a few particulars only have been preserved by the uncertain record of tradition. Well and faithfully was that treaty of friendship kept by the wild denizens of the woods: ‘a friendship,’ says Proud, the historian of Pennsylvania, ‘which for the space of more than seventy years was never interrupted, or so long as the Quakers retained power in the government.’

Penn remained in America until the middle of 1684. During this time much was done towards bringing the colony into prosperity and order. Twenty townships were established, containing upwards of 7000 Europeans; magistrates were appointed; representatives, as prescribed by the constitution, were chosen, and the necessary public business transacted. In 1683 Penn undertook a journey of discovery into the interior; and he has given an interesting account of the country in its wild state, in a letter written home to the Society of Free Traders to Pennsylvania. He held frequent conferences with the Indians, and contracted treaties of friendship with nineteen distinct tribes. His reasons for returning to England appear to have been twofold; partly the desire to settle a dispute between himself and Lord Baltimore, concerning the boundary of their provinces, but chiefly the hope of being able, by his personal influence, to lighten the sufferings and ameliorate the treatment of the Quakers in England. He reached England in October, 1684. Charles II. died in February, 1685. But this was rather favourable to Penn’s credit at court; for besides that James appears to have felt a sincere regard for him, he required for his own church that toleration which Penn wished to see extended to all alike. This credit at court led to the renewal of an old and assuredly most groundless report, that Penn was at heart a Papist—nay, that he was in priest’s orders, and a Jesuit: a report which gave him much uneasiness, and which he took much pains in public and in private to contradict. The same credit, and the natural and laudable affection and gratitude towards the Stuart family which he never dissembled, caused much trouble to him after the Revolution. He was continually suspected of plotting to restore the exiled dynasty; was four times arrested, and as often discharged in the total absence of all evidence against him. During the years 1691, 1692, and part of 1693, he remained in London, living, to avoid offence, in great seclusion: in the latter year he was heard in his own defence before the king and council, and informed that he need apprehend no molestation or injury.

The affairs of Pennsylvania fell into some confusion during Penn’s long absence. Even in the peaceable sect of Quakers there were ambitious, bustling and selfish men: and Penn was not satisfied with the conduct either of the representative Assembly, or of those to whom he had delegated his own powers. He changed the latter two or three times, without effecting the restoration of harmony: and these troubles gave a pretext for depriving him of his powers as Governor, in 1693. The real cause was probably the suspicion entertained of his treasonable correspondence with James II. But he was reinstated in August, 1694, by a royal order, in which it was complimentarily expressed that the disorders complained of were produced entirely by his absence. Anxious as he was to return, he did not find an opportunity till 1699: the interval was chiefly employed in religious travel through England and Ireland, and in the labour of controversial writing, from which he seldom had a long respite. His course as a philanthropist on his return to America is honourably marked by an endeavour to ameliorate the condition of Negro slaves. The society of Quakers in Pennsylvania had already come to a resolution, that the buying, selling, and holding men in slavery was inconsistent with the tenets of the Christian religion: and following up this honourable declaration, Penn had no difficulty in obtaining for them free admission into the regular meetings for religious worship, and in procuring that other meetings should be holden for their particular benefit. The Quakers therefore merit our respect as the earliest, as well as some of the most zealous emancipators. Mr. Clarkson says, “When Penn procured the insertion of this resolution in the Monthly Meeting book of Philadelphia, he sealed as assuredly and effectually the Abolition of the Slave Trade, and the Emancipation of the Negroes within his own province, as, when he procured the insertion of the minute relating to the Indians in the same book, he sealed the civilization of the latter; for, from the time the subject became incorporated into the discipline of the Quakers, they never lost sight of it. Several of them began to refuse to purchase Negroes at all; and others to emancipate those which they had in their possession, and this of their own accord, and purely from the motives of religion; till at length it became a law of the society that no member could be concerned, directly or indirectly, either in buying and selling, or in holding them in bondage; and this law was carried so completely into effect, that in the year 1780, dispersed as the society was over a vast tract of country, there was not a single Negro as a slave in the possession of an acknowledged Quaker. This example, soon after it had begun, was followed by others of other religious denominations.”

In labouring to secure kind treatment, to raise the character, and to promote the welfare of the Indians, Penn was active and constant, during this visit to America, as before. The legislative measures which took place while he remained, and the bickerings between the Assembly and himself, we pass over, as belonging rather to a history of Pennsylvania, than to the biography of its founder. For the same reason we omit the charges preferred against him by Dr. Franklin. The union in one person of the rights belonging both to a governor and a proprietor, no doubt is open to objection; but this cannot be urged as a fault upon Penn: and we believe that it would be difficult to name any person who has used power and privilege with more disinterested views. That he was indifferent to his powers, or his emoluments, is not to be supposed, and ought not to have been expected. He spent large sums, he bestowed much pains upon the colony: and he felt and stated it to be a great grievance, that, whereas a provision was voted to the royal governor during the period of his own suspension, not so much as a table was kept for himself, and that instead of contributing towards his expenses, even the trivial quit-rents which he had reserved remained unpaid: nay, it was sought by the Assembly, against all justice, to divert them from him, towards the support of the government. It is to be recollected that Franklin wrote for a political object, to overthrow the privileges which Penn’s heirs enjoyed.

The Governor returned to England in 1701, to oppose a scheme agitated in Parliament for abolishing the proprietary governments, and placing the colonies immediately under royal control: the bill, however, was dropped before he arrived. He enjoyed Anne’s favour, as he had that of her father and uncle, and resided much in the neighbourhood of the court, at Kensington and Knightsbridge. In his religious labours he continued constant, as heretofore. He was much harassed by a law-suit, the result of too much confidence in a dishonest steward: which being decided against him, he was obliged for a time to reside within the Rules of the Fleet Prison. This, and the expenses in which he had been involved by Pennsylvania, reduced him to distress, and in 1709, he mortgaged the province for £6,600. In 1712 he agreed to sell his rights to the government for £12,000, but was rendered unable to complete the transaction by three apoplectic fits, which followed each other in quick succession. He survived however in a tranquil and happy state, though with his bodily and mental vigour much broken, until July 30, 1718, on which day he died at his seat at Rushcomb, in Berkshire, where he had resided for some years.

His first wife died in 1693. He married a second time in 1696; and left a family of children by both wives, to whom he bequeathed his landed property in Europe and America. His rights of government he left in trust to the Earls of Oxford and Powlett, to be disposed of; but no sale being ever made, the government, with the title of Proprietaries, devolved on the surviving sons of the second family.

Penn’s numerous works were collected, and a life prefixed to them, in 1726. Select editions of them have been since published. Mr. Clarkson’s ‘Life,’ Proud’s ‘History of Pennsylvania,’ and Franklin’s ‘Historical Review, &c. of Pennsylvania,’ for a view of the exceptions which have been taken to Penn’s character as a statesman, may be advantageously consulted.

]

_Engraved by W. Holl._

DE THOU.

_From a Picture by Ferdinand, in the Royal Library, Paris._

Under the Superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.

_London, Published by Charles Knight & C^o. Ludgate Street._
]

DE THOU.

Jacques Auguste de Thou, whom it is no exaggerated praise to call the greatest writer of contemporary history that has appeared since the extinction of Roman literature, was descended of a noble family of the Orleanois; and his immediate ancestors for three generations had filled with honour the higher legal offices of the realm. He was born in Paris, October 9, 1553. His temper was naturally studious; but the extreme weakness of his childhood interfered greatly with the early cultivation of his mind, and almost incapacitated him for severe application. He received, however, the best instruction which Paris could afford, until 1570, when he went to the University of Orleans to study law. Thence he removed to Valence in Dauphiny, to attend the lectures of the celebrated civilian Cujas.

De Thou returned to Paris in 1572, and meaning to take orders, applied himself principally to the study of Greek and of the canon law. In the next year he visited Italy in the train of Paul de Foix, ambassador of France to the Pope and other Italian sovereigns, and employed himself diligently and profitably in cultivating the acquaintance of learned men, and in collecting materials for his history, the design of which he had already conceived. He returned to Paris in 1575, and during four years applied himself chiefly to study, taking various occasions to extend his travels into Flanders and Germany. In 1578 he was appointed Conseiller-clerc to the parliament of Paris, and in 1581, one of a commission sent into Guienne, to provide for the better administration of justice, which had been greatly impeded by religious dissension. Returning to Paris in November, 1582, immediately after the decease of his father, and having become the head of his family by the death of two elder brothers, he determined to abandon the ecclesiastical profession, and exchanged his place of Conseiller-clerc, for the lay appointment of Maître des Requêtes. In 1586 he obtained the reversion of the office of Président à Mortier, held by his uncle Augustin de Thou; and having obtained a dispensation from the ecclesiastical engagements which he had contracted, he married, in 1587, Marie de Barbanson.

When the Parisians embraced the party of the League, in 1588, and Henry III. was obliged to quit the capital, De Thou followed the person and fortunes of the monarch, and received a commission to travel through Normandy and Picardy, to sound the intentions, and, if possible, to secure the adherence of the authorities, civil and military, of those provinces. His services were rewarded by the dignity of Conseiller d’État. In the autumn he was present at the convention of the States at Blois; but he returned to Paris before the murder of the Duke of Guise. He was not informed of the intention to commit that crime; and he believed, from certain peculiarities of behaviour, that the king had sent for him expressly to communicate that intention, but had changed his mind during the course of the interview. In the tumults which took place on the arrival of the news at Paris, De Thou’s life was in considerable danger, until he effected his escape under the disguise of a soldier, and returned to Blois.

De Thou laboured to induce Henry III. to reconcile himself sincerely to the King of Navarre; and being engaged in a journey to raise supplies of men and money in Germany and Italy when the former was assassinated, he returned with all haste to tender his allegiance to the new monarch, Henry IV., by whom he was favourably received, and employed in the most important and confidential negotiations. Of this period of his life, and of its ill requital, he has spoken with considerable bitterness in a letter dated March 31, 1611, to his friend the President Jeannin, and written, it is to be observed, in a moment of considerable mortification, because his claims to the office of First President had been passed over in favour of M. de Verdun. “I remained,” he says, “after returning from Italy, in Henry IV.’s camp for five years, except when commissioned to repair to Tours, where the Parliament was then held, or to visit other parts of the kingdom upon business. At last, after the king was crowned at Chartres, and the surrender of Paris, being restored to my library and my home, I thought myself sufficiently repaid for my labours, in enjoying, with a sound conscience and unstained fidelity to my sovereign, the benefits of the peace, expecting that the king would do something for me, in remembrance of those five years of service in the camp, during which I hardly quitted his side. Throughout that time I was in the greatest need of all things, being deprived of all my means by the war, and having served the whole time at my own cost, without pay or fee. And the king himself used to say that I was very different from other men, inasmuch as I, though a constant loser, made no complaints, while others, who were every day profiting by the public misfortunes, used diligently to complain of their own losses. Which in truth was complimentary enough; but this praise was my only payment for past labours: for the king’s temper changed with his fortune, and I learnt, at my own expense, how fleeting is the favour of princes, and how ready they are in prosperity to forget past sufferings, and to take the mention of them by their fellow-sufferers as a reproach.”

“For two years,” he continues, “nothing was said of me, until the Protestants again made inconvenient demands, and I was selected by the king with full powers to hear their complaints.” These were the disputes which were terminated in 1598, by the publication of the celebrated Edict of Nantes. De Thou was very reluctant to undertake this office, foreseeing that it would involve him in great odium. Nor was he mistaken in this respect. He was a zealous advocate of toleration: and his liberality of spirit, manifested upon this and on other occasions, but most of all in the unsparing impartiality of his History, placed him, though a Catholic, in bad odour at the court of Rome, by whose influence with the Queen Regent, after the death of Henry IV., he was frustrated in the chief object of his ambition, that of succeeding to the office of First President of the Parliament of Paris, which became vacant in 1611. To that of Président à Mortier he had succeeded in 1595, by his uncle’s death. He was deeply mortified at this slight, and meditated the resignation of all his offices: and he has strongly expressed his sense of the weight of his claims, and of the injury done to him by thus overlooking them, in the letter to the President Jeannin, part of which we have just quoted. The first suggestion of pique, however, was overruled by his friends. He was appointed one of the directors-general of finance, after the death of Henry IV., and consequent resignation of Sully, in 1610, and was consulted by the Regent in almost all matters of delicacy and importance. His leisure moments during these last years were devoted to his History, which he did not live to bring down to its intended point of conclusion, the death of Henry IV. He died May 7, 1617, leaving three sons and three daughters by a second marriage: his first wife, childless, died in 1601. The eldest of these, François Auguste de Thou, is known in history by having suffered death with Cinq-Mars, in the reign of Louis XIII., for an alleged conspiracy against the state, the real object of which was the overthrow of Cardinal Richelieu.

In 1593 De Thou was appointed principal librarian to Henry IV.; and by his advice the valuable library of Catherine de’ Medici was purchased, and the foundation was laid of that splendour and importance which the Bibliothèque du Roi has since attained. He had himself brought together a very excellent library, a large part of which has since passed into the royal collection. He was a steady friend and favourer of learning and learned men; a zealous, faithful, and disinterested subject; an able statesman; an upright and enlightened magistrate: and his life, both in public and private, displayed the same undeviating integrity and love of truth, which especially distinguish him as an historian.

De Thou began to write his great work, the History of his own Times, in 1591: but, as has been already stated, he had been engaged from early youth in collecting materials for it, and his own description of the pains which he bestowed on the task, will convey the best idea of his zeal and industry. We quote again from the letter to the President Jeannin. “Having always received great pleasure from the perusal of history, and being of opinion that men are to be formed for happiness by examples, as well as precepts, I came to the conclusion, that by undertaking a history of my own time, beginning where Paulus Jovius left off, I should do what would be useful to my country, and honourable to myself. Resolute in this purpose even from boyhood, I laboured afterwards, in my travels, at the bar, in embassies, in the employments of war and peace, for this one object, that when leisure came for the execution of it, I might have all things necessary to my purpose provided. All printed histories I purchased, unprinted ones I procured to be copied, I consulted the notes of military commanders, the records of embassies, the papers of secretaries to kings. I also acquired a great deal of knowledge from the confidential conversations of illustrious men who were my seniors, and weighed, by their judgment and candour, the contradictory reports of party spirit. Thus prepared, I began to compose my History, while the civil war still raged; and I call on God, who gave me strength and understanding to complete a work of such magnitude, amidst such troubles and employments, to witness my entire and uncorrupted honesty, unswayed either by fear or favour, and that I had no other end in view but the glory of God, and the benefit of the public. In style, eloquence, perspicuity, depth of thought, I confess myself inferior to many: in good faith and diligence I yield to none who have preceded me in this kind of composition; and I refer this point to the judgment of posterity.” He proceeds to speak of his full knowledge that the tenor of the book would involve him in broils and danger, and expresses a wish that he could have published it anonymously. But he was prepared, he adds, to sacrifice court favour, fortune, and his good name with the public, rather than, by an excess of prudence, throw a shade of discredit upon a work which he had composed with such lofty ends, and with so great labour. He was not wrong in his anticipations. It was impossible honestly to write the history of the stormy and profligate times in which he lived, without saying much that would shock religious zeal, offend party spirit, and raise up bitter enemies in those whose misdeeds were openly and unsparingly brought to light and condemned. De Thou, himself a Catholic, recognised the existence of virtue and talent among the Reformers, and exposed the selfish schemes and atrocious cruelties, which had been formed and exercised under the cloak of maintaining true religion. This was enough to bring on him the hatred of those who still clung to the principles of the League, and the enmity of the court of Rome, which in 1609 placed his History in the list of forbidden books, and, as has been said, exerted its influence with success in 1611, to prevent his promotion. In a Latin epitaph, which he composed for his own tomb, after a solemn declaration of his orthodoxy, he demands, as the only favour which he has to ask of men, to be more kindly treated by them after his death than he had been before it. Posterity at least has responded to the appeal, and by its admiration of the very qualities which involved him in his mortifications, has done him ample justice for the jealousy of Rome, and for the lukewarmness of the master whom he had well served through bad and good fortune.

The History is written in Latin: the style is good, but it is disfigured by the affectation not only of Latinizing names, but of expressing modern offices by classical phrases, which of necessity bear a very forced, or no analogy to the things which they are tortured to denote. For instance, it would be difficult to recognise the Constable of France under the title Magister Equitum. This makes the assistance of an explanatory dictionary very requisite, and such a one was published by Jacques Dupuy, in 1634, under the title, Index Thuani. The History is comprised in 138, or, as divided in some editions, into 143 books; and, in the London edition of 1733, fills six ponderous folios. In the relation of foreign affairs, De Thou’s authority is less valuable, for it is stated that he received with little examination the accounts which were transmitted to him from abroad: but for the history of France during the sixteenth century, his work is the standard authority on which later writers have relied. The best and wisest men of all parties have joined, since his death, in according to him the praise of strict integrity and impartiality, a generosity of temper which scorned to suppress or pervert the truth, and great diligence, as well as unusual opportunities, in ascertaining the real course of events. It is not meant to claim for him an entire exemption from the errors of limited information, or the faults of temper and prejudice: defects such as these are incident to all human productions. It is to be observed that the heaviest charges against him on this head have been made by those who were of his own religion.

The first portion of this work was published in 1604, comprising the first eighteen books, with the letter to Henry IV., which serves as a preface. This, which was translated into French, and published separately, has obtained great admiration, as one of the finest specimens extant of this branch of composition. De Thou published the remainder at different times, and superintended several editions. Prudential considerations induced him to make some changes and suppressions, but upon his death-bed he entrusted a perfect manuscript copy to his friends Peter Dupuy and Rigault, with injunctions to publish it. The passages expunged by De Thou himself were subsequently collected and published in Holland, under the title, Thuanus Restitutus. But the most complete edition is that of London, 1733, from the collections and papers of Carte the historian, which were purchased for that purpose by Dr. Mead. This consists of six splendid folio volumes, with a seventh, containing De Thou’s autobiography, and a variety of supplementary pieces. The Eloges of learned men, to the number of 400 and upwards, contained in the History, were extracted and published in a body by Antoine Teissier. The whole has been translated into French.

A doubt has been expressed whether the Latin memoirs which profess to be written by De Thou, proceed from his own pen, or from that of Rigault. They are translated into French, and printed by themselves. They are interspersed with many pieces in Latin verse, which De Thou took pleasure in composing, and wrote with elegance. He composed a poem on Hawking, entitled “Hieracosophion”, and translated the Book of Job, and several portions of the Prophecies. The gleanings of his conversation, extant under the title Thuana, are scarcely worthy of his high reputation.

_Engraved by W. Holl._

LORD CHATHAM.

_From a Print by E. Fisher, after a Picture by R. Brompton_.

Under the Superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.

_London, Published by Charles Knight & C^o. Ludgate Street._
]

CHATHAM.

William Pitt, the first Earl of Chatham, was born in Westminster, November 15, 1708. He was sent to Eton at an early age, and admitted a gentleman-commoner of Trinity College, Oxford, in January, 1726. His father, Robert Pitt, Esq., of Boconnock, in Cornwall, died in the following year, and left to him the scanty inheritance of a younger son. He quitted Oxford without taking a degree; spent some time in travelling on the Continent; and entered the army shortly after his return. He obtained a seat in Parliament for Old Sarum in 1735, and attached himself to the party in opposition, then headed in the lower house by the Pulteneys, and favoured in the upper by the Prince of Wales. His known talents, and his determined hostility, soon drew upon him the anger of Sir Robert Walpole, who is reported to have said, “We must at all events muzzle that terrible cornet of horse.” Failing in this, he had recourse to a method of revenge which would not have been tolerated in later times, and took away Pitt’s commission. For this injury, however, the sufferer received an ample recompense in the increased estimation of the public.

Pitt spoke with great ability and energy, in 1739, against the proposed convention with Spain, and in 1740, against a bill introduced to facilitate the impressment of seamen, containing very arbitrary and oppressive provisions. Many of his speeches have been preserved, to a certain extent, in the periodical works of the day; though it is probable, from the very imperfect mode of reporting which then prevailed, that little remains of their original garb of words. Walpole was compelled to resign in 1742; but, with his usual dexterity, he contrived, by disuniting the opposition, to secure himself from the consequences of an inquiry into his conduct. Pitt spoke with much heat and eloquence in favour of the inquiry; and two of his speeches on this subject are reported at considerable length. He obtained no share in the ministry upon Walpole’s fall, and continued to be a leader in opposition during the years 1742–3–4. More especially he was earnest in reprobation of the Hanoverian policy, which was supposed at that time to have an undue preponderance in our councils: and his pertinacity on this point engendered in the breast of George II. a strong personal dislike, which is said to have prevented his admission into that which was whimsically termed the “broad-bottomed administration,” formed at the close of 1744. In that autumn he received a bequest of £10,000 from the celebrated Duchess of Marlborough, “upon account of his merit, in the noble defence he has made for the support of the laws of England, and to prevent the ruin of his country.”

Pitt was assured by the Pelhams, that as soon as the King’s antipathy could be removed, his services would be secured to the government: and he accordingly received the appointment, of Vice-treasurer of Ireland, February 22, 1746, and, May 6, was promoted to the office of Paymaster-general. In the latter capacity he showed his superiority to pecuniary corruption, by foregoing the profit which it had been usual to derive from the large balances retained in that officer’s hands, and by rejecting other lucrative perquisites of office. But he has incurred the charge of political dishonesty, by supporting measures, as a minister, analogous in character to those which, under former governments, he had so strongly condemned. On this subject we may quote the words of a recent writer on the history of parties in England. “By the absorption into the government of almost all its leaders and chief orators, the opposition was for some time reduced in Parliament to extreme insignificance. Mr. Pitt was now one of the most determined supporters of the very measures which the first ten years of his parliamentary life had been spent in condemning and opposing. Nor did he scruple to avow his change of opinion. In reference, for instance, to the claim of exemption from search for British ships when found near the coast of Spanish America, which, urged by the opposition in the time of Sir Robert Walpole, had involved the country in a war with Spain, and was afterwards abandoned at the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle by the government of which Pitt was a member, he said in the House of Commons that he had indeed once been an advocate for that claim; but it was when he was a young man; he was now ten years older, and having considered public affairs more coolly, was convinced it could not be maintained. In the same manner very much of his old jealousy of military power and of the prerogative appears to have evaporated in the cooler consideration which he had now been enabled to give to such matters. We do not profess to doubt the perfect honesty of Mr. Pitt in this change of sentiment; and we may also think that his more matured opinions were, upon the whole, more rational than those of his fervid and impetuous nonage as a politician; but the facts (which only furnish an instance of what has often happened) are worth recording as a lesson for such as are capable of understanding it.” It is to be recollected, that the remarkable events of 1745–6 may very well have modified Mr. Pitt’s opinions with respect to the maintenance of a standing army.

On the death of Henry Pelham, March 6, 1754, his brother, the Duke of Newcastle, became First Lord of the Treasury. Pitt’s wishes certainly pointed to the office of Secretary of State, vacated by the Duke, but he received no promotion. This was excused on the ground of the King’s personal dislike; but Pitt felt himself aggrieved; and having neither regard nor respect for the prime minister, he gradually placed himself in decided opposition to the government. Still he retained his place as Paymaster, until November 20, 1755, on which day, with his friends Legge and George Grenville, he was dismissed. In opposition, he resumed his former activity; and he had abundant ground for invective against the incapacity which led to those reverses in the Mediterranean, in America, and in India, which raised a general cry of indignation through the country. The Duke tried in vain to strengthen himself, by making overtures of reconciliation to Mr. Pitt, and at last resigned, November 11, 1756. The Duke of Devonshire went to the Treasury, Pitt was made Secretary of State, and Legge and Grenville both were taken into office. This arrangement was short-lived. The King was ill-pleased at the way in which the present ministry had been forced upon him; and he had a personal dislike to some of them, especially to Pitt, and to the first Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Temple, who was dismissed in April, 1757. Upon this Pitt resigned. During the short period of this administration, he had displayed his vigour and decision in originating measures to repair the loss which we had sustained in America; and had endeavoured, but in vain, to save the unfortunate Admiral Byng.

A sort of ministerial interregnum succeeded, and lasted until the beginning of June. The King tried in vain to construct an administration. Meanwhile Pitt was at the height of popularity; and addresses of approbation were showered on him from all parts of the kingdom. At last the King was compelled to recall him; and, after considerable negotiation, he consented to form a government in union with the Duke of Newcastle, whose parliamentary influence conferred on him a degree of importance quite disproportioned to the weakness of his character. Pitt, with the power of Premier, returned to his post as Secretary, and the Duke took the office of First Lord of the Treasury.

Pitt found the country engaged in an unsuccessful war, and hampered with a system of continental alliances, against which he had often directed the full vigour of his eloquence. By pursuing that system he endangered his popularity, and incurred the charge of having sacrificed his principles to his ambition. There is no doubt (and this ought to teach us moderation in our censures), that even honest men, in administration and in opposition, may view the same measures under very different aspects. Objectionable as he had thought and called that policy, he probably persuaded himself that, under existing circumstances, it was inexpedient to change it; and he followed it up with an energy and decision, which at least led to results very different to those which had disgraced the administration of his predecessors. He is reported to have said to the Duke of Devonshire, “My Lord, I am sure I can save this country, and nobody else can;” and the success which attended him made good one half at least of the boast. France was alarmed by frequent, and, on the whole, successful descents upon her shores; our connexion with Frederic of Prussia was strengthened and improved; the plans for the expulsion of the French from North America, which Pitt had formerly conceived, were now carried into effect; and the result of his judgment in selecting officers for foreign service, and of his indefatigable care that no preliminary steps were neglected at home, was seen in those various successes which were crowned by the glorious capture of Quebec, and the ultimate cession of Canada by the French. In three years he raised England from depression and despondency into a situation to give laws to Europe; and during that time he converted into confidence and favour that obstinate dislike with which George II. had so long regarded him. But with the accession of George III., October 25, 1760, a new favourite, Lord Bute, rose into power. Pitt continued at the head of administration for a time, but he found that his counsels had ceased to be the mainspring of government; and having been outvoted in the cabinet when he urged the necessity of immediately declaring war against Spain, he resigned, October 5, 1761, to use his own words, “in order not to remain responsible for measures which he was no longer allowed to guide.” The King bestowed on him a pension of 3000_l._, and raised his wife to the rank of Baroness Chatham.

Not many months elapsed before the new ministers found it absolutely necessary to declare war against Spain, the very point upon which Pitt had resigned. A general peace was effected by the treaty of Paris, signed February 10, 1763, by which Canada and other French possessions in North America were ceded to England. Pitt inveighed strongly, more strongly perhaps than was quite fair and candid, against the terms of this treaty; but he took no active part to overthrow the existing administration. In August, 1763, the King made overtures to induce him to return to office; and it is not very clearly known upon what account this negotiation failed. When Wilkes’s case brought forward the question of general warrants, Pitt took a strong part in condemning the use of them. In January, 1765, he received a second uncommon testimony of respect for his public conduct from Sir William Pynsent, an aged baronet of ancient family in Somersetshire, who, dying, bequeathed to him his property, to the amount of nearly 3000_l._ a year.

To the scheme for raising a revenue in America, Mr. Pitt was very strongly opposed. Illness prevented his attendance in the House of Commons when that scheme was first brought forward; but in his speech on the meeting of parliament, January 14, 1766, after tidings of the disturbances in America had been received, he declared his opinion in the strongest terms. “It is a long time, Mr. Speaker, since I have attended in parliament. When the resolution was taken in the House to tax America, I was ill in bed. If I could have endured to have been carried in my bed, so great was the agitation of my mind for the consequences, I would have solicited some kind friend to have laid me down on this floor, to have borne my testimony against it.... It is my opinion that this kingdom has no right to lay a tax upon the colonies. At the same time I assert the authority of this kingdom over the colonies to be sovereign and supreme in every circumstance of government and legislation whatsoever.” He recommended that the Stamp Act should be repealed absolutely and immediately, but that the repeal should be accompanied with an assertion of the sovereign power of this country over the colonies, couched in the strongest terms that could be devised, in every point whatsoever, except that of taking their money out of their pocket without their consent. These declarations coincided with the policy of the Marquis of Rockingham, who had been summoned by the King to form an administration in July, 1765, and who, without any fault on his side, was involved in all the difficulties and dangers which resulted from his predecessor’s ill-judged scheme for taxing America. Mr. Pitt had previously been applied to, but declined taking office upon the terms proposed; and he showed a coolness towards the Rockingham administration, which appears to have been uncalled for by any difference in their political opinions, and which, as far as we can conjecture from the course of events, was very prejudicial to the country. Disliked by the King, slighted by Mr. Pitt, whose influence in the nation was at this time at its height, harassed by a powerful opposition which regarded it base to yield to the demands of America, the Rockingham government rather fell to pieces than was broken up, little more than a year after its formation; and Mr. Pitt reached the utmost limit of ambition in being commissioned by the King to form a ministry, without the smallest limitation as to terms, in July, 1766.

Whatever gratification he may have felt at the moment, this high position added neither to his glory nor his happiness. It led in the first place to a violent quarrel with his most intimate friend and political associate, Lord Temple, who felt himself slighted by Mr. Pitt’s arrangements. Many of the most important persons, whose support he desired, felt aggrieved by his past conduct, or were offended by the haughtiness of his demeanour: Lord Rockingham, in particular, refused even to grant him an interview. And when the government was formed at last, it was of that ill-assorted and motley character which led Burke, in an often-quoted passage of his great speech on American taxation, to describe it as a “tesselated pavement without cement.” The Duke of Grafton was placed at the Treasury, and for himself Pitt took a peerage and the Privy Seal. The astonishment of every body at this was extreme. Lord Chesterfield says, “Mr. Pitt, who had a carte blanche given him, named every one of them (the new ministry); but what would you think he named himself for?—Lord Privy Seal, and (what will astonish you as it does every mortal here) Earl of Chatham. The joke here is, that he has had a fall up stairs, and has done himself so much hurt that he will never be able to stand upon his legs again. Every body is puzzled how to account for this step; though it would not be the first time that great abilities have been duped by low cunning. But, be it what it will, he is now certainly only Earl of Chatham, and no longer Mr. Pitt in any respect whatever. Such an event, I believe, was never heard nor read of. To withdraw in the fullness of his power, and in the utmost gratification of his ambition, from the House of Commons (which procured him his power, and which could alone insure it to him), and to go into that hospital of incurables, the House of Lords, is a measure so unaccountable, that nothing but proof positive could have made me believe it; but true it is.”

At this time often recurring paroxysms of gout had greatly shattered Lord Chatham’s constitution, and incapacitated him for that comprehensive superintendence over the affairs of government which he had exercised during his former glorious administration. Surrounded by a disjointed set of men, fluctuating in opinion, attached neither to each other nor to their chief, it was more than ever necessary that the master-hand should retain its wonted dexterity and power. But the case was very different. During the whole session of Parliament in 1767, Lord Chatham was prevented from attending to business by illness; and after the rising of Parliament he was compelled to inform the King, that “such was his ill state of health, that his Majesty must not expect from him any further advice or assistance in any arrangements whatever.” This declaration may be considered as equivalent to a resignation; but unfortunately he continued nominally in office until October 15, 1768, lending the sanction of his great name to a course of policy the reverse of that which he had advocated, especially in regard of the renewal of the attempt to tax America. On this subject Mr. Thackeray remarks, “A greater contrast in the feelings of the Cabinet and of the nation upon the present resignation of Lord Chatham, to those which were evinced upon his dismission from office in 1757, and upon his retirement in 1761, can hardly be imagined. His dismission in 1757 excited one common cry of enthusiastic admiration towards himself, and of indignation against his political opponents. The attention, not only of Great Britain, but of the whole of Europe, was attracted by his resignation in 1761; and, although the voices of his countrymen were not so universally united in his favour as upon the former occasion, the event was considered as affecting the interests of nations in the four corners of the globe. The resignation of Lord Chatham in 1768 was in fact nothing more than the official relinquishment of an appointment in which he had long ceased to exercise his authority, or to exert his abilities. It was expected by the ministry, it was little regarded by the people of Great Britain, it was almost unknown on the Continent of Europe.”

Repose soon wrought a favourable change in Lord Chatham’s health, for in 1770 he led the opposition in the House of Lords. The proceedings in the House of Commons against Mr. Wilkes formed the principal topic of his first attack: but he warned the House against the fatal tendency of the attempts to raise a revenue in America; and he took occasion, at an early period of the session, to express his belief of the necessity of introducing some reform into the representation of the people, and to proclaim his cordial reconciliation and union with the Rockingham party. At the end of January, to the general surprise, the Duke of Grafton resigned; and Lord North succeeding him, formed the first durable administration which had existed since the death of Henry Pelham. During the years 1771, 1772, 1773, and 1774, Lord Chatham very seldom appeared in Parliament. At the beginning of 1775, he made two vain attempts to induce the government to offer overtures of reconciliation to America: but during the greater part of that year, and the whole of 1776, the shattered state of his health prevented him from taking any part in public affairs. May 30, 1777, he came down to the House swathed in flannel, to move an address imploring the King to take the most speedy and effectual measures for putting a stop to hostilities in America, by removing the accumulated grievances of that country: and predicted, with his usual energy and eloquence, the certain results of the conduct which we were pursuing. “You may ravage, you cannot conquer; it is impossible, you cannot conquer the Americans. You talk of your numerous friends to annihilate the Congress, and of your powerful forces to disperse their army. I might as well talk of driving them before me with this crutch. What you have sent there are too many to make peace, too few to make war. If you conquer them, what then? You cannot make them respect you, you cannot make them wear your cloth: you will plant an invincible hatred in their breasts against you. Coming from the stock they do, they can never respect you.” The events of that year, the capture of Philadelphia, and the surrender of Burgoyne, fully justified his predictions. These events had not been announced in England in November, when Parliament again met; but in the debate on the Address on the 18th, Lord Chatham again raised his warning voice to predict the certain failure of the contest in which we were engaged. “I love and honour the English troops: I know their virtues and their valour: I know they can achieve anything except impossibilities; and I know that the conquest of English America is an impossibility. You cannot, I venture to say it, you cannot conquer America.” His speech on this occasion fortunately is very fully reported, and the records of our Parliament contain none more eloquent.