William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham

The Right Honourable William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham (15 November 1708–11 May 1778) was a British Whig statesman who achieved his greatest fame as war minister during the French and Indian War and who was later Prime Minister of Great Britain. He is often known as William Pitt the Elder to distinguish him from his son William Pitt the Younger who served as Prime Minister from 1783-1801 and from 1804 to his death in 1806.

The dissolution of the ministry

The first and most important of a series of changes which ultimately led to the dissolution of the ministry was the death of George II on 25 October 1760, and the accession of his grandson, George III. The new king had, as was natural, new counsellors of his own, the chief of whom, Lord Bute, was at once admitted to the cabinet as a secretary of state. Between Bute and Pitt there speedily arose an occasion of serious difference.

Related Topics:
25 October - 1760 - George III - Lord Bute

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The existence of the so-called family compact by which the Bourbons of France and Spain bound themselves in an offensive alliance against England having been brought to light, Pitt urged that it should be met by an immediate declaration of war with Spain. To this course Bute would not consent, and as his refusal was endorsed by all his colleagues save Temple, Pitt had no choice but to leave a cabinet in which his advice on a vital question had been rejected.

Related Topics:
Bourbons - Temple

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On his resignation, which took place in October 1761, the King urged him to accept some signal mark of royal favour in the form most agreeable to himself. Accordingly he obtained a pension of £3000 a year for three lives, and his wife, Lady Hester Grenville, whom he had married in 1754, was created Baroness Chatham in her own right. In connexion with the latter gracefully bestowed honour it may be mentioned that Pitt's domestic life was a singularly happy one.

Related Topics:
October - 1761 - Hester Grenville - 1754 - Baroness Chatham

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Pitt's spirit was too lofty to admit of his entering on any merely factious opposition to the government he had quitted. On the contrary, his conduct after his retirement was distinguished by a moderation and disinterestedness which, as Burke has remarked, "set a seal upon his character." The war with Spain, in which he had urged the cabinet to take the initiative, proved inevitable; but he scorned to use the occasion for "altercation and recrimination," and spoke in support of the government measures for carrying on the war.

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To the preliminaries of the peace concluded in February 1763 he offered an indignant resistance, considering the terms quite inadequate to the successes that had been gained by the country. When the treaty was discussed in parliament in December of the preceding year, though suffering from a severe attack of gout, he was carried down to the House, and in a speech of three hours' duration, interrupted more than once by paroxysms of pain, he strongly protested against its various conditions.

Related Topics:
Peace - 1763 - December - Paroxysm

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The physical cause which rendered this effort so painful probably accounts for the infrequency of his appearances in parliament, as well as for much that is otherwise inexplicable in his subsequent conduct. In 1763 he spoke against the obnoxious tax on cider, imposed by his brother-in-law, George Grenville, and his opposition, though unsuccessful in the House, helped to keep alive his popularity with the country, which cordially hated the excise and all connected with it. When next year the question of general warrants was raised in connexion with the case of Wilkes, Pitt vigorously maintained their illegality, thus defending at once the privileges of Parliament and the freedom of the press.

Related Topics:
1763 - Tax - Cider - George Grenville - Excise - General warrant - Wilkes - Freedom of the press

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During 1765 he seems to have been totally incapacitated for public business. In the following year he supported with great power the proposal of the Rockingham administration for the repeal of the American Stamp Act, arguing that it was unconstitutional to impose taxes upon the colonies. He thus endorsed the contention of the colonists on the ground of principle, while the majority of those who acted with him contented themselves with resisting the disastrous taxation scheme on the ground of expediency.

Related Topics:
1765 - Incapacitated - Rockingham - American - Stamp Act

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The Repeal Act, indeed, was only passed pari passu with another censuring the American assemblies, and declaring the authority of the British parliament over the colonies "in all cases whatsoever"; so that the House of Commons repudiated in the most formal manner the principle Pitt laid down. His language in approval of the resistance of the colonists was unusually bold, and perhaps no one but himself could have employed it with impunity at a time when the freedom of debate was only imperfectly conceded.

Related Topics:
Repeal Act - Another - Assemblies

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Pitt had not been long out of office when he was solicited to return to it, and the solicitations were more than once renewed. Unsuccessful overtures were made to him in 1763, and twice in 1765, in May and June - the negotiator in May being the king's uncle, the Duke of Cumberland, who went down in person to Hayes, Pitt's seat in Kent. It is known that he had the opportunity of joining the Marquis of Rockingham's short-lived administration at any time on his own terms, and his conduct in declining an arrangement with that minister has been more generally condemned than any other step in his public life.

Related Topics:
1763 - 1765 - May - June - Duke of Cumberland - Hayes - Kent

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