Juftice of His Majefty's Court of Common Pleas, and accepted it with many expreffions of regard and thankfulness. HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS WILLIAM HENRY, DUKE OF GLOUCESTER. HIS Prince was the third fon of Frederick Prince of III. and was born at Leicester-House At the marriage of the late King George III. and Queen Charlotte on the 8th September 1761, His Royal Highness walked on the Queen's left hand to and from the Chapel; and, having no right at that time, he not being a Peer, to form a part of the public proceffion at the Coronation on the 22d of that month, he handed his mother, the Princess Dowager of Wales, who, with her younger children and attendants, made a leffer proceffion to and from Westminster Abbey. On the 27th of May 1762, His Royal Highness was elected a Knight of the Garter, and was inftalled at Windfor on the 25th September following, when the King and Queen honoured the folemnity with their prefence. A few days before His Royal Highnefs was of full age, His Majefty was pleased to grant to him and to his heirs male the dignity of a Duke of the Kingdom of Great Britain, and of an Earl of the Kingdom of Ireland, by the names, ftyles, and titles of Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh, and Earl of Connaught. On the 29th of March 1765, His Royal Highness was elected a member of the Worshipful Company of Grocers; and the freedom, curiously written on vellum and blazoned with their arms and other decorations, prefented to him in a gold box of the value of one hundred guineas. THE RIGHT HONOURABLE WILLIAM PITT. "And shall not his memory to Britain be dear, A statesman unbiaff'd by int'reft or fear, By power uncorrupted, untainted by gold?" The Pilot that weathered the Storm. under the immediate eye of his father, who, as he found him very early capable of receiving, imparted to him. many of the principles which had guided his own political conduct, and, in other refpects, paid fo much attention to his education, that at fourteen he was found fully qualified for the University; and, accordingly, at that age, he was entered at Pembroke-hall, Cambridge, where he distinguished himself by his application and by his fuccefs in attaining those branches of knowledge to which his ftudies were particularly directed; nor have many young men of rank paffed through the probation of the University with a higher character for morals, abilities, industry, and regularity. He was intended by his father for the bar and the senate, and his education was regulated in a manner to embrace both thefe objects. Lord Chatham died while Mr. Pitt was in his nineteenth year, but the cloud which fuch an event could not fail to caft over the profpects of a younger fon, was quickly difpelled by those qualities which cleared to him the path to eminence by his own exertions. In the fpring of 1780, Mr. Pitt became refident in Lincoln's Inn and regularly attended Westminster Hall; he had previously kept the neceffary terms and, being called to the bar on the 12th of June, went the western circuit in the fummer of that year. At the general election in the autumn of 1780, he was an unfuccefsful candidate to reprefent the univerfity of Cambridge in parliament; and in the following year, through the influence of Sir James Lowther, was returned for the Borough of Appleby. It is not my intention, in this sketch, to enter into those details which belong to history; first, because I feel I could not do juftice to them and, fecondly, because I am convinced that Mr. Pitt's character, as a Statesman, can never be duly appreciated, if detached from the great events which he attempted to control; and any attempt at a narrative of them here would far exceed my limits. I, therefore, recommend those who wish to be more intimately ac quainted with the particulars of Mr. Pitt's public career, to peruse the memoirs of him written by Mr. Gifford and by Dr. Tomline, late Bishop of Winchester, his tutor. Mr. Pitt's first speech in the British senate was delivered on the 26th of February 1781 on Mr. Burke's motion respecting a retrenchment in the civil lift. It is a curious fact mentioned by Dr. Tomline that Mr. Pitt entered the Houfe of Commons without any intention of taking part in the debate; but, being called upon by the house, he rose, and beginning in a collected and unembarraffed manner, argued ftrongly in favour of the bill and acquitted himself in a manner which astonished all who heard him, and convinced the world that the expectations formed of him were completely answered. At this period Mr. Pitt had not completed his twenty-fecond year.* The death of the Marquis of Rockingham and the confequent diffolution of his Ministry, caused the elevation of the Earl of Shelburne to the post of First Lord of the Treasury, and Mr. Pitt, for the first time, became a Cabinet minifter, by accepting the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer, when he had just completed his twenty-third year. A general peace with America, France, Spain &c. foon followed, and, in April 1783, the famous coalition Ministry took the places of those whom they had expelled. Their triumph, however, was of fhort duration; for the rejection of the celebrated India Bill by the House of Lords, compelled them to refign their places; and Mr. Pitt, whofe talent for the office was no longer * Memoirs of the Right Honourable William Pitt, vol. i. p. 22. denied, was made, at the age of twenty-four, First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer. His firmness of purpose, and uncompromifing rectitude of conduct, carried him triumphantly through all the cabals and oppofition levelled against him at the commencement of his career, and, fubfequently, through the difficulties of the Regency Question in 1788, and through the dangers with which the country was menaced at the period of the French revolution. What has been termed the fyftem or principle of Mr. Pitt, in commencing and continuing the war with France, cannot be better explained than in the language of Lord Grenville, who, when it was proposed to make peace with the Republican Government of France, found the propofitions and explanations of the French minifter to be infults rather than conceflions and apologies, and faid, that his Sovereign never could difcontinue his preparations for war, "while the French retained that turbulent and aggreffive Spirit which threatened danger to every nation in Europe."* On this principle the war was commenced, and on this principle it was supported, at a risk and at an expense beyond all precedent. Mr. Pitt, however, did not live to witness that glorious and wonderful termination, which was, at last, brought about by a continuance of the fame fyftem he had conftantly pursued; and which, finally, ended in the conquest of France, the annihilation of her armies, and the banishment of her Ruler. Mr. Pitt, after a short illness, * Biographical Dictionary, vol. xxv. - Tomline's and Gifford's Lives of William Pitt. |