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INTRODUCTION.

HERE is no good biography of Lord Chatham; The History of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, published in 1827 by the Rev. Francis Thackeray, and the Anecdotes collected by Almon the Printer, are both of them fragmentary and erratic. The former served as a text for Lord Macaulay's famous essays, which are the most spirited accounts of Chatham's career. In Mr. Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century there is a sketch of Chatham's life, and I desire to acknowledge the obligation which every writer on this period must owe to that great work. The Correspondence of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, edited by the executors of his son, exasperates the student by its omissions, but is none the less a valuable collection. It is to be hoped that the full correspondence will one day be given to the world. I have to thank Lord Lansdowne for permitting me to use some volumes of his Manuscripts, and Lord Edward Fitzmaurice, M.P., for valuable suggestions, and for the great courtesy and kindness with which he has assisted me. The period is peculiarly rich in political memoirs, and I have given references to the

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authorities quoted in the text. The letters and chronicles of Horace Walpole are no doubt, to some extent, malicious and at times inaccurate, but as a vivid contemporary criticism, by a writer of insight and discernment thoroughly conversant with affairs, they are a mine of information as well as a treasure-house of delightful reading. It is unnecessary to enumer ate the other memoirs, and the many volumes published by the Historical Manuscripts Commission, which throw light upon Chatham. Most of these, it may be noted, have been published since the date of Thackeray's Life and Macaulay's Essays. The vast collection, in the British Museum, of the Duke of Newcastle's papers is of very great value. So also is Sir William Anson's recently published edition of the Duke of Grafton's Journal.

Among the innumerable works of a more general character dealing with Chatham's period, those who desire to follow in detail the military and naval operations which he planned will find the results of the most recent research embodied in the History of the Royal Navy, edited by Mr. Laird Clowes, and the History of the British Army, by the Hon. J. W. Fortescue. Of the war in America the best account is in the brilliant writings of Parkman. Entick's History of the Late War (1764, five volumes) contains contemporary accounts of many battles, but is often misleading. Carlyle, in his Frederick the Great, pronounces several characteristic eulogies upon Frederick's ally. The diplomatic history of the period is admirably recounted in Mr. Waddington's two volumes, Louis XV et le Renversement des Alliances

(Paris, 1896) and La Guerre de Sept Ans, Des Débuts (Paris, 1899). Professor Ward's Great Britain and Hanover (Oxford, 1899) illuminates much that is perplexing in English policy.

As regards the latter half of Chatham's life, and his connection with the resistance of the American colonies, the History of America edited by Dr. Winsor is the most comprehensive authority. I desire especially to mention two recent works illustrating this period: The Literary History of the American Revolution: 1763-1783, by Professor Coit Tyler, and A Short History of British Colonial Policy, by Mr. H. E. Egerton. A brochure by Herr von Raville, William Pitt und Graf Bute (Berlin, 1895), sets forth a novel and interesting theory of the connection between the two men, and attempts to prove that Bute as well as Pitt was prosecuting a national policy. An ingenious American writer and an Irish scholar have sought to show that Lord Chatham was the author of the Junius letters, but I have resisted the temptation to discuss their theory.

I have also to thank Sir Benjamin Stone, M.P., for permission to use the photographs taken by himself of the Chatham and Mansfield statues in St. Stephen's Hall, Westminster.

June, 1900.

W. D. G.

WILLIAM

1708, in the parish of St. James, Westminster. Industrious research has traced his descent from one Nicholas Pitt, who flourished. under Henry VII., but the real founder of the family appears to have been John Pitt, a Clerk of the Exchequer in the reign of Elizabeth. The Pitts were settled at Blandford, in Dorsetshire, and in Cornwall. The great-grandson of John Pitt was Governor of Fort St. George and of Jamaica, and the fortunate possessor of the famous Pitt diamond.* He was selected as Governor of Madras, says the historian of the East Indian Company, on account of his known energy and ability, to put an end to dissensions and irregularities in that Presidency. * The stone was sold in 1717 to the Regent Orleans at a profit of £100,000.