what he thought; what was his standpoint with regard to the grave issues of life; what he was in his hours of ease, what he enjoyed, how he unbent; in a word, what he was without his wig and bag and sword, in his dressing-gown and slippers, with a friend, a novel, or a pipe. This is half or three parts of a man, and it is certain that we shall never know this aspect of Chatham. He would no doubt, had it served his purpose, have appeared in the dressing-gown and slippers, but the array would have been as solemn and artificial as the robes of a cardinal. He would, had it served his purpose, have smoked a pipe, but it would have been the jewelled nargileh of the Grand Mogul. He had practically no intimates; his wife told nothing, his children told nothing; he revealed himself neither by word nor on paper, he deliberately enveloped himself in an opaque fog of mystery; and there seems no clue or channel by which any further detail of his character can reach us, unless Addington, the doctor, or Wilson, the tutor, have anything to tell us. But did anything of the kind survive, we feel confident that it would have transpired. Beckford and Potter, Barré and Camden, his friends or sycophants or satellites, have left no sign. Shelburne indeed thinks that he penetrated Chatham, and Shelburne no doubt saw him under circumstances of comparative intimacy. And yet, judging by the result, it may well be doubted whether Shelburne did more than watch and guess, with an inkling of spite. Occasionally there is a legend, a tradition, or an anecdote, but Chatham seems to have cut off all vestiges of his real self as completely as a successful fugitive from justice. And so posterity sees nothing but the stern effigy representing what he wished, or permitted, or authorised to be seen. This is not enough or nearly enough, but it must now be certain that there will never be much more. This makes us all the more grateful for the Dropmore papers and for Mr. Fortescue's liberality. He has been able to throw new light on Chatham's youth and on his unrestrained days. Light on the subsequent years of self-repression would be so guarded and shaded that we should scarce obtain a glimpse of the true man. Indeed, by his careful disguise Chatham has made himself a prehistoric or rather a prebiographical figure, a man of the fifteenth century or earlier. We know what was around him, the scene on which he played, the other actors in the great drama, and we recognise himself on the stage; but away from the footlights he remains in darkness. In a word, after 1756, when this book ends, his public life is conspicuous and familiar. But his inner life after that period will never be known; and so we must be content with a torso.

October 1910.

It has seemed unnecessary to give references to familiar printed authorities, such as Horace Walpole, Coxe, Harris's Life of Hardwicke, Waldegrave, or the published Dropmore MSS. But where an exception has been deemed necessary, 'Orford' refers to the 'Memoirs,' and 'Walpole' denotes an allusion to the 'Letters.'

Lord Camelford's manuscript, which I have used so copiously, is an intimate family document entitled 'Family Characters and Anecdotes,' addressed to his son, and dated 1781.

CHATHAM
HIS EARLY LIFE AND CONNECTIONS

CHAPTER I.

There is one initial part of a biography which is skipped by every judicious reader; that in which the pedigree of the hero is set forth, often with warm fancy, and sometimes at intolerable length. It is, happily, not necessary to enter upon the bewildering branches of the innumerable Pitts, but only to keep to one conspicuous stem. We must however record that the Pitt family was gentle and honourable; 'it had,' says one of them, 'been near two centuries growing into wealth without producing anything illustrious.'[1] But in the eighteenth century it was destined to blossom into no less than four peerages, Londonderry, Rivers, Camelford, and Chatham, not one of which survives. William Pitt's great-grandfather was Vicar of Blandford in Dorsetshire; and there was born Thomas, his grandfather, better known as Governor Pitt, and associated in history with the famous Pitt diamond. The Vicar, being the younger son of a younger son, had no fortune but the advowson of his own living of St. Mary; and Thomas again being a younger son set forth to seek his fortunes in the Golden East, and, it may be added, found them there.

Of this redoubtable progenitor, Governor Pitt, as he was always called, it would be possible to say much, as his life, measured by the length of current biographies, would justify a volume; in any case it is necessary to say something, for in his character may be traced some germs of his grandson's intractable qualities.

We first catch sight of him as an 'interloper,' that is, an illicit merchant carrying on trade in violation of the East India Company's monopoly. In that capacity he showed himself formidable and intrepid, 'of a haughty, huffying, daring temper,'[2] and the Company waged unsparing war against him. In a letter to their agents, writing with special reference to him, they say: 'We have a most acceptable accompt of the flourishing condition of all our affaires in those parts, and of the wreck and disappointment of all the interlopers; insomuch that if you have done your parts in reference to the Crowne, that Tho. Pitts went upon, there is no probability (that) of seven interloping ships that went to India the same year that our Agent did, any one ship will ever come to England again; and ... we cannot doubt that you will in due time render us as pleasing an accompt of those interlopers that went out this year, which will certainly put an end to that kind of robbery.'[3] And so these hostilities continued for more than a score of years, but without the suppression of Pitt, who appears to have greatly thriven in the process; for during the latter part of this period he was member of Parliament for his own pocket borough of Old Sarum,[4] bought out of these contraband gains. Victory, indeed, rested with him; for the Company, weary and baffled, determined, on the faith of an ancient but precarious principle, to set a thief to catch a thief; and in November 1697 appointed Pitt governor of Fort St. George, though some fastidious stockholders protested. This 'roughling immoral man,' as one of the objectors called him, governed with a high and strong hand from 1698 to 1709; when the Company, finding the burden of him intolerable, summarily dismissed him. He was, no doubt, like his grandson, a difficult servant; and in his career we see the source of that energy, haughtiness, and self-reliance which were so conspicuous in both. Lord Camelford, his great-grandson, though a relentless critic of his family, gives, in the grateful character of an heir, a leniently appreciative account of the Governor; and says that 'he amassed a fortune which was reckoned prodigious in those times