more than the insolence of a noble alliance.' A more favourable estimate declares that she had a fortune of 3000l., and that 'it is a great dispute among those who have the pleasure of conversing with her whether her beauty, understanding, or good-humour be the most captivating.' She makes a pale apparition in Lady Suffolk's correspondence, soliciting a place for her brother, Lord Grandison, with the offer of a bribe, and subsiding under the royal confidant's rebuke.[10]

The second, Thomas, married one of the heiresses of Ridgeway, Earl of Londonderry. After that nobleman's death 'he bought the honours which were extinct in the person of his wife's father.'[11] One infers from casual hints that Thomas may have had the most influence with his father, and that he was not embarrassed by scruples. He was, says Lord Camelford, 'a man of no character, and of parts that were calculated only for the knavery of business, in which he overreached others, and at last himself.' But Camelford may have been soured by the controversies which followed the Governor's death. The honours so dubiously acquired died out with Lord Londonderry's two sons.

John, the Governor's third son, 'was in the army, an amiable vaurien, a personal favourite with the King, and, indeed, with all who knew him as a sort of Comte de Gramont, who contrived to sacrifice his health, his honour, his fortunes to a flow of libertinism which dashed the fairest prospect, and sank him for many years before his death in contempt and obscurity.'[12] This death took place, within Lord Camelford's memory, 'at the thatched house by the turnpike in Hammersmith.' John seems to have been a sort of Will Esmond, and we have on record a horse transaction of his which savours strongly of Thackeray's famous knave.[13] He married 'a sister of Lord Fauconberg's, whose personal talents and accomplishments distinguished her as much at least as her birth, and much more than her virtues.'[14]

Another of Colonel John's freaks is worth retailing, as throwing light on the peremptory methods of the Pitts, and of the manner in which the Governor was harried by his offspring. He waited outside his father's house in Pall Mall on a day when he knew that one of the estate agents was to bring up the rents of an estate. He watched the man in and out of the house, then went in, where he found some secretary counting the money over, swept it deftly with his sword into his hat, and escaped into the street, full of glee at having bubbled an unappreciative parent out of his dues, and leaving the unhappy subordinate paralysed behind him.[15] This anecdote enables us to understand why the Governor had so low an opinion of John, and why the keys were kept under the Governor's bed when this scapegrace was at home.[16]

Of the two daughters, Lucy, who married the first Earl Stanhope, the minister and general, seems to have left a fragrant memory behind her; we are pleased to find her resenting her sister-in-law's behaviour to her mother, the Governor's wife. She died in February 1723-4.

Essex, the second, married Charles Cholmondely, of Vale Royal, grandfather of the first Lord Delamere. 'Her peevishness made her the scourge of her family,' says her great-nephew, so we may conclude that she was not devoid of the Pitt characteristics. She died in 1754.

Over his luckless heir the Governor had kept constantly suspended the terrors of his testamentary dispositions. 'My resentments,' he wrote not long before his death, 'against you all have been justly and honourably grounded, and that you will find when my head is laid.' Nevertheless, when he died in 1726, Robert, the belaboured eldest son, succeeded to the great bulk of his fortune. He, in his turn, did not lose a moment in visiting on his eldest son, Thomas, the sufferings that he himself had endured. In the very letter in which he announces his father's death to the lad, he speaks of his son's 'past slighting and disobedient conduct towards me,' and lectures him with uncompromising severity. He does, indeed, announce an allowance of 700l. a year, but soon after docks it of 200l. on the flimsiest and shabbiest pretexts. Robert, who seems to have been a poor creature, as his portrait at Boconnoc represents him, mean and cantankerous, with some of the violence but without the vigour and ability of the Governor, only survived his father a year, into which he managed to concentrate a creditable average of quarrels with his family. His death was something like the sinking of a fireship; spluttering and scolding he disappears in 1727.

Robert's life and death were on the lines laid down by Pitt precedent. He lived and died on ill terms with his family, and his death was followed by the customary lawsuits. During his short possession of his patrimony he had laboured under some miscalculation as to its extent; for, after examining the rentals and estates, he had congratulated himself on the possession of 'full 10,000l. a year;' ' in which belief he died soon after, leaving the same delusion to his son, which was one of the principal causes of his misfortunes.'[17] As the estate was entailed, Thomas, Robert's eldest son, was not liable for the debts of his father, or anxious to assume that responsibility. The claims that gave him most trouble were those of his mother, Robert's widow, who had obtained additions to her jointure, and had had 10,000l. settled on her children at her marriage, a provision which was apparently never carried into execution. Many bills and cross bills in Chancery were the consequence of these claims, which ended in Mrs. Robert Pitt's retirement into France, where she shortly afterwards died. Her brother and champion, Lord Grandison, also retreated to Ireland, both thus renouncing administration of the effects of Robert Pitt. So, avows Lord Camelford, 'my father seized whatever fell into his hands without account, either belonging to my grandfather or grandmother, keeping at arm's length every demand upon him, till somehow or other these litigations seem to have worn themselves out and slept by the acquiescence of all parties.' The 'acquiescence,' we may add, seems only to have accrued by the death of the litigants.

Robert left two sons and five daughters, and this brood was not unworthy of the family traditions. The eldest son was Thomas, the second