More than sixteen years elapse between this letter and the next, which
takes us far beyond our present limit, but it is best to finish the
story of Ann. Part of this long interval can be explained by extreme
harmony, and the remainder by the reverse. The mutual devotion of
William and Ann lasted, says Lord Camelford, till he became Paymaster in
May 1746: then they quarrelled. Why, no one knows, or, it is to be
presumed, will ever know. Horace Walpole only says that Pitt shook his
sister off in an unbecoming manner. Camelford thinks that Pitt disliked
Ann's friendship for Lady Bolingbroke, and thought that she was under
the influence of Bolingbroke himself, 'that tawdry fellow, as Lord
Cobham called him.'[76] Pitt, like most other people, except the rare
spirits who loved the brilliant being, profoundly distrusted
Bolingbroke, and may not have wished to see Bolingbroke influence assume
a footing in his house. Perhaps then he remonstrated, perhaps Ann
vindicated her friendship with heat. Between these two fiery natures
words might be exchanged in a moment which years would not obliterate.
Grattan told Rogers that 'Mrs. Ann Pitt, Lord Chatham's sister, was a
very superior woman. She hated him, and they lived like cat and dog. He
could only get rid of her by leaving his house and setting a bill on
it, "This house to let."'[77] If these two Pitts quarrelled in the
fierce Pitt fashion, it is not unlikely that some such expedient would
be adopted. But it must be doubted whether they lived like cat and dog,
else they would have parted long before. Grattan's statement was made in
conversation with all the large outline and picturesque latitude that
conversation allows, and he probably knew nothing about the matter. We
can only surmise. Lord Camelford tells us that up to the time of the
Paymastership (1746) William and Ann had lived together in one of the
small houses in Pall Mall which look into St. James's Square, and that
when he moved to his official residence at the Pay Office he moved
alone. But, as a matter of fact, she had left him some time before, and
gone to live with Lady Bolingbroke at Argeville. We have a letter from
William to Lady Suffolk, dated July 6, 1742, in which he favours the
plan of Ann's living with Lady Bolingbroke, so long as is convenient to
her hostess, and then returning home. Moreover, Pitt himself in October
of this year 1742 was not living in Pall Mall, but had moved to York
Street, Burlington Buildings.[78] Ann had formed a mad project of living
in Paris as a single woman, which William justly discountenanced.
However, she proceeded to Argeville, where George Grenville found her in
September. She may have returned to her brother, but she probably
remained abroad, and her having been with the Bolingbrokes so long, even
with William's sanction, may have made her less welcome to her brother
on her return.
In June 1751 she was appointed Keeper of the Privy Purse to the
Princess of Wales, and superintendent of the education of the Princess
Augusta, afterwards Duchess of Brunswick. She obtained this appointment,
we are told, through the interest of Mr. Cresset, the confidential
servant and Treasurer of the Princess of Wales, whose authority in the
Court soon afterwards gave way to the ascendancy of Lord Bute; though
Pitt imagined that here again he could trace the hand of Bolingbroke.
'However,' says Lord Camelford, 'thinking she could be useful to him in
so important a post, he sought a reconciliation--he flattered, he
menaced, he insulted, but was rejected.'
Of these proceedings two records remain in letters which have already
been published, but cannot be omitted here, as they are instinct with
passion and light. Whether they answer to Lord Camelford's description
must be left to the judgment of those who read them. That they are
powerful, tender, and unaffected all must allow. They also contain
quotations from the quarrels which are not devoid of interest. Ann had
declared that William expected absolute deference and a blind submission
to his will; and that he had in several conversations directly explained
to her that, to satisfy him, she must live with him as his slave. On
this point William admits that he did expect some measure of deference
to his views, and that, living together, he thought she might shape her
life in some degree to his. This seems to have been the real ground of
separation. William wished to be master in his own house. Ann could
brook no control. Perhaps the brother may have asked the sister to
discontinue or relax her intimacy with the Bolingbrokes, as injurious
and inconvenient to him, and Ann, we may guess, would curtly bid him
mind his own business. But these are only probabilities.
In the course of these proceedings we learn that William lost his
temper, declaring that she had a bad head and a worse heart; for this he
humbly begs her pardon.
Another complaint of Ann's is easily explained. She says that William
had been talking of the 200_l._ a year that he allowed her. William's
answer makes it perfectly clear that he had been reproached with the
fact of his sister's destitute condition, and that he had had to
explain, in his own defence, that he gave her this income.
Whether Pitt wished for a reconciliation because his sister had become
Privy Purse to the Princess of Wales must be judged by the light of his
character. It seems more probable that it was because she had returned
from abroad, and that he would now meet her constantly in society. In
any case, here are the letters. Whatever Pitt's motives may have been,
it is clear that Ann, had she not been a vixen, would have gladly
accepted the olive-branch offered by her brother, who, still unmarried,
wished to be restored to the companionship which had been the joy of his
life, 'that friendship which was my very existence for so many years,'
'a harmony between brother and sister unexampled almost all that time.'
(A)
_June 19, 1751. Wednesday morning._
Dear Sister!--As you had been so good to tell me in your note of
Monday that you would write to me again soon _in a manner capable,
you hoped, of effacing every impression of any thing painfull that
may have passed from me to you_, I did not expect such a letter as
I found late last night, and which I have now before me to answer:
without any compliment to you, I find myself in point of writing
unequal enough to the task; nor have I the slightest desire to
sharpen my pen. I have well weighed your letter, and deeply examined
your picture of me, for some years past; and indeed, Sister, I still
find something within, that firmly assures me I am not that thing
which your interpretations of my life (if I can ever be brought to
think them all your own) would represent me to be. I have
infirmities of temper, blemishes, and faults, if you please, of
nature, without end; but the Eye that can't be deceived must judge
between us, whether that friendship, which was my very existence for
so many years, could ever have received the least flaw, but from
umbrages and causes which the quickest sensibility and tenderest
jealousy of friendship alone, at first, suggested. It is needless to
mark the unhappy epoque, so fatal to a harmony between sister and
brother unexampled almost all that time, the loss of which has
embitter'd much of my life and will always be an affliction to me.
But I will avoid running into vain retrospects and unseasonable
effusions of heart, in order to hasten to some particular points of
your letter, upon which it is necessary for me to trouble you with a
few words. _Absolute_ deference and _blind submission to my will_,
you tell me I have often declared to you in the strongest and most
mortifying terms cou'd alone satisfy me. I must here beseech you
cooly to reconsider these precise terms, with their epithets; and I
will venture to make the appeal to the sacred testimony of your
breast, whether there be not exaggeration in them. I have often, too
often reproached you, and from warmth of temper, in strong and plain
terms, that I found no longer the same consent of minds and
agreement of sentiments: and I have certainly declared to you that I
cou'd not be satisfy'd with you, and I could no longer find in you
_any degree of deference towards me_. I was never so drunk with
presumption as to expect _absolute_ deference and _blind submission
to my will_. A degree of deference to me and to my situation, I
frankly own, I did not think too much for me to expect from you,
with all the high opinion I really have of your parts. What I
expected was too much (as perhaps might be). In our former days
friendship had led me into the error. That error is at an end, and
you may rest assured, that I can never be so unreasonable as to
expect from you, now, anything like deference to me or my opinions.
I come next to the small pecuniary assistance which you accepted
from me, and which was exactly as you state it, two hundred pounds a
year. I declare, upon my honour, I never gave the least foundation
for those exaggerations which you say have been spread concerning
it. I also declare as solemnly, before God and man, that no
consideration cou'd ever have extorted from my lips the least
mention of the trifling assistance you accepted from me, but the
cruel reports, industriously propagated, and circulating from
various quarters round to me, of the state you was left to live in.
As to the repayment of this wretched money, allow me, dear Sister,
to entreat you to think no more of it. The bare thought of it may
surely suffice for your own dignity and for my humiliation, without
taxing your present income, merely to mortify me: the demonstration
of a blow is, in honour, a blow, and let me conjure you to rest it
here. When I want and you abound, I promise you to afford you a
better and abler triumph over me, by asking the assistance of your
purse. I will now trouble you no farther than to repeat my sincere
wishes for your welfare and to rejoice that you have so ample matter
for the best of happiness, _springing from a heart and mind_ (to use
your own words) entirely devoted to gratitude and duty.
(B)
_June 20, 1751. Pay Office._
'Dear Sister!--I am this moment returned out of the Country and find
another letter from you. I am extremely sorry that any expressions
in mine to you should make you think it necessary for you to trouble
yourself to write again, that you might convey upon paper to me,
what you would avoid saying in conversation, as disagreeable and
painfull. I believe I may venture to refer you to the whole tenor
of my letter to convince yourself that I had no desire to irritate;
and I assure you very sincerely that the expression, which seems to
have had some of that effect, did not in the least flow from a
thought that you was capable of intending to represent falsely. I
only took the liberty to put it to your candid recollection, whether
the very cause you mention, _strong feelings_ and emotions of mind
attending them, with regard to conversations of a disagreeable kind,
might not have led to some exaggerations of them to your own self. I
verily believe this cause, and this alone may have had some of this
effect: for sure I am, that I never could wish, much less exact that
the object of my whole heart and of my highest opinion and
confidence, thro the best part of my days, could be capable of such
vileness as _absolute_ deference and _blind submission to my will_.
All I wished and what I but late quite despaired of, I took the
liberty to recall to you in my last letter. As to the late
conversation you have thought necessary (since your letter of
yesterday) to recollect, I am ready to take shame before you, and
all mankind, if you please, for having lost my temper, upon any
provocation, so far as to use expressions, as foolish as they are
angry: that you _had a bad head_ will easily pass for the first: and
a worse heart for the last. This you made me angry enough to say:
but this I never was, nor I hope shall be, angry enough to think:
and this, Sister, I am sure you know. As to the other word, which I
am sorry I used because it offended you, I will again beg to appeal
to your recollection, whether it was not apply'd to your forbidding
_me ever to talk to you of every thing that interested you_: and as
_to shaping your life in some degree to mine_, which I believe were
my very words, let me ask you, if you don't know that they were said
in an answer to your telling me _that I had in several conversations
directly explained to you that to satisfy me you must live with me
as my slave_? So much, dear Sister, for the several points of your
letter; which I am sorry to find it necessary to say so many words
upon. I will be with you by nine to-morrow, as that hour seems most
convenient to you: is it impossible I may still find you so
obliging as not to think any more of repaying what I certainly never
lent you, in any other sense than that of giving me a right to your
purse, whenever I should want it, and which you must forego some
convenience to repay?[79]
Whether a reconciliation took place on this occasion or not we have no
evidence apart from Camelford's. But if he is to be believed as to
William's motives, there was little to be gained by one, for Ann was
soon to leave the Court. Her new office 'very soon grew uneasy to her,'
says her nephew, 'through the artifices of her royal pupil.' Horace
Walpole gives a different account. 'Being of an intriguing and most
ambitious nature, she soon destroyed her own prospect by an impetuosity
to govern her mistress and by embarking in other cabals at that Court.
Her disgrace followed, but without dismissal, on which she had retired
to France.'[80]
'It was then,' says Camelford, 'that her brother, then Secretary of
State, made a new overture of reconciliation by a letter that you will
read, which had too much the appearance of sincerity and
disinterestedness not to be gladly accepted.'
Camelford is not particularly careful of his own accuracy or
consistency. He had just told us that William sought for a renewal of
friendship because Ann would be useful to him at Court: he now has to
acknowledge that when Ann was banished from Court he instantly sought
reconciliation with more ardour than ever. As regards his accuracy, it
need only be noted that the letter to which he alludes is dated from the
Pay Office, and despatched more than three years before Pitt became
Secretary; a flaw, but not a grave flaw, in a father writing from memory
to his son.
Here is the letter, which seems to be in answer to one from Ann, and
which is surely as tender and affectionate as the sorest heart of sister
could desire:
_Pay Office. Feb. 8. 1753._
Dear Sister,--I shou'd have receiv'd the most sensible satisfaction,
if you had been able to tell me, that the more declared, or new
symptoms of your disorder had been such, as gave you a near prospect
of being quite relieved. believe me Dear Sister, my heart is fill'd
with the most affectionate wishes for your health, and impatient
desire to see you return home well and happy. I never can reflect on
things passed, (wherein I must have been infinitely in the wrong, if
I ever gave you a pain) without the tenderest sorrow: and the
highest aggravation of this concern wou'd be to think, that,
perhaps, you may not understand the true state of my heart towards
you. Heaven preserve my Dear Sister, and may I ever be able to
convince her how sincerely I am her most affectionate Brother:
W. PITT.
I continue an Invalid, and wait for better weather with as much
patience as I can.
This is followed by another letter so humble and so self-reproachful
that one can scarcely believe it to be penned by one whose pride was a
byeword, and one can certainly not believe it to be the production of
crafty and servile selfishness, as Lord Camelford would have us imagine.
No brother could approach a sister with more delicacy or warmth of
feeling.
_Pay Office. Feb. 27. 1753._
Dear Sister,--I am unable to express the load you have taken off my
heart by your affectionate and generous answer to my last letter: I
will recur no more to a subject, which your goodness and
forgiveness forbid me to mention. the concern I feel for your state
of health is most sensible; wou'd to God, you may be shortly in a
situation to give me the infinite comfort of hearing of an amendment
in it! I hope Spring is forwarder, where you reside, than with us,
and that the difference of climate begins to be felt. I will not
give you the trouble to read any more: but must repeat, in the
fulness of my heart, the warmest and tenderest acknowledgements of
your goodness to,
My Dear Sister, Your most affec Brother
W. PITT.
I continue still a good deal out of Order, but begin to get ground.
The next letter marks a complete removal of tension and the restoration
of close and friendly relations. It cannot, alas! restore the easy flow
of youth. A score of years have passed, William has been buffeted and
tossed and has had to fight hard for his hand; he is besides so much the
older. So we find ourselves involved in the fulsome extravagance of his
maturer epistles; so much the worse!
_London. April ye 5. 1753._
My Dear Sister,--Nothing can be felt more sensibly than I do the
goodness of your letter, in which you talk to me circumstantially of
your own health, and desire to hear circumstantially of mine. it is
a great deal of Comfort to me to know that you have great hopes of
being better by Mr Vernage's advice; but it wou'd have been an
infinite satisfaction to have heard that you had already found
amendment. May every Day of Spring contribute to the thing in the
world I wish the most ardently! I am infinitely glad that the
concurrent opinions of Physicians of both Countries are the
foundation of expecting the Spa will relieve you: I shall dwell all
I can on this comfortable hope, and beg to hear of any amendment you
may find by better weather and whatever course you now use. I will
now talk of that health you so kindly desire to hear of. I have
been ill all the winter with disorders in my bowels, which have left
me very low, and reduced me to a weak state of health. I am now, in
many respects, better, and seem getting ground, by riding and taking
better nourishment. Warmer weather, I am to hope, will be of much
service to me. I propose using some mineral waters: Tunbridge or
Sunning Hill or Bath, at their proper seasons, as the main of my
complaint is much abated and almost removed, I hope my Horse, warm
weather and proper nourishment will give me health again. the kind
concern you take in it is infinitely felt by, Dear Sister,
Your most affectionate Brother
W. PITT.
The next letter shows that Ann was residing at Blois.
Dear Sister,--I have just receiv'd the pleasure of your letter of 30
April. the Comfort it has given me is infinitely great, and your
goodness in sending me the earliest account in your power of such an
amendment as you now describe is the kindest thing imaginable, May
the fine season, where you are, continue without interruption, and
every Day of it add to the beneficial effects you have begun to
feel! our season here does not keep pace with that at Blois: I am
however much mended in several respects, and have the greatest hopes
given me of removing my remaining disorder by the help of warmer
weather and Tunbridge waters. I have just time to write this line
before dinner, and had I more, I think it best not to trouble you
with long letters. I shall dine upon your letter I am dear Sister
Your most affectionate Brother
_London. May 7th 1753._
W. PITT.
Here intervenes a letter to Mary, in which there is cordial mention of
Ann, and an obvious allusion to the escapades of Elizabeth; surely a
tender letter from a brother of forty-five to a younger sister.
_Bath. Octr the 20th. 1753._
I am very glad to hear in the Conclusion of my Dear Mary's letter
that she will be under no difficulty in getting to London: my
Brother is very obliging, as I dare say he intends to be in all
things towards you, to make your journey easy and agreeable to you.
I propose being in Town by the meeting of the Parliament; if I am
able: when I shall have infinite Joy in meeting my Dear Sister after
so very long an Absence and seeing Her in a Place where she seems to
think herself not unhappy. if I shou'd be prevented being in Town so
soon, the House will always be ready to receive you. I think you
judge very right not to produce yourself much till we have met:
Mrs Stuart, and my Sister Nedham, if in Town, will be the
properest, as well as the most agreeable Places for you to frequent.
My Dear Child, I need not intimate to your good understanding and
right Intentions, what a high degree of Prudence and exact attention
to your Conduct and whole behaviour is render'd necessary by the sad
errors of others. It is an infinite misfortune to you that my Sister
Ann is not in England: her Countenance and her Advice and
Instructions, superior to any you can otherwise receive, wou'd be
the highest advantage to you. Supply it as well as you can, by
thinking of Her, imitating her worth, and thereby endeavouring to
deserve her esteem, as you wish to obtain that of the best Part of
the World. I can not express how anxious I am for your right
behaviour in all respects, upon which alone your happiness must
depend. whatever assistance my advice can be to You, you will ever
have with the truest affection of a Brother.
Yrs
W. PITT.
The next letter is pregnant enough, written to Ann at Nevers. Their aunt
Essex is dead, but her death only lurks in a postscript. For Pelham is
dead and Pitt is a cripple at Bath, disabled from proceeding to the
capital, where his fate and that of the future administration are being
settled. His restless anguish seems to pierce through these few lines.
And yet this bedridden invalid was to be a joyful and alert bridegroom
before the year was out.
_Bath. March 9th: 1754._
Dear Sister,--I write to you under the greatest affliction, on all
Considerations Private and Publick. Mr Pelham Died Wednesday
morning, of a Feaver and St. Anthony's fire. This Loss is, in my
notion of things, irreparable to the Publick. I am still suffering
much Pain with Gout in both feet, and utterly unable To be carry'd
to London. I may hope to be the better for it hereafter, but I am at
present rather worn down than releiv'd by it: I am extremely
concern'd at the last accounts of your health. I hope you have
Spring begun at Nevers, which I pray God may relieve you.
I am Dear Sister, Your most affectionate Brother,
W. PITT.
My Sister Nedham has been ill of a Feaver here, but is well again.
I have just received an account of Mrs Cholmondeley's[81] Death.
The next letter, a month later, leaves Pitt still at Bath; the gout had
almost the lion's share of his life, and we wonder that he accomplished
so much under its constant pangs. On this occasion he strains our
credulity by the complimentary assertion that he thinks a thousand times
more of Ann than of the struggle over Pelham's succession, and his own
involved ambition. On all that sordid scramble he kept the fierce,
unflinching eye of a hawk, and of a hawk fastened by the talon. Ten days
before he wrote this note he had despatched a letter to Newcastle,
Pelham's brother and successor, burning with a passion which Ann's
ailments could never have inspired. Ann indeed, knowing her William,
would smile as she read, and value the extravagance at its worth.
_Bath. April 4th. 1754._
Dear Sister,--The Account you give me of your own health, and the
kind concern you feel for mine, touches me more than I will attempt
to express, tho' I am still at Bath, don't think the worse of my
health, but be assured that I am in a fairer way of recovering a
tolerable degree of it, than I have been in for a long time pass't.
My Gout has been most regular and severe, as well as of a proper
Continuance to relieve, and perhaps quite remove, the general
disorder which had brought me so low. I am recovering my feet and
drinking the waters with more apparent good effects than I ever
experienced from them. I have been out of all the bustle of the
present Conjuncture; and believe me, my thoughts go a thousand times
to Nevers, for once that they go towards London. Nothing in this
world can, in the smallest degree, interest my mind like the
recovery of your health. I wait with very painfull Impatience for
better weather for you, and to hear, that the waters you propose to
take, afford you relief.
I am My Dear Sister's ever most affectionate Brother
W. PITT.
My sister Nedham is well, and went yesterday to Marybone to see her
Sons.
Poor George Stanhope died of a feaver a few days since.[82]
The next, after an interval of six months, is again from Bath, but in a
different strain. He is now the happiest of men, about to be united to
the most meritorious and amiable of women, whose brothers are already
his own in harmony and affection; a happy marriage, but a disastrous,
storm-tossed brotherhood, as it was destined to be in the years to come,
when rival ambitions would strain the bond to breaking.
There is also an icicle from Lady Hester herself, which embodies the
decorous expression of what a young lady of the middle eighteenth
century allowed herself to feel when she was going to be married. Even
this act of politeness was inspired by William. 'I have writ this night
to my poor sister Ann. She is not well enough to return to England this
winter. Whenever your excessive goodness will honour her with a letter
it will be a comfort to her. If you please to commit it to me I will
forward it to her, and bless you a million of times.'[83]
_Bath. Oct. 21st. 1754._
Dear Sister,--The favour of your letter from Chaillot has by no
means answered my eager wishes for your health, and a kind of
distant hope I had formed of your return to England this winter. My
desires to see you are greatly and very painfully disappointed: I
have only to hope that your Stay in France will give you a much
better winter than the last, and may finally restore your health to
you and you to your Friends. I am now, Dear Sister, to impart to you
what I have no longer a prospect of doing, with infinitely more
pleasure, by word of mouth: it is to say, that, your health
excepted, I have nothing to wish for my happiness, Lady Hester
Grenville has consented to give herself to me, and by giving me
every thing my Heart can wish, she gives you a Sister, I am sure you
will find so, not less every other way than in name. the act I now
communicate, will best speak her character, she has generosity and
goodness enough to join part of her best days to a very shattered
part of mine; neither has my fortune any thing more tempting. I know
no Motif she can have but wishing to replace to me many things that
I have not. I can only add, that I have the honour and satisfaction
of receiving the most meritorious and amiable of Women from the
hands of a Family already my Brothers in harmony and affection, and
who have been kindly Contending which of them shou'd most promote my
happiness by throwing away the Establishment of a Sister they
esteem and love so much. When I left Lady Hester ten days ago, She
wish'd to know when I notify'd this approaching event to you, that
She might do herself the pleasure to write to you. when she knows I
have writ, she will introduce herself to you. I propose staying here
about ten days, if my patience can hold out so long. You will wonder
to see a letter on such a subject dated from Bath; but to a goodness
like Lady Hester Grenville's, perhaps, my infirmities and my Poverty
are my best titles.
Your ever affectionate Brother
W. PITT.
LADY HESTER GRENVILLE TO MISS ANN PITT.
May I not hope, Dr Madam, that the situation I am in with your
Brother will dispose you to receive favourably an Instance of the
extreme desire I have to recommend myself to your friendship; and
that You will give me Leave to employ the only means in my Power
from the distance that is between us, of expressing how much I wish
to enjoy that Honour. Every Thing makes me Ambitious of Obtaining so
great an Advantage, and so flattering a distinction. Your Own
peculiar Merit, and the Large share which you possess of Mr Pitt's
Esteem and Affection makes me feel it as an Article important to my
Happiness, and I indulge myself in the pleasure of thinking that you
will not refuse to extend your goodness to a Person whom your
Brother has thought worthy of so convincing a proof of his regard
and Love, and whose sentiments for Him are full of all that the
highest sense of his superior Merit and most amiable qualities can
Inspire. I feel a vanity and a pleasure in being the Object of his
Choice which can be added to by nothing but the happiness of knowing
that you give your Approbation and that you will allow me to flatter
myself You will not be sorry for an Event which will give me the
valued privilege of addressing you the next time, I have the honour
to be thus employ'd, by the endearing name of Sister. Give me leave
to say that I have heard with the greatest regret that your state of
health does not permit you to return to England this winter, and
that I hope as a compensation for the Disappointment your stay will
ensure yr perfect recovery. I commit this Letter to Yr Brs
Care, and trust to Him for conveying it to you, sure that the best
recommendation it can have will be its coming under his protection;
accompanied with Marks of His Partiality; and I hope that you will
believe Dr Madam, that I am with all the esteem possible, and the
highest regard,
Your most faithful and Obed. Humble Servant,
HER: GRENVILLE.
In the next letters Pitt and Lady Hester acknowledge Ann's
congratulations. He had, however, moved to London, and amid all these
orange-blossoms was forging terrible vengeance on his perfidious chief.
Within ten days of his marriage he was making Newcastle and Newcastle's
henchmen cower in their offices, though for the present they did not
dare oust him from his.
_Pay Office. Nov. 8th. 1754._
Dear Sister,--Your letter of the 1st Novr has given me all that
remain'd to Compleat my happiness, by the affectionate Share you
take in it; and without which, great as it truly is, and shar'd in
the kindest manner by every Thing else I value and love in the
World, it still wou'd have wanted something ever essential to my
Satisfaction. Your Goodness and Friendship has nothing left to give
me: Cou'd the re-establishment of your health but add that most
sensible Pleasure to all I feel, I may call myself happy, as it is
given but to a few to be. Lady Hester Grenville speaks for herself
this Post. my Health is not good, but, as yet, it is not quite bad.
I have gone on with the World (as I cou'd) with much worse.
I am Dear Sister Your most affectionate Brother
W. PITT.
I hope in about a week to say more of my happiness.
Lady Hester's letter is not worth giving; it is prim, decorous, and
void.
Pitt and Lady Hester are married on November 16. Lady Hester writes to
Ann nine days afterwards a letter full of good feeling stiffened and
starched by decorum. Some letters are too improper to print, this is too
proper.
Ann was now returning home, and Mary goes to meet her with a note of
welcome from William. Lord Camelford says that her health and spirits
declined grievously in France, and so her brother, 'though not till
after repeated notifications of her distress, sent over a clergyman to
bring her back to her family and assist in her journey.' This gives us a
test of Camelford's bias in dealing with his uncle. For hear Ann
herself, in a letter to Lady Suffolk announcing that she was on her way
to England, and had arrived as far as Sens, whence she writes. Speaking
of William, she says, 'he continued as he began, as soon as the King had
put him in the place he is in, by giving me the strongest and tenderest
proof of his affection.... I was so sunk and my mind so overcome with
all I have suffered, and I was so mortified and distressed, that I do
not believe anything in the world could have made it possible for me to
get out of this country, but my brother's sending a friend to my
assistance, and choosing so proper a person as Mr de la Porte is in all
respects. He has known me and my family for about thirty years, from
having been my Lord Stanhope's Governor.' She goes on to refer to 'the
virtue and goodness of my friends, particularly of my brother, who has
always seemed to guess and understand all I felt of every kind, and has
carried his delicacy so far as never once to put me in mind of what I
felt more strongly than any other part of my misfortune, which was, how
very disagreeable and embarrassing it must be to him to have me in
France, You may believe that I will be out of it the first minute that
is possible.'
So the fact is that the man, whom Camelford endeavours to depict as
having acted with hardness and insensibility on this occasion, displayed
in reality incessant and delicate tenderness, according to the grateful
acknowledgment of Ann herself. Pitt had just attained his supremacy;
this was the most critical epoch of his life; all the year he had been
fighting the King and the Court, and this was the moment of victory.
Eleven days before Ann wrote this letter he had become for the second
time Secretary of State and had begun his great ministry. During this
time of strain and anxiety he heard of Ann's illness; he must have felt
strongly, though he refrained from mentioning it to her, the irksomeness
of her being in France when he was waging war against that kingdom, and
so he sent an old family friend to conduct her home. Could brother have
done more? Is there not here an anxious and thoughtful affection,
distorted grievously by the implacable animosity of the nephew?
Camelford is, however, obliged to record that on her arrival she went
straight to Pitt's villa at Hayes, 'where, tho' her spirits were still
weak, she was surprisingly recovered.'
There is no date to the following note which Mary was to hand to Ann.
But as Ann's letter to Lady Suffolk cited above is of July 10, 1757, we
cannot be far wrong in placing it somewhat later in the same month. It
is indeed perplexing to find another letter to Lady Suffolk dated 'Spa,
September 5, 1757.' But the year 1757 is a surmise, and in all
probability an incorrect surmise, of the editor. Ann was hastening to
England in July 1757, stayed some time at Hayes on her arrival, and is
not likely to have been on the Continent again in September.
_Friday Morning._
Dear Sister,--I Can not let my Sister Mary go away without a line to
express my infinite satisfaction to hear you are arrived and that
you find your strength and Spirits in so good a condition. at the
same time let a Veteran Invalide recommend to you, above all things,
to use this returning Strength and Spirits very sparingly at first.
I shou'd be happy to accompany Miss Mary to Rochester, but the
overwhelming business of this Momentous Conjuncture hardly allow
(_sic_) me time to tell you how impatiently and tenderly I wish to
embrace my Dear Sister.[84]
Ann had gone from Hayes to Clifton, as we know from a letter to Lady
Suffolk dated June 22, 1758, and thence proceeded to Bath, as we know
from another letter dated August 19, 1758. She was restless, as on
August 26 she was at Bristol. In all these letters there is not a word
that betokens other than kindness and gratitude to her brother; as, for
example, on August 19 she writes to Lady Suffolk: 'God grant that the
public news may continue to be good, especially from Prince Ferdinand,
for the sake of a person whose health and prosperity I wish more than I
shall ever tell him.' A week afterwards she takes public occasion to
rejoice at his triumphs by furnishing a bonfire and ten hogsheads of
strong beer and all the music she could procure. On the other side, we
read the letters which the busy statesman found time to write to her,
breathing affection and solicitude.
_St. James's Square. Aug. 10th. 1758._
Dear Sister,--I wait with much impatience to hear you are arrived
well at Bath, and that you are lodged to your mind. I will not
entertain any doubts, after having had the satisfaction of seeing
you, that your progression to a perfect recovery will be sensible
every Day, and as soon as you can bear a stronger nourishment, that
Spirits, the concomitants of Strength, will return. as a part of the
necessary regimen, solid nourishment for that busy craving Thing
call'd Mind must have its place, and I know of no mental
Alteratives(?) of power to renovate and brace up a sickly
Constitution of Thought, but that mild and generous Philosophy which
teaches us the true value of the World, and a rational firm
religion, that anchors us safe in the confidence of another. but I
will end my sermon and come to the affairs of the world I am so
deeply immersed in. this day had brought us an account that our
Troops effected their landing, with little Loss, ye 7th and 8th two
Leagues from Cherbourgh, in the face of a pretty considerable
Number, who gave some loose fires and run. I am infinitely anxious
till we hear again, as I expect something serious will ensue. I must
not close my letter without telling you that the most particular
enquiries after your health have been made by the Lady you sent a
Card to, and I, very obligingly reprimanded for keeping your arrival
a secret from Them. Lady Hester shares my Impatience to hear news of
you, and all my sentiments for your health and happiness. our Love
follows dear Mary, whose merits you must, to your great
satisfaction, more and more feel every day.
I am ever my Sister's most affectionate Brother
W. PITT.
_St. James's Square. Sept. ye 12th. 1758._
Dear Sister,--You have now try'd the Bristol waters long enough to
make some judgement of their effects, and I have kept silence long
enough for you to make perhaps a strange judgement of my manner of
feeling for my friends. but feel I certainly do, my Dear Sister, for
all that concerns your health and happiness, how much soever I have
kept it for some weeks past a matter between me and my own
conscience, without giving you the least hint of my truly
affectionate sollicitude on your account. I am extremely inclin'd to
believe Doctor Oliver judges rightly of the first principle of your
disorders; that it is Gout, which aided by the waters of Bath and
proper nourishment may ripen into a salutary tho' painfull crisis.
as I think myself that Languor or perturbation of Spirits are well
exchanged for a degree of pain, I shall heartily wish you joy of
such a revolution in the system of your Constitution. how can I have
got so far in my paper, and not a word of the King of Kings whose
last Glories transcend all the parts? the Modesty of H:P: Majtys
relation, his Silence of Himself, and entire attribution of the
victory to Genl Seidlitz, are of a mind as truely heroick as H.
Majesty's taking a Colours in his own hand, when exhortations
failed, and forcing a disordered Infantery to follow Him or see Him
perish. more Glory can not be won; but more decisive final
consequence we still hope to hear, and languish for further letters
from the Prussian army. My Love to Dear Mrs Mary.
I am ever most affecly Yrs
W. PITT.
Then comes a letter referring apparently to the Battle of Hochkirch:
Dear Sister,--I can not omit writing, tho' but a line, to give you
the satisfaction of knowing that Mr d'Escart will return to France
in a very few days. I am very glad that it has been practicable to
accomplish so soon a thing that will give pleasure to so many of
your Friends. the news from Dresden to day is not very agreable, the
King of Prussia's right wing attack'd sudenly at 4 in the morning
ye 14th, put into disorder, Marshal Keith and Prince Francis of
Brunswick kill'd but the King coming to the Right, the action was
restored and the Austrians repulsed. His Prussian Majesty's Person
so exposed that one trembles: his Horse shot, and a Page and Ecuyer
wounded by his side. a second action seems inevitable: I hope every
thing from it, as this Heroick Monarch's happy Genius never fails
him when he wants it most. I have not a moment more. be assured of
my constant wishes for your health and happiness.
I am Dear Sister Your affectionate Brother
W. PITT.
Loves to Mary.
_Oct. ye 24th._
Ann was now in London on a short visit, for the purpose of attending the
Court; but she had designs of her own which appear to be serious, but
which give some evidence of the insanity which was always hovering over
her.
'I hear my Lord Bath,' she writes, November 10, 1758, 'is here very
lively, but I have not seen him, which I am very sorry for, because I
want to offer myself to him. I am quite in earnest, and have set my
heart upon it; so I beg seriously you will carry it in your mind and
think if you could find any way to help me. Do not you think Lady Betty
(Germaine) and Lord and Lady Vere would be ready to help me, if they
knew how willing I am? But I leave this to your discretion, and repeat
seriously that I am quite in earnest. He can want nothing but a
companion that would like his company, and in my situation, I should not
desire to make the bargain without that circumstance. And though all I
have been saying puts me in mind of some advertisements I have seen in
the newspaper from gentlewomen in distress, I will not take that method;
but I want to recollect whether you did not once tell me, as I think you
did many years ago, that he spoke so well of me that he got anger for it
at home, where I never was a favourite.'[85]
Never, surely, did a spinster of forty-eight breathe so frankly her
aspirations towards a wealthy and avaricious septuagenarian. We may be
sure that this freak of fancy was not confided to her brother. But he on
his side had a favour to ask of her, on behalf of a puissant personage.
Statesmen in those days had to pay their homage to the Court wherever
they could find it, and Pitt, who was never loved by George II., could
not afford to neglect the influence of Lady Yarmouth. At any rate, he
did not, though apparently without success in his ultimate object; and
so we find him attempting to neutralise, through Ann, the mischief which
might ensue from Lady Betty Waldegrave's letters being attributed by the
Court of France to the King's favourite. Lady Yarmouth was in danger of
being compromised!
Ann thus describes the negotiation: 'If I had not happened to be sick, I
should have been very much pleased with an express that was sent me to
give me a commission that I liked to execute, because it relates to a
person I am obliged to and have a regard for; it is my Lady Yarmouth who
desires me, by my brother, to explain a very disagreeable mistake which
has been made in France about a very fond letter, and mighty improper as
to politics, which Lady Betty Waldegrave wrote to her husband, unsigned,
and having desired the answer might be directed to Lady Y's lodging,
they concluded, very absurdly, the letter came from her; and as it was
intercepted, it was translated, shown, and commented very
impertinently.'
_St. James's Square. Nov. 7th. 1758._
Dear Sister,--I write to you at the desire of Lady Yarmouth, on an
Incident of a particular nature, and which has given her Ladyship
so much uneasiness that it will be a very agreeable office, if you
can contribute, by a letter to some Lady of the Court at Versailles,
to the clearing up of a very odd Qui pro Quo. The matter in question
is as follows. Letters to England from our Army having been taken,
there is amongst them _one_ from Lady Betty Waldgrave to General
Waldgrave _unsign'd_. the writer desires the General will _direct
his letters to Lady Yarmouth at Kensington_. on this ground the
letter in question being attributed, in France, to Lady Yarmouth has
drawn attention, been translated, and handed about, as she is
inform'd, with some mirth at Versailles and Paris. this letter is
return'd, by the channel of Selwyn's House, and Lady Yarmouth finds
it to contain, not only the expressions of a loving wife to a
Husband, but a strain of political reflections, together with
observations on very high Personages in Europe, commanding Armies in
Germany; all which Language cou'd not but bear a very prejudicial
Comment, if really attributed to the Lady, by whose desire I now
write to you. You are the best judge how to acquit yourself of the
Commission you are desired to charge yourself with; whether by
writing to the Dutchess of Mirepoix or any other of your friends. I
can only say, that I perceive Lady Yarmouth will think Herself
obliged to you for such an intervention, in a matter of some
Delicacy, and which might have many possible ill Consequences. if
you shall write in the manner desir'd, and will send your letter
directed to your Correspondent, under Cover to me, I will take care
it shall go in Count Very's packet to Paris.
I rejoice extremely my Dear Sister, at the account of your amendment
in Spirits, since your late attack. keep the ground so hardly won,
and ascend, by courage and perseverance that arduous steep, on the
Summit of which, Health and Happiness, I trust, still wait you. I am
lame in one foot, and much threatened with Gout for some days past;
but I flatter myself that it may blow over, like an Autumnal ruffle.
our Expeditions are, I fear, lame in both Feet. My Messenger is
order'd to wait your full leisure.
I am Dear Sister, Your most affectionate Brother
W. PITT.
Ann appears to have been successful, and receives thanks both from
William and the formal Lady Hester.
Dear Sister,--I am desired by Lady Yarmouth to assure you of the
sense she has of your good offices, which she was so good to
accompany with the most obliging expression of regard for you, and
with many wishes for your health. I shall be happy to receive a
favourable account of your situation, and which I flatter myself is
every day mending, and that by a Progression which will soon enable
you to take air and exercise. I am just going to Hayes, for some
hours recess, that I want much.
I am ever Dear Sister Most affly Yrs
W. PITT.
_Saturday morning._
_St. James's Square Tuesday Nov. 14._
Dear Madam,--If I had not for some time past found great
inconvenience from writing I shou'd not have continued so long
Silent where I always find so much pleasure in expressing my
sentiments, but however great my indisposition is from _my
Situation_ to my present employment, I cou'd not refuse a commission
which I had the honour to be charged with today from my Lady
Yarmouth, as I am sure the Subject of it will be a great pleasure
and Satisfaction to you. It was to desire I wou'd return you a
thousand Thanks for your letters, and to assure you that she felt
herself most extremely obliged to you for them, and for the trouble
you had given yourself, with many other expressions of the manner in
which she was sensible of your goodness in what you had done, and
how very agreable it was to Her. I was very sorry to find by your
account of yourself to Mr Pitt that you had had another return of
your bilious Complaint, but we Comfort our selves with the hope of
its having produced the same salutary effects the Last did. We shall
be impatient to have a confirmation of its having had so desirable a
consequence. By Miss Mary's Last Letters both to her Brother and Me
we have flattered ourselves with the pleasure of seeing Her for some
days past, but as yet she has not appeared, which wou'd make us
uneasy but that we conclude if her purpose of Leaving Bath the time
she mention'd had been alter'd from any disagreable Circumstance she
wou'd have apprised us of it. Our Nephew, Mr. Thos. Pitt, desires to
have the permission and pleasure of conveying this to you, as he
intends setting out for the Bath tomorrow in order to wait upon Sir
Richard Lyttelton, whom I wish he may find better than by the
reports which prevail, I fear he has any Chance of Doing. Your
Brother continues as usual overwhelm'd with business, and not
entirely free from some Notices of the Gout, but which yet I flatter
myself will not increase to a fit. He begs his affectionate
Compliments to you, and I that you wou'd forgive both the shortness
and the faults of this Letter, and believe me equally however
exprest
Your very affectionate Sister and Obedient Servant
HES: PITT.
Mr Pitt desires to assure you the Letters were the properest that
cou'd be writ upon the occasion.
Ann, as we learn from the preceding letter, returned to Bath at once.
'Mr Thomas Pitt' (Lord Camelford) brings it to her, and here makes her
acquaintance: 'It was there' (at Bath) 'in the year 1759 that I first
connected that friendship with her which still leaves so many mixed
sensations on my mind.' Ann, it may confidently be said, left mixed
sensations on all minds. The next note announces the birth of the young
William Pitt.
_Hayes. May ye 28th. 1759._
Dear Sister,--I have the satisfaction to acquaint you, of what you
was so good to wish to hear; Lady Hester was safely delivered of a
Boy this morning, after a labour rather severe, but she and the
Child are, thank God, as well as can be. You will give us a very
real pleasure by good accounts of your own health which we hope is
much better for the journey alone, and that waters will not fail to
be of great assistance towards a perfect recovery. I am
Dear Sister Your most affectionate Brother,
W. PITT.
I can't help mentioning to you the waters and Bath of Buxton: which
for a languid perspiration and obstructions in the smaller vessels,
have done wonders.
Next comes a short letter from William, only notable from his anxiety
about Squire Allworthy.
_St. James's Square. July 24th, 1759._
Dear Sister,--Your letter on the subject of Mr. Allen's Health gave
me, with the Pain of learning he had been ill, the Satisfaction of
understanding that the attack was, in some degree over; that to Lady
Hester giving an account of the terrible nature of his complaint,
having follow'd Her to Wotton, where she now is.
I trust that the next accounts from Prior Park will be favourable
and that the best of men, who feels and relieves the most the
sufferings of others, may not Himself suffer the severest of Pains.
I learn with great satisfaction the considerable amendment you
mention in your own Health, and the promising prospects of deriving
much benefit from Tunbridge. I hope You will not let too much of
this fine season for mineral waters pass, before you repair to Them,
and that their effects, when you try them, will fully answer your
own and your Friends expectation.
I am Dear Sister Your most affectionate Brother,
W. PITT.
if Lord Paulett be still at Bath, I beg my compliments to his
Lordship.
It is perhaps well, for the preservation of continuity, to print the
following letter from Lady Hester to her sister-in-law:
_Tuesday. St. James's Square. Aug. 29th._
I am so much in Arrear to You, my Dear Madam, and upon so many
accounts, that I don't know where to begin first to acquit my Self
to You. I feel I want now most to justifie my self to you for not
having before exprest how sensible I am to the various Marks I have
received of your very obliging Attention upon all the Subjects that
you knew wou'd give me the greatest pleasure. The Fact is that an
unexpected Journey to Wotton, from which place I return'd but Last
night, interfered with my intention of writing to You, and of
returning you my sincerest thanks for the great Satisfaction your
Letter gave me. It included everything that cou'd make it pleasing
to Me, and renew'd all my own Joy for our Successes with Yours added
to it, which was a great improvement of all I felt before, and
particularly for Louisbourg, _Dear_, as you know so many ways. I am
charmed with my rings, which are after an English Taste that I hope
will be followed, and grow fashionable enough to encourage a Variety
of Patterns. Last night brought a Large Package from Bath directed
to Your Brother, and intended we guess for the Young Militia Man at
Hayes. It contained besides a present for Miss Hetty, both which
will be faithfully deliver'd this evening, and the sentiments they
inspire shall be in due time communicated. In the Interval I believe
I must apply to you my Dear Madam to assure the kind sender of my
share of pleasure in the present. Miss Mary's Letter received Last
night, gave a great deal of Satisfaction to both your Brother and Me
by the account of Your Health, and the Progress You have made in a
returning to a Diet of Solid Food, a sort of Sustenance so much more
likely to restore and confirm your Strength and Spirits than any
other. We are glad to find that Doctor Oliver has your approbation,
and that he seems to reason with great sense and probability upon
your case, and what it is likely to end in. the Gout is not a very
desirable Thing, but only comparatively, where the constitution is
not strong, for then there ar many Disorders to which people are
Liable that are much worse. I am vastly pleased that Our House has
the honour of being approved by you, and should be delighted if I
cou'd be so happy as to receive You in it, and wish extremely that
it was furnish'd and fit for Your reception, but I find Mr. Pitt
thinks that it is not proper to have hired furniture put into it, as
well as that you cou'd not be so conveniently accommodated in a
House so circumstanced, as you will be in the very commodious
Lodgings which Bath affords. We are meditating a journey to Hayes
the moment Mr. Pitt returns from Kensington, which makes it
impossible for me to say as much as I wish to You upon the different
Subjects in this Letter, being obliged to give an account of my
journey to the Friends I met at Wotton who are now disperst. May I
beg you to give my Love to Miss Mary, and to say I hope she will
admit what I have been saying as an excuse for my not acknowledging
by this Post in a letter to Her what I have in my sentiments
acknowledged ever since I heard from her, that I was indebted to her
for the Prettiest, as well as the most Obliging, Letter in the
World, besides her Bath Fairing which I value properly. I shall only
now repeat my request that You will believe me Always my Dear Madam
Your affectionate Sister and most Obedient Servant,
H. PITT.
Mr. Pitt will endeavour to serve the Chevalier de Chaila as you
desire.
All so far had been harmonious enough. Unfortunately, there now occurred
a second misunderstanding, to which the ensuing letters relate. It is
best to give Lord Camelford's account, which, though mysterious enough,
is all we have. 'Her Physicians advising her to discontinue the Waters
for a short time to give trial to a course of med'cines, she determin'd
to accompany me to London, to see some old friends after a long absence,
and to transact certain business, and then to return to Bath. Fearing,
however, that her unexpected arrival at her Lodgings in Leicester House
might have objections, or that there might be difficulties in her
lodging any where in London, she stop'd short at Sion at Ly.
Holdernesse's, her particular friend, from whence she removed to
Kensington to a house Mr. Cresset lent her. This Journey gave offence to
her Brother, and occasion'd their second quarrel. Instead of managing a
temper too like his own, instead of yielding to her repeated request of
seeing him, when with gentleness he might have explained his wishes to
her and have persuaded to whatever he thought best for her or for
himself, he satisfied himself with dark hints, imperious messages, and
ambiguous menaces convey'd thro' Ly. Hester and his Sister Mary, neither
of whom were very happy in the arts of conciliation. Frightened,
confounded, and at the same time exasperated by so strange a conduct,
she tried to return to Bath, but her strength would not admit of her
getting half way thro' the Journey. She return'd to Kensington--she got
medical advice--she saw a few of her old friends, who soon disproved the
falsities that were every day propagated of her State of Health--by
degrees she saw all her fears vanish--the World return to her and nobody
flie from her but the Person from whom she expected her chief
countenance and support. She sounded the Princess, and found she was at
full liberty to live where she pleased, except that the former intimacy
was at an end. She met her Brother accidentally at Ly. Yarmouth's, he
kiss'd her on both sides with the affectation of the warmest affection;
whilst he refused to visit her and his whole family were hostile to her
in the cruelest manner.'
The whole affair is obscure, and is not elucidated by the letters of
Pitt and his wife which follow. Lady Hester is civil and kind enough,
though evidently forbidden to visit or receive her sister-in-law. But
what Pitt means by his allusion to 'desultory jaunts,' and 'hovering
about London,' and conduct 'too imprudent and restless or as too
mysterious' for him to be connected with it, we cannot now conjecture.
What harm a spinster of forty-eight could do by staying with Lady
Holdernesse at Sion, and thence moving to Kensington, and being
undecided as to her plans, it is not easy to determine. It is possible,
on considering the whole affair, Ann's own temperate reply, and all that
followed, that Pitt knew that his sister was seeking a pension, for
which purpose she had gone to Sion and to Kensington (for Lady
Holdernesse was the wife of a Secretary of State, and Cresset was a man
of influence), and desirous that his name should not be connected with
the pension list at this moment of unrivalled popularity and power, he
was anxious to have no communication with her. There is a still more
probable explanation of Pitt's annoyance with his sister's behaviour. We
have seen that Lord Camelford speaks of the 'falsities that were every
day propagated about her state of health.' In a letter soon to follow
she herself speaks of her stay in France 'before my spirits were so much
disordered as they have been since.' Some years afterwards, Horace
Walpole wrote of her that she had at times been out of her senses. It
seems possible, then, that one of these attacks had taken place at Bath,
and that she had broken loose from constraint and come up to London,
which would revive the gossip about her condition, and so cause
annoyance to her brother, who thought that peremptoriness was the only
method of getting her back again to Bath. If this were so, he acted
wisely, as she appears to have returned to Bath at once. This last
conjecture seems the more probable explanation. In any case the
circumstances of the people and the times were full of electricity. Pitt
was busy, gouty and irritable; Bute was much above the horizon. Ann was
eccentric, wilful, and wayward. Soon afterwards, she had a pension,
which annoyed her brother. This is all that we can be said to know. We
do not even know the date of this episode.
FROM LADY HESTER PITT.
It is my Dear Madam extremely unfortunate that from different
circumstances which have interpos'd themselves, I have not had it in
my power to have the pleasure of seeing you since your arrival in
the neighbourhood of London, and I am quite concern'd that by Your
Brother's business I am so circumstanced today, as to make it
impossible for me to receive that Satisfaction. There is to be a
meeting of the Cabinet here this Evening, which Always engrosses my
Apartment and banishes me to other quarters. We are but just arrived
from the Country, which I think has done your Brother good. He
desires I wou'd assure you of his affectionate Compliments, and Let
you know that his present Pressure of business is so great that it
does not leave him the Command of a quarter of an hour of his time,
so as to be able to assure himself beforehand of the pleasure of
seeing any friend. therefore under that uncertainty, and fearing he
may miss of the Satisfaction of meeting You, he desires thro' me to
wish you a safe return to Bath, so much the best place, He is
perfectly convinced, for Your Health. We are both very glad to hear
you have had a confirmation from Doctor Pitt of the efficacy you may
expect to find in those waters for your Complaints. I must not end
my Note without expressing how much I was flattered by your
remembrance of Little Hetty, tho' I trust Miss Mary did not forget
me upon that subject, no more than on that of my real Concern for
its being impossible for me to wait upon You, and say for myself
how much I feel obliged to You for your kind Letter and message. The
Compliments of the season attend You my Dear Madam with many good
wishes.
_St. James's Square. Tuesday._
_St. James's Square. Monday. Jan. 15th._
Dear Madam,--Mr. Pitt is this moment come to Town, and so
overwhelm'd with business, that it is quite impossible for Him to
write a word to You Himself, in answer to your Note which he has
just received. He is very sorry to find you are ill, and wishes me
to tell you that you have mistaken Him in thinking he meant to
express any desire of His as to your Going, or Staying, which he
always meant to Leave to your own Decision, but only to offer you
his opinion, and never proposes to take upon Him to give you any
further Advice with regard to the place of Your residence, which you
have all right independent of any thing with respect to Him to
determine as You please for Yourself. I am extremely concern'd to
hear your disorder is increased so much as to have made your return
to Kensington necessary, as I fear your Situation There must be very
uncomfortable and Disagreeable, without Servants, or any of those
Conveniences, which are so particularly of Consequence when any body
is ill. I hope most sincerely to have the pleasure of hearing you
are better, and Able to prosecute what ever May be thought best for
Your Health, being very truly Dear Madam
Your Most Affectionate and Most Obedt
H. PITT.
_Friday Morning._
Dear Sister,--I desire to assure you that all Idea of _Quarrel_ or
_unkindness_, (words I am griev'd to find you cou'd employ) was
never farther from my mind than during your stay in this
neighbourhood. on the Contrary, my Dear Sister, nothing but kindness
and regard to your Good, on the whole, has made me judge it
necessary that we should not meet during the Continuance you think
fit to give to an excursion so unexpected, and so hurtfull to you. I
beg my Dear Sister not to mistake my wishes to see Her set down,
for a time, quiet and collected within her own Resources of Patience
and fortitude, (merely as being best and the only fit thing for
Herself) so very widely as to suppose, that my Situation as a
Publick Person, is any way concern'd in her residing in one Place or
another. all I mean is, that, _for your own sake_, you shou'd
abstain from all desultory jaunts, such as the present. the hearing
of you all at once, at Sion; next at Kensington, then every day
going, and now not yet gone, certainly carries an appearance
disadvantageous to you in this view; I have refused myself the
pleasure of seeing You; as considering your journey and hovering
about London, as too imprudent and restless, or as too mysterious,
for me not to discourage such a conduct, by remaining unmixt with
it. this is the only cause of my not seeing you, nor can I give you
a more real proof of my affectionate regard for your welfare than by
thus refusing myself a great pleasure, and, I fear, giving you a
Pain. I offer you no Advice, as to the choice of your residence. I
am persuaded you want none; you have a right and are well able to
judge for yourself on this point. but if you will not fix somewhere
You are undone. I am sorry to be forc'd to say this much; but saying
less I should cease to be with truest affection Dear Sister
Ever Yrs
W. PITT.
ANN PITT TO HER BROTHER.
Dear Brother,--I am going to set out to return to Bath, but as the
letter I received from you yesterday leaves me in great anxiety and
perplexity of mind, I can not set out without assuring you, as I do
with the most exact truth, that there was no mistery in my journey
here, nor no purpose but the relief I proposed to my mind. If I had
known before I left the Bath that you disapproved of my leaving that
place at this time, or of my coming to Town, I wou'd not have done
as I have done, and wou'd not even have come near it, tho' the
advice given me at Oxford with regard to my health, made me desire
to make use of the interval in which I was order'd not to try the
waters again, to have the pleasure and satisfaction of seeing You
and some of my friends and as I hoped that satisfaction from You in
the first place, I will not dissemble that I am very much
disappointed and mortified in not having seen you, but as the hurry
of important business you are in, and the relief necessary to make
you go through it, made it possible for me not to interpret your not
seeing me as a mark of unkindness, I never used the word (the word)
but to guard against other people using it, upon a circumstance
which I thought they had nothing to do with.
When I writ you word from the Bath that I had thoughts of coming to
Town for Christmas, I desir'd nothing so much as to do what was most
proper according to my situation, and consequently to have your
advice, which I told you, very sincerely I wished to be guided by
preferably to every other consideration, You best know how I am to
attain the end I have steadily desired for Years, as you know I writ
you word from France (before my spirits were so much disorder'd as
they have been since) that I desired nothing as much as a safe and
honourable retreat, that wou'd leave me the enjoyment of my Friends,
without which help and suport I find by a painfull experience that
it is impossible for me to suport myself. I beg leave to trouble you
with my compliments to Lady Hester, and my wishes for the happiness
of you both, and of all the little family that belong to you.
I am D Br &c.
This undated note appears to belong to the same time as the preceding
ones, and tends to confirm the hypothesis that it was Ann's mental
condition that gave rise to anxiety.
FROM LADY HESTER PITT.
Dear Madam,--Having informed Mr. Pitt, who is this moment come home,
that you intend going to the Lodgings in Lisle Street, He wou'd not
set down to dinner without desiring me to let you know from Him that
this intention of Yours gives him the greatest surprise and not Less
concern for _Your sake_, being unalterably persuaded that Retreat is
the only right Thing for your Health, Welfare, and Happiness, and
that Bath in Your present state seems to be the fittest Place.
_St. James's Square Wednesday past four o'clock._
We now come to the famous affair of the pension. Ann has evidently
written to ask her brother's interest for a pension. He replies that on
such a subject he would rather not speak, much less write to her, and
gives her plainly to understand that he washes his hands of the whole
business. She now turned to Bute. 'Having lost, therefore,' writes
Camelford, 'all the hopes she had founded on her brother's friendship,
which now turned to open enmity, she tried the generosity of Ld Bute
upon the King's succession, who, not unwilling to give Mr Pitt a
sensible mortification in the shape of a civility, procured for her a
pension that was no small comfort in addition to her slender income,
which was afterwards again augmented to L1000 p.a., at the instance of
her friend M. de Nivernois, upon the peace.'
Dear Sister,--I hoped long before now to have been able to call on
you, and in that hope have delayed answering a letter on a subject
so very nice and particular, that I cou'd, with difficulty and but
imperfectly, enter into it even in conversation. I am sure I need
not say to one of your knowledge of the world, that explaining of
Situations is not a small Affair, at any time, and in the present
moment I dare say You are too reasonable to wish me to do it. In
this state I have only to assure you of my sincerest wishes for your
advantage and happiness, and that I shall consider any good that
arrives to you as done to myself, which I shall be ready to
acknowledge as such: but having never been a Sollicitor of favours,
upon any occasion, how can I become so now without contradicting the
whole tenour of my Life? I think there is no foundation for your
apprehensions of anything distressfull being intended, and I hope
you will not attribute, what I have said to any motive that may give
you uneasiness, being very truely
Dear Sister Your affectionate Brother
_Nov. 24: 1760._ W. PITT.
After the letter in which Pitt sheers off from the pension, there was
evidently an announcement from Ann that it had been granted to her on
the recommendation of Lord Bute. This is lost. But we have Pitt's
unpleasing congratulation. This was the note which Ann was with
difficulty restrained from returning to Pitt, having altered it to suit
the circumstances of the case, when Pitt's wife was granted a much
larger pension.
Dear Sister,--Accept sincere felicitations from Lady Hester and me
on the Event you have just communicated. on your account, I rejoice
at an addition of income so agreeable to your turn of life, whatever
repugnancy I find, at the same time, to see my Name placed on the
Pensions of Ireland. unmixt as I am in this whole transaction, I
will not doubt that you will take care to have it thoroughly
understood. long may you live in health to enjoy the comforts and
happiness which you tell me you owe to the King, singly through the
intercession of Lord Bute, and to feel the pleasing sentiments of
such an obligation.
I am Dear Sister Your most affectionate Brother
_Tuesday Dec. 30th 1760._ W. PITT.
Then follows Ann's reply, which may be judged not unconciliatory when
her fierce temperament is taken into consideration. She elaborately and
almost humbly vindicates her pension against her brother's sarcastic
strictures.
Dear Brother,--I must trouble you again, not only to return my
thanks to Lady Hester and yourself, for your obliging
felicitations, But as I have the mortification of finding, that for
some reasons which I can not judge of, You feel a repugnancy to the
mark of favour I have had the honour to receive, and desire--it may
be throughly understood that you had no share in the transaction--I
ought to make you easy, by assuring you, as I do, that so far as I
think proper to communicate an event, which will not naturally be
very publick, I will take care to explain the truth, by which it
will appear that you are no way concern'd in it, and that it has no
sort of relation to your Situation as Minister, since my request was
first made to the Princess many years ago, as Her Royal Highnesess
Servant, as I am pretty sure I explained to you in a letter from
France, and repeated to you at my return, as the foundation of my
hopes of obtaining the Princesses approbation for any establishment
you might have procured for me. And tho' the Provision I have been
so happy to obtain from His Majesty's Bounty is of the utmost
importance to me and answers every wish I cou'd form with regard to
my income, yet when I was allow'd to say how much wou'd make me
easy, I fix'd it at a sum, which I flatter myself will not be
thought exorbitant, or appear as if I had wanted to avail myself of
the weight of your credit, or the merit of your services to obtain
it.
As to your objection to your Names (_sic_) being upon the Irish
Pensions, I do not believe that any mistake can be made, from mine
being there. And as to myself, I very sincerely think it an honour
that is very flattering to me, to have received so precious a mark
of the Royal favour, and to have my Name upon the same List not only
with some of the highest and the most deserving persons in England,
but even with some of the greatest and most glorious names in
Europe. If I have tired you with a longer letter than I intended, I
have been lead (_sic_) into it, by the sincere desire I have, that
an advantage so very essential to the ease and comfort of the
remainder of a Life, which has not hitherto been very happy, shou'd
not be a cause of uneasiness to You. I am
Alas for the freakful fate which plays with poor humanity and its
concerns! The next letter announces another pension, not to Ann, but to
Pitt's wife. So soon after the other correspondence, not ten months! No
wonder that Ann was tempted to the vengeance that has been described.
Even though she refrained we may imagine her unrestrained scoffs and her
bitter laughter.
Dear Madam,--I was out of Town Yesterday, or otherwise I shou'd have
had the pleasure of informing You that His Majesty has been
Graciously pleas'd to confer the Dignity of Peerage on Your
Brother's Family, by creating Me Baroness of Chatham with Limitation
to our Sons. The King has been farther pleas'd to make a Grant of
Three Thousand Pounds a Year to Mr. Pitt for his own Life, Mine, and
our Eldest Son's in consideration of Mr. Pitt's Services, We do not
doubt of the Share You will take in these Gracious Marks of his
Majesties Royal Approbation and Goodness.
I am Dear Madam Your most Obedient Servant
HES: PITT.
_Sunday Morning_
Some four years afterwards Ann received this short note, which shows
that there was no rupture of relations; and the tone indeed is cordial
for the period, when the expression of the warmest affection was far
from gushing.
_Burton-Pynsent Aug. ye 1st 1765._
I am extremely obliged to you, Dear Sister, for the trouble you are
so good to take of writing to enquire after my health, which I found
mend on the journey and by change of air. I still continue lame, but
have left off one Crutch, which is no small advance; tho' with only
one Wing my flights, you will imagine, are as yet very short: the
Country of Somersetshire is beautifull and tempts much to extend
them. I hope your health is much better and that you have found the
way to subdue all your complaints, or at least to reduce them
within such bounds, as leave your life comfortable and agreeable.
Lady Chatham desires to present her compliments to you.
I am Dear Sister Your affectionate Brother
WILLIAM PITT.
And now there come the last sad words, the last sign of life that
William gives to Ann. It is not without significance that even at this
period of prostration he bids his wife tell Ann that his official life
is ended. It does not appear that there had ever been or was ever to be
any formal reconciliation between them. But through all the gusts and
squalls and storms that had troubled their intercourse an underlying
tenderness had survived.
_Hayes. Oct. 21st. 1768._
Madam,--The very weak and broken state of my Lord's health having
reduced him to the necessity of supplicating the King to grant him
the permission to resign the Privy Seal, he has desir'd I wou'd
communicate this Step to You.
I am Madam, Your most Obedient Humble Servant
H. CHATHAM.
About this time (1768) she took up her abode at Kensington Gravel Pits,
in the region of Notting Hill, 'where out of a very ugly odd house and a
flat piece of ground with a little dirty pond in the middle of it, she
has made a very pretty place; she says she has "hurt her understanding"
in trying to make it so.'[86] Before that time she seems to have lived
for a while at Twickenham; at least Horace Walpole speaks of her as a
close neighbour. Being fairly launched as a pensioner, she throve on the
system, and eventually accumulated a treble allowance; this Bute
pension, another procured by M. de Nivernois, and another, mentioned by
Horace Walpole in a letter of Nov. 25, 1764, which must have raised her
whole income from this source to some 1500_l._ a year. On this she
entertained, and frolicked, and danced. We hear of her choice but
miniature balls, and her band of French horns, which Horace Walpole
enjoyed and described. But her intercourse with William, once so bright
and genial, was ended, and that is all with which we are here concerned.
A frigid letter or two counted as nothing in a connection which had once
been as intimate as it was delightful.
Ann went on living at Kensington a somewhat frivolous life so far as we
know anything about it, in intimate relations with Horace Walpole and
his society. But in 1774 she went abroad, under the auspices of the
Butes, to Italy, to Pisa and elsewhere. Then came her brother's sudden
death. Though she had been so long aloof from him, the shock finally
shattered her reason, which, it would appear, had already given cause
for apprehension. Chatham died May 11, 1778. She soon returned to
England, and in the October of that year Horace Walpole writes that she
is 'in a very wild way, and they think must be confined.'[87] In the
following May he announces that she is actually under restraint.[88]
There is a letter at Chevening from her to her niece, Lady Mahon, dated
'Burnham, May 9, 1779,' which betrays her distraught condition. Burnham
was probably that 'one of Dr. Duffell's houses' to which she had been
removed. On Feb. 9, 1781, she dies, still in confinement. Lady Bute, it
should be noted, was kind and attentive to the end.[89]
'She was in Italy at the time of his (Chatham's) death,' writes Lord
Camelford, who was probably there too. 'I can bear witness that the
grief she felt at the reflection of his having died without a
reconciliation with her made such an impression of tenderness on her
mind that not only obliterated all remembrance of his unkindness, but
recoiled upon herself, as if she had been the offending party, and
doubtless contributed greatly to the melancholy state in which she
died.'
Horace Walpole, who had come to hate all Pitts, confirms this in his
sardonic way. 'Did I tell you that Mrs Ann Pitt is returned and acts
great grief for her brother?' and he goes on to say that Camelford
himself 'gave a little into that mummery, even to me; forgetting how
much I must remember of his aversion to his uncle.'
There were perhaps few genuine tears save those of wife and children
shed over the grave of the grim, disconcerting old statesman, for men of
his type are beyond friendship: they inspire awe, not affection; they
deal with masses, not with individuals; they have followers, admirers,
and an envious host of enemies, rarely a friend. But Ann had no reason
to feign grief or self-reproach. She had lost her first love, her only
love, the love of her life. It is probable that the brother and sister
had understood each other throughout in their quick-kindling, petulant
way. 'My brother, who has always seemed to guess and understand all I
felt of every kind,' she wrote in 1757;[90] a sentence which is a clue
to all. The memory of childhood, the glad sympathies of youth, the
impressions received when their characters were plastic and fresh, the
habit of close intimacy for the score of years during which intimacy
was possible for him, all these contributed to form a bond which
survived the skirmishes and collisions of their later lives. Two persons
of highly charged temperament, and of natures too much akin, who
understood each other, respected each other, and perhaps secretly
enjoyed each other's ebullitions, such were Ann and William after they
separated in 1746. Their long affection is interesting if only that it
seemed impossible that two such characters should agree even for a time.
And therefore, though the narrative of this episode has swollen beyond
all limit and proportion, the space is not lost, for it is invaluable to
the student of Pitt's career. It lights up the only expressed tenderness
in his life, it is the one relief to his sombre nature, it is the sole
record that we have of the unbending of that grim and stately figure.