The younger Pitt was the second son of Lord Chatham, and was seven years of age when his father in 1766 was admitted to the peerage. The boy’s earliest peculiarity was an absorbing ambition to become his father’s successor as the first orator of the day. His health, however, was so delicate as to cause the gravest apprehensions. Stanhope tells us that before he was fourteen “half of his time was lost through ill health,” and that his early life at Cambridge was “one long disease.” There is still extant a remarkable letter that reveals better than any thing else the fond hopes of the father and the physical discouragement as well as the mental aspirations of the son. Chatham wrote: “Though I indulge with inexpressible delight the thought of your returning health, I cannot help being a little in pain lest you should make more haste than good speed to be well. How happy the task, my noble, amiable boy, to caution you only against pursuing too much all those liberal and praiseworthy things, to which less happy natures are perpetually to be spurred and driven. I will not tease you with too long a lecture in favor of inaction and a competent stupidity, your two best tutors and companions at present. You have time to spare; consider, there is but the EncyclopÆdia, and when you have mastered that, what will remain?” The intimations of precocity here given were fully justified by the extraordinary progress made by the boy notwithstanding his bodily ailments. He entered the University of Cambridge at fourteen, and such was his scholarship at that time that his tutor wrote: “It is no uncommon thing for him to read into English six or eight pages of Thucydides which he had not previously seen, without more than two or three mistakes, and sometimes without even one.”

At the university, where he remained nearly seven years, his course of study was carried on strictly in accordance with his father’s directions and was somewhat peculiar. His most ardent devotion was given to the classics; and his method was that to which his father always attributed the extraordinary copiousness and richness of his own language. After looking over a passage so as to become familiar with the author’s thought, he strove to render it rapidly into elegant and idiomatic English, with a view to reproducing it with perfect exactness and in the most felicitous form. This method he followed for years till, according to the testimony of his tutor, Dr. Prettyman, when he had reached the age of twenty, “there was scarcely a Greek or Latin writer of any eminence the whole of whose works Mr. Pitt had not read to him in this thorough and discriminating manner.” This was the laborious way in which he acquired that extraordinary and perhaps unrivalled gift of pouring out for hour after hour an unbroken stream of thought without ever hesitating for a word or recalling a phrase or sinking into looseness or inaccuracy of expression. The finest passages even of the obscurer poets he copied with care and stored away in his memory; and thus he was also qualified for that aptness of quotation for which his oratory was always remarkable.

With his classical studies Pitt united an unusual aptitude and fondness for the mathematics and for logic. To both of these he gave daily attention, and before he left the university, according to the authority above quoted, he was master in mathematics of every thing usually known by young men who obtain the highest academical honors. In logic, Aristotle was his master, and he early acquired the habit of applying the principles and methods of that great logician to a critical examination of all the works he studied and the debates he witnessed. It was probably this course of study which gave him his unrivalled power in reply. While still at Cambridge it was a favorite employment to compare the great speeches of antiquity in point of logical accuracy, and to point out the manner in which the reasoning of the orator could be met and answered. The same habit followed him to London and into Parliament. His biographers dwell upon the fact, that whenever he listened to a debate he was constantly employed in detecting illogical reasoning and in pointing out to those near him how this argument and that could easily be answered. Before he became a member of Parliament, he was in the habit of spending much time in London and in listening to the debates on the great subjects then agitating the nation. But the speeches of his father and of Burke, of Fox, and of Sheridan seemed to interest him chiefly as an exercise for his own improvement. His great effort was directed to the difficult process of retaining the long train of argument in his mind, of strengthening it, and of pointing out and refuting the positions that seemed to him weak.

It would be incorrect to leave the impression that these severe courses of study were not intermingled with studies in English literature, rhetoric, and history. We are told that “he had the finest passages of Shakespeare by heart,” that “he read the best historians with care,” that “his favorite models of prose style were Middleton’s Life of Cicero, and the historical writings of Bolingbroke,” and that “on the advice of his father, for the sake of a copious diction, he made a careful study of the sermons of Dr. Barrow.” Making all due allowance for the exaggerative enthusiasm of biographers, we are still forced to the belief that no other person ever entered Parliament with acquirements and qualifications for a great career equal on the whole to those of the younger Pitt.

The expectations formed of him were not disappointed. It has frequently happened that members of Parliament have attained to great and influential careers after the most signal failures as speakers in their early efforts. But no such failure awaited Pitt. He entered the House of Commons in 1781, at the age of twenty-two, and became a member of the opposition to Lord North, under the leadership of Burke and Fox. His first speech was in reply to Lord Nugent on the subject of economic reform, a matter that had been brought forward by Burke. Pitt had been asked to speak on the question; but, although he had hesitated in giving his answer, he had determined not to participate in the debate. His answer, however, was misunderstood, and therefore at the close of a speech by Lord Nugent, he was vociferously called upon by the Whig members of the House. Though taken by surprise, he finally yielded and with perfect self-possession began what was probably the most successful first speech ever given in the House of Commons. Unfortunately it was not reported and has not been preserved. But contemporaneous accounts of the impression it made are abundant. Not only was it received with enthusiastic applause from every part of the House; but Burke greeted him with the declaration that he was “not merely a chip of the old block, but the old block itself.” When some one remarked that Pitt promised to be one of the first speakers ever heard in Parliament, Fox replied, “He is so already.” This was at the proudest era of British eloquence, and when Pitt was but twenty-two.

During the session of 1781–82 the powers of Burke, Fox, and Pitt were united in a strenuous opposition to the administration of Lord North. After staggering under their blows for some weeks, the ministry fell, and Lord North was succeeded by Rockingham in February of 1782. Rockingham’s ministry, however, was terminated by the death of its chief after a short period of only thirteen weeks. Lord Shelburne was appointed his successor, and he chose Pitt as the Chancellor of the Exchequer and leader of the House of Commons. Thus Burke and Fox were passed by, and not only the responsible leadership of the Commons, but also the finances of the empire, were entrusted to a youth of twenty-three. The reason of this preference certainly was not an acknowledged pre-eminence of Pitt; but rather in the attitude he had assumed in the course of his attacks on the administration of North. He had not inveighed against the king, but had attached all the responsibility of mismanagement to the ministry, where the Constitution itself places it. Fox, on the other hand, had allowed himself to be carried forward by the impetuosity of his nature, and had placed the responsibility where we now know it belonged—upon George III. The consequence had been that the enraged king would not listen to the promotion of Fox, though by constitutional usage he was clearly entitled to recognition. That Fox was offended was not singular, but it is impossible even for his most ardent admirers to justify the course he now determined to take. He had been the most bitter opponent of Lord North. He had denounced him as “the most infamous of mankind,” and as “the greatest criminal of the state.” He had declared of his ministry: “From the moment I should make any terms with one of them, I should rest satisfied to be called the most infamous of mankind.” He had said only eleven months before: “I could not for a moment think of a coalition with men who, in every public and private transaction as ministers, have shown themselves void of every principle of honor and honesty.”A And yet, notwithstanding these philippics, which almost seem to have been delivered as if to make a coalition impossible, Fox now deserted his old political companions, and joined hands with the very object of his fiercest denunciation. The Coalition thus formed voted down the Shelburne ministry in February, 1783.

The debate which preceded the final vote was one of the most remarkable in English history. The subject immediately at issue was a vote of censure of Shelburne’s government for the terms of the treaty closing the American war. North assailed the treaty, as bringing disgrace upon the country by the concessions it had made. Fox spoke in the same strain, having reserved himself till the latter part of the night, with the evident purpose of overwhelming the young leader of the House by the force and severity of his presentation. But the moment he sat down, Pitt arose and grappled with the argument of his opponent in a speech that has seldom been surpassed in the history of parliamentary debate. Lord North spoke of its eloquence as “amazing,” and, although the Coalition was too strong to be broken, it made such an impression that there could no longer be any doubt that Pitt was now the foremost man of his party.

In the course of the speech Pitt intimated that even if the vote of censure came to pass, the king might not feel called upon to accept the decision. He declared it an unnatural Coalition, which had simply raised a storm of faction, and which had no other object than the infliction of a wound on Lord Shelburne. Then in one of his impassioned strains he exclaimed: “If, however, the baneful alliance is not already formed,—if this ill-omened marriage is not already solemnized, I know a just and lawful impediment,—and in the name of the public safety, I here forbid the banns.” But all availed nothing. The vote of censure was passed, and Shelburne’s ministry tendered their resignation. The king hesitated. He was unwilling to bring the Coalition into power, because he had an insurmountable repugnance to Fox. He sent for Pitt, and urged him in the most pressing terms to accept the position of Prime-Minister. But Pitt, with that steadfast judgment which never deserted him, firmly rejected the flattering offer. The most he would consent to do was to remain in the office he then held till the succession could be fixed upon. The king was almost in despair; and thought seriously of retiring to Hanover. It was Thurlow that dissuaded him from taking so dangerous a step. “Nothing is easier than for your Majesty to go to his Electoral dominions;” said the old Chancellor, “but you may not find it so easy to return when you grow tired of staying there. James II. did the same; your Majesty must not follow his example.” He then assured the king that the Coalition was an unnatural one, and could not long remain in power without committing some fatal blunder. After six weeks the king reluctantly submitted, and appointed the Duke of Portland as the Prime-Minister, and North and Fox as the Chief Secretaries of State.

The end came sooner than Thurlow had dared to anticipate. The Coalition ministry was formed on the second day of April, 1783. During the first week of the following session Fox brought forward his East India bill, which had for its object the entire remodelling of the government of the English domains in the East. The measure was in direct defiance of the wishes of the king. In view of the circumstances of Fox’s coalition with the Tories, it is not singular that many thought the scheme a desperate measure to intrench the Coalition so firmly in power that the king could not remove them. Pitt opposed the measure with great energy, and with so much skill that it soon became evident that he spoke the sentiments of the thinking men of the nation. The debate on the question lasted twelve days, and was closed by a masterly review of the question by Fox. The Coalition was so strong in the lower House that the final vote was 217 to 103 in favor of the measure.

But in the House of Lords its fortune was different. At an interview with Lord Temple, a kinsman of Pitt’s, the king commissioned him to say to the members of the House “that whoever voted for the India bill were not only not his friends, but that he should consider them his enemies.” This message was widely but secretly circulated among the Lords. Thurlow denounced the bill in unqualified terms. Though the ministry fought for the measure as best they could, when the question came to a final issue, it was rejected by a vote of ninety-five to seventy-six. At twelve o’clock on the following night a messenger conveyed the orders of the king to the chief ministers to deliver up the seals of their offices, and to send them by the under secretaries, “as a personal interview on the occasion would be disagreeable to him.” The following day the other ministers were dismissed with like evidences of disfavor.

Pitt now, on the 22d of December, 1783, became Prime-Minister at the age of twenty-four. The situation was one that put all his powers to the severest test. In the last decisive vote in the House of Commons the majority against him had been more than two to one. Fox was inflamed with all the indignation of which his good-nature was capable. He declared on the floor of the House that “to talk of the permanency of such an administration would be only laughing at and insulting them”; and he alluded to “the youth of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the weakness incident to his early period of life as the only possible excuse for his temerity.” And yet with such consummate tact did Pitt ward off the blows, and with such skill and power did he in turn advance to the assault, that the majority against him at once began to show signs of weakening. Fox threatened to cut off the supplies; whereupon Pitt met him with an unwavering defiance. Rapidly the majority went down till, on a test vote on the 8th of March, the opposition had only one majority. Pitt immediately decided to dissolve Parliament and appeal to the people. The result more than justified his determination. The question everywhere was “Fox or Pitt?” The cry “for Pitt and the King” carried the day by an overwhelming majority, and a complete revolution in the House of Commons was the result. More than a hundred and sixty of “Fox’s martyrs” lost their seats. The triumph was the most complete that any English minister ever obtained. It not only placed Pitt in power, but it gave him a predominance in authority that was only once interrupted in the course of more than twenty years.

Within the next few years several subjects of national importance were brought forward by the ministry. But these are usually forgotten or regarded as insignificant when compared with the absorbing questions connected with the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars. It is as the leader and guide of what may be called the English policy in that memorable era that Pitt’s name will longest be remembered. Though that policy was not without strenuous opposition, it was carried consistently through to the end, and it was what contributed more than any thing else to break the power of Napoleon. It is for this reason that Pitt’s most elaborate speech on the policy of the English Government in relation to France is selected not only as a favorable specimen of his eloquence, but as having an influence of commanding importance on the stupendous affairs of the time. This speech is still the best exponent of the English view of the Napoleonic wars.

Notwithstanding all his greatness, there was one weak point in Pitt’s line of policy. He made the mistake of constantly underestimating the power of the enthusiasm awakened by the revolutionary ideas in France. This was equivalent to attaching too low an estimate to the strength of the enemy. It was in consequence of this error that he formed coalition after coalition, only to see them all shattered by Napoleon and his enthusiastic followers. When his last great coalition was broken by the battle of Austerlitz the blow was too much for his declining health; and, worn out with toil and anxiety, he sank rapidly, and expired on the 26th of January, 1806.

It is the judgment of Alison that “Considered with reference to the general principles by which his conduct was regulated, and the constancy with which he maintained them through adverse fortune, the history of Europe has not so great a statesman to exhibit.”