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 200l. 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 y^e 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 7^th 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. Oct^r the 20^th. 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: M^rs 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.

Y^rs

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 9^th: 1754.

Dear Sister,—I write to you under the greatest affliction, on all Considerations Private and Publick. M^r 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 M^rs 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. 21^st. 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, D^r 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 M^r 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 y^r perfect recovery. I commit this Letter to Y^r B^rs 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 D^r 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. 8^th. 1754.

Dear Sister,—Your letter of the 1^st Nov^r 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 M^r 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. 10^th. 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, y^e 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. y^e 12^th. 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: Maj^tys relation, his Silence of Himself, and entire attribution of the victory to Gen^l 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 M^rs Mary.

I am ever most affec^ly Y^rs

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 M^r 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 y^e 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. y^e 24^th.

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. 7^th. 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 aff^ly Y^rs

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 M^r 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.

M^r 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. 'M^r 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 y^e 28^th. 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. 29^th.

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 Obed^t

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 B^r &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 L^d Bute upon the King's succession, who, not unwilling to give M^r 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 £1000 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

W. Pitt.

Nov. 24: 1760.

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

W. Pitt.

Tuesday Dec. 30^th 1760.

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. y^e 1^st 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. 21^st. 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 1500l. 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 M^rs 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.

---