tary of State. Pitt ceased to control the foreign affairs, and resigned his office in October, 1761. A historian of the time attributed his fall to "the corruption and avarice of such as paid homage to the distribution of rewards;" but he also adds, although proscribed in the Court of his sovereign, he maintained a place in the hearts of the people." 66 Discouraged by the treatment received from the king, and broken in health, Mr. Pitt took no active part in politics for several years, seldom even appearing in parliament. But the expenses of the government in prosecuting the successful campaigns of his administration furnished the excuse for attempting to raise a revenue from the American Colonies; and in 1765, when Pitt was confined in his sick bed, the Stamp Act was passed. The excitement which the news of its passing occasioned in the Colonies was a great surprise to the friends of the measure. At first this hostility was regarded as too unreasonable to last, and a swift return to quiet acquiescence was generally looked for. But no abatement of the hostility was seen. An active and violent opposition was developed in all the Colonies, and a few months later the necessity of its repeal was urged upon the parliament. Pitt then reappeared in the House of Commons contending that it was unconstitutional to tax the Colonies. Under date of March 31, 1766, Dr. Ames wrote in his diary as follows: "Mr. Pitt, that best of men & true patriot, engaged in behalf of America." Had his aid and influence been solicited? As Dr. Franklin was then in London, it is not unreasonable to suppose that the man, who could call down the lightnings from the clouds of heaven, did what he could to enlist in the cause of the Colonies the fiery eloquence of Mr. Pitt. But, however that may have been, the great commoner was earnest and bold in advocating the repeal. In reference to disorders caused by attempts to enforce the Act in Boston and elsewhere, he said, "I rejoice that America has resisted. Three millions of people so dead to all the feelings of liberty as voluntarily to submit to be slaves, are fit instru ments to make slaves of all the rest." Later on he used these remarkable words: "The Americans have been wronged. They have been driven to madness by your injustice. Will you punish them for the madness which you yourselves have occasioned." As a result of his efforts, seconded and supported by an outspoken popular sympathy for America, the Stamp Act was repealed, and King George gave his assent to the act of repeal March 18, 1766. How the news of that repeal was received in this town, and how it was commemorated, I need not relate. Another period of enforced rest and inactivity threatened Mr. Pitt, and the king took a new method of destroying his influence. Wm. Pitt was an Englishman; and you need not be told that few Englishmen can refuse a title of nobility. By confering an Earldom on Mr. Pitt, George III. took an easy method of removing him from the House of Commons, his appropriate field of action. Although this did not, so far as we can discover, change or vitiate Mr. Pitt's principles, or corrupt his political ideas ; but it did destroy his popularity. As Earl of Chatham he lost that influence which the name of Pitt everywhere carried with it. In the words of his biographer: "By accepting a peerage, he lost as much and as suddenly in popularity as he gained in dignity." As an illustration of this sudden change in the popular feeling, we have the fact that a banquet in honor of Wm. Pitt was in preparation, to be given in the city of London. But as soon as it was known that he had become Earl of Chatham, the grand entertainment was at once abandoned. But he was now so infirm in health, that under any circumstances, he could have taken little part in public life. After a long season of confirmed and helpless invalidism, he resumed his seat in the House of Lords in the autumn of 1770, and his voice was again raised in opposition to the government's policy in respect to America. He urged the entire repeal of the Revenue Act of Charles Townsend. Lord North, on account of a petition from the merchants and traders of London, moved a partial relief; but he declared that the duty on tea "must be retained as a mark of supremacy of Parliament and the efficient declaration of the right to govern the Colonies." So the duty on tea was continued, the result doubtless of the persistency of George the Third, who was over-anxious to maintain the prerogatives of his sovereignty. Lord Chatham's interest in the Colonies did not abate. In 1771 he said, "Were I ten years younger, or in good health, I would spend the remainder of my days in America." This seems to imply something more than interest; in fact, something akin to admiration. In more than one conversation he was heard to say, "America would prove a staff to support the aged arm of Britain, the oak upon which she might hereafter lean, shielded and protected by filial duty and affection; but his majesty's confidential advisers want to cut down the oak and plant their favorite weed of unconditional surrender." In 1774 Lord Chatham, moved to withdraw the troops from Boston, assigning as his reason for this and other motions favoring the withdrawal of troops and ending the conflict, that "the mother country had been the aggressor from the beginning." Though some pronounced his language seditious, it produced no effect on his persistency in opposing the Colonial policy of the king and his ministers. On the 27th of May, 1774, he said: "I sincerely believe the destroying of the tea was the effect of despair." Also on the same occasion : "This, my Lords, has always been my received and unalterable opinion, and I shall carry it to my grave, that this country had no right under heaven to tax America." The address of the Continental Congress to the people of Great Britain in 1774, ends thus: "Place us in the same situation that we were in at the close of the last war (that is in 1762), and our former harmony will be restored." About the same time Lord Chatham wrote: "I fear the bond of union between us and America will be cut off forever. Devoted England will then have seen her best days, which nothing can restore again." On Jan. 20, 1775, Lord Chatham moved an address to the king, asking for the removal of the troops from Boston; and in reference to acts of Parliament, shutting up the port of Boston and altering the charter of Massachusetts Bay, he used these words: "I say we must necessarily undo these violent and offensive acts. They must be repealed: you will repeal them. I pledge myself for it, you will in the end repeal them. I stake my reputation on it. I will consent to be taken for an idiot if they are not finally repealed." On February 1st, 1775, Lord Chatham offered a bill for quieting the troubles in America. It relinquished all right of taxing the Colonies, repealed all obnoxious laws, and secured just rights of trial and also the authority of the Parliament. This pacification bill was of course rejected; but the people took it up, and the Corporation of London thanked Chatham and his supporters. But troubles increased, and instead of pacification, the British king and ministry chose the arbitrament of war. For a while all opposition seemed to be useless. And yet Lord Chatham did not abandon hope of saving the Colonies. On the 13th of May, 1777, he made a motion to discontinue the war in America, and said in support of it: "I mean the redress of all their grievances, and the right of disposing of their own money, leaving them in the same condition they were in before 1763, when they were entirely happy and contented." His efforts were of no avail, "madness ruled the hour." But Chatham did not change. Lord Percy moved an address, Nov. 18, 1777, in which the prosecution of the American war was recommended. This Chatham opposed in a noble speech, in which he employed these memorable words: "My Lords, you cannot conquer America. Were I an American as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms, never, never, never." Soon after this it became evident that the French, the nation which William Pitt had humbled and driven from America, would go to the aid of the Colonies. No wonder this stirred. his indignation; and when the Duke of Bedford, on the 7th of April, 1778, moved an address to the king, in which the necessity of finally admitting the independence of America was insinuated, Chatham, feeble and emaciated, had with much difficulty come in to hear the address. The dismemberment of the kingdom through French influence and interference, troubled him exceedingly. He rose to speak with great difficulty. The opening of his speech was hardly audible; but he raised his voice to something like his early vigor as he said, “Shall this great kingdom, that has survived whole and entire the Danish depredations, the Scottish inroads, and the Norman conquest, and has withstood the threatened invasion of the Spanish Armada, now fall prostrate before the House of Bourbon? Surely, my Lords, this nation is no longer what it was! Shall a people that seventeen years ago was the terror of the world now stoop so low as to say to its ancient, inveterate enemy, Take all we have; only give us peace'? It is impossible." Apparently much exhausted by this effort he took his seat, and Lord Temple suggested to him that he had forgotton to speak of the plan which he had communicated to him and was intending to urge upon the government, namely, to make such an impression upon France in Europe, that she would be unable to aid the Colonies; and then to offer such a plan of union with the Americans as would reconcile them to the mother country and save the unity of the British Empire. Lord Chatham replied that he would speak again on those points. The Duke of Richmond spoke briefly in reply, when Lord Chatham attempted to rise again. But after two or three unsuccessful efforts he fainted and fell into his chair; or, as some say, fell down in an apoplectic fit. He was carried out in an insensible condition, and was removed immediately to his private villa at Hayes, where he languished till the eleventh of May, 1778. Col. Barre communicated the news of his death to the House of Commons. On this occasion all appearance of party was extinguished by the general sadness, and Col. Barre at once moved, "That an humble address be presented. That his |