Note 119 — Chapter VI

It was by such expressions as this that Mr. Pitt created the disappointment in the public mind, that followed the announcement of his pension. To use the words of Lord Brougham: “He did not sustain the exalted pitch of magnanimous independence, and utter disregard of sublunary interests, which we should expect him to have reached and kept as a matter of course, from a mere cursory glance at the mould in which his lofty character was cast.” Statesmen of the Time of George III., 1st series, p. 45. A pension of £4000 a year to Lord Holderness passed without a murmur, while one of £3000 a year to Mr. Pitt raised a general burst of indignation, only because the country regarded the latter as lowering their idol to the level of the jobbing statesmen of the day. The cry against Mr. Pitt was, indeed, almost universal. See letter to Mr. Conway, vol. iv. of Walpole’s Collected Correspondence, p. 184; and particularly the note containing the opposite opinions of Mr. Gray and Mr. Burke. Mr. Pitt’s noble refusal of the vast emoluments of the Pay-office, which so enriched those who preceded and succeeded him as Paymaster, entitles his conduct in all pecuniary matters to a liberal construction from posterity. What is really to be regretted, is the humiliating tone of his correspondence with Lord Bute, in accepting the pension (Chatham Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 152,) and his language at his interview with the King on that occasion.—Annual Register for 1761. But we will not dwell on the defects of a man who certainly was far above his age, not only in talent, but in real independence.—E.