Note 974 — PART IV. From the Reformation to the present time. (continued 5)

When some had written violent pamphlets against the elder Pitt, and he was urged to have them prosecuted, he smilingly answered, “No: the press, like the air, is a chartered-libertine.” The son, with all his reputed and boasted greatness, had not a mind capable of imitating such an example. (See Belsham, vol. v.) No real magnanimity, or true dignity of character was to be expected from one who could seek the ruin of his own original friends and coadjutors, the active supporters of his early politics and youthful fame, and that, forsooth, because they would not support his apostacy, but chose still to adhere to those principles which he himself used to tell them were inseparably connected with the welfare and salvation of the country.