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William Pitt the Elder

William Pitt the Elder.

William Pitt the Elder (1708 - 1778) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister from 1756 to 1761 and from 1766 to 1768. He was the father of William Pitt the Younger. Pitt was the grandson of "Diamond Tom" Pitt, who made a fortune in India and used his wealth to become a leading political figure in southwestern England.

In the 1720s Pitt's grandfather and father died, leaving the family fortune to his elder brother Thomas Pitt. Pitt attended Oxford University from 1727 to 1728, when he was forced by a severe attack of gout to leave without graduating. After studying abroad in the Netherlands Pitt returned to Britain by 1730. Pitt chose a military career, gaining a commission in the British Army with the prestigious King's Own Regiment of Horse. Pitt grew close to Lord Cobham, the commander of the regiment, becoming Cobham's protégé. When Pitt's brother was elected to two different seats in the House of Commons in 1734, he chose to give of of them to Pitt, who thus became one of a number of military officers serving in the Commons.

Pitt soon joined a group of discontented Whig Party members led by Lord Cobham who were in opposition to the government of Lord Walpole, and became one of its most prominent members. Pitt's criticism of the government led Walpole to dismiss him from the army in retaliation, but also earned him the favor of the Prince of Wales, who also opposed Walpole's policy. Pressure from Pitt and his allies led to war with Spain in 1739, which the government proved inept at prosecuting. Pitt's opposition to proposed subsidies to the Electorate of Hanover earned him the undying enmity of King George II but won him widespread public approval.

Walpole's resignation in 1742 brought Pitt's allies the Pelhams to power, but Pitt himself was kept out of the government by King George II for four years, until a compromise allowed Pitt to become Paymaster of the Forces, a lucrative government post. Pitt ostentatiously refused to profit from the office, which gave him a reputation for honesty and integrity. The Pelham ministry continued until Henry Pelham's death in 1754, when he was succeeded as Prime Minister by his brother Thomas, Duke of Newcastle. As a member of the House of Lords Newcastle needed a man in the Commons to serve as leader there. He passed over both Pitt and Pitt's chief rival Henry Fox for a little-known diplomat named Sir Thomas Robinson.

Pitt attacked Newcastle in spite of being a member of his government until he was dismissed as Paymaster of the Forces in November 1755. By this time, conflict between Britain and France in North America was growing, leading to the outbreak of the Seven Years' War in May 1756. The French conquest of the island of Menorca in the Mediterranean caused the fall of Newcastle's government in November 1756. The following month Pitt became Secretary of State for the Southern Department and Leader of the House of Commons in the government of the Duke of Devonshire. Devonshire's government proved short-lived, and circumstances led to an alliance between Pitt and Newcastle in June 1757.

As co-leader of the government, Pitt directed British strategy in the Seven Years War, tying down French forces in Europe while Britain's Royal Navy captured French colonies around the globe. In 1758 British forces captured several French forts in West Africa, as well as the fortress of Louisbourg in Canada and Fort Duquesne at the Forks of the Ohio. British troops built a new fort on the site of Fort Duquesne called Fort Pitt. The following year, British troops captured Fort Ticonderoga and Quebec City in North America, and defeated the French at Madras in India and Minden in Germany. Britain completed the conquest of Canada by taking Montreal in 1760, but the death of George II in October brought his grandson George III to the throne. The new king opposed Pitt's imperialism, and though Pitt oversaw the defeat of the French in Pondicherry and Belle Ile, he was compelled to resign in favor of the Earl of Bute.

Bute's government concluded a peace with France in the 1763 Treaty of Paris that handed back most of the British conquests of the war, with the notable exception of Canada. Pitt attacked the Treaty of Paris, saying "The peace was insecure because it restored the enemy to her former greatness. The peace was inadequate, because the places gained were no equivalent for the places surrendered." However, the treaty passed in the House of Commons by a vote of 319 to 65.

Pitt's gout had become worse by this time, which often kept him sidelined during the great debates in the early years of the American Crisis, including the attack on John Wilkes, and the passage of the Sugar Act of 1764 and the Stamp Act of 1765. Pitt's opposition to the Stamp Act was sufficient to earn his the gratitude of the American colonists whose own opposition had created the Stamp Act Crisis.

The fall of the government of Lord Rockingham in August 1766 led to Pitt's appointment as Prime Minister. However, Pitt's elevation to the Peerage as the Earl of Chatham removed him from his greatest source of power in the House of Commons. In addition, Pitt's growing illness left the government in the hands of Charles Townshend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was determined to use the dispute over Parliamentary taxation of the American colonies to curry favor with George III. The Townshend Acts of 1767 exacerbated the rift between Britain and the colonies that had formed during the Stamp Act Crisis. Pitt's poor health and growing mental instability led him to resign in October 1768.

Pitt recovered his mental faculties in 1770, and as the American Crisis deepened he attempted to find a compromise between the Americans and the government of Lord North. His Provisional Act would have conceded the American position on Parliamentary taxation, independent judges, and trial by jury, and would have recognized the authority of the First Continental Congress. However, the Provisional Act was defeated in the House of Lords on 1 February 1775, and within months the North American Rebellion had broken out.

Pitt's belief that the Americans could not be defeated proved to be mistaken, and he lived long enough to learn of General Sir William Howe's occupation of Philadelphia and General John Burgoyne's victory at the Battle of Saratoga. He died on 11 May 1778, one month before the defeat of the Rebellion.

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