William Pitt and the Great War

Heavens! What has Prussia to answer for! For nothing less, in my mind, than every calamity which has befallen Europe for more than ten years.--GENERAL PAGET TO SIR ARTHUR PAGET,...

The opening of Parliament on 13th December 1792 took place amidst circumstances that were depressing to friends of peace. Affairs were gyrating in a vicious circle. Diplomacy, a...

Nothing could be more playful, and at the same time more instructive, than Pitt's conversation on a variety of topics while sitting in the library at Cirencester. You never woul...

I made a mistake about England, in trying to conquer it. The English are a brave nation. I have always said that there are only two nations, the English and the French; and I ma...

It seems absolutely impossible to hesitate as to supporting our Ally [Holland] in case of necessity, and the explicit declaration of our sentiments is the most likely way to pre...

I find it to be a very general notion, at least in the Assembly, that if France can preserve a neutrality with England, she will be able to cope with all the rest of Europe unit...

formidable organization, the Society for Constitutional Information, founded in London at the close of 1791. It, too, was concerned with much more than the Reform of Parliament;...

Various orders of minds ascribe the Irish Rebellion of 1798 to widely different causes. The ethnologist sees in it the incompatibility of Celt and Saxon. To the geographer it ma...

In this chapter and the following, dealing with phases of the Great War, the narrative may seem at times to diverge far from the life of Pitt. But, in truth, his career now depe...

It is difficult to realize that the independence of Europe was endangered by the French Republic. We associate the ascendancy of France in Spain, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, an...

The pretended Rights of Man, which have made this havoc, cannot be the rights of the people. For to be a people and to have these rights are incompatible. The one supposes the p...

The main object of His Majesty is the keeping together by influence and weight this great Confederation by which alone the designs of France can be resisted, and which, if left...

On 25th September 1800 Pitt wrote to the Lord Chancellor, Loughborough, then in attendance on the King at Weymouth, requesting his presence at a Cabinet meeting in order to disc...

Torn as we are by faction, without an army, without money, trusting entirely to a navy whom we may not be able to pay, and on whose loyalty, even if we can, no firm reliance is...

Once more doth Pitt deem the land crying loud to him-- Frail though and spent, and an hungered for restfulness Once more responds he, dead fervours to energize Aims to concentre...

I am determined not to submit to the insertion of any clause that shall make the exclusion of the Catholics a fundamental part of the Union, as I am fully convinced that, until...

"We must consider it as a measure of great national policy, the object of which is effectually to counteract the restless machinations of an inveterate enemy, who has uniformly...

More than once it has happened that, after a time of national revival, Spain has fallen under the dominion of a ruler led by wrongheaded counsellors and intriguing favourites. S...

The enterprise destined to develop into the occupation of Toulon arose out of the negotiations for alliance with Austria, Sardinia, and Naples. By the first of these England ple...

A common feeling of danger has produced a common spirit of exertion, and we have cheerfully come forward with a surrender of part of our property, not merely for recovering ours...

Si vous affaiblissez vos moyens en partageant vos forces, si vous rompez en Italie l'unité de la pensée militaire, je vous le dis avec douleur, vous aurez perdu la plus belle oc...

On 29th October 1795 occurred an event unparalleled within the memory of Englishmen then living. An immense crowd, filling the Mall, broke into loud hissing and hooting when Geo...

The French Jacobins early laid stress on the weakness of the British Empire. An official report issued in January 1793 at Paris advocated a close alliance with Tippoo Sahib, the...

Unfortunately, the war was carried on on the old principle of almost undivided attention to what was termed British interests--that is, looking to and preferring the protection...

Parliament. They put that object in their public manifestoes; but, like many of the Chartists of a later date, their ultimate aim was the redistribution of wealth; and this it w...

The much better way doubtless will be, in this wavering condition of our affairs, to defer the changing or circumscribing of our Senate more than may be done with ease till the...