Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 45.djvu/357

 the diamond for 48,000 pagodas, or 20,400l. (at 8s. 6d. per pagoda). He sent it home by his son Robert in October 1702. The cutting was done with great skill in London at a cost of 5,000l., the diamond being reduced to 136¾ carats in the process. The cleavage and dust were valued at from 5,000l. to 7,000l. After many negotiations, during which Pitt knew little rest, and spent most of his time in disguise, the embarrassing treasure was eventually disposed of, through the agency of John Law [q. v.] the financier, to the regent of France for the sum of 135,000l. (see, Mémoires). Pitt and his two sons themselves took the stone over to Calais in 1717. The gem, which was valued in 1791 at 480,000l., was placed in the French crown, and, although it has experienced many vicissitudes, it is still preserved among the few crown jewels of France that remain unsold (, pp. cxxv, sq.;, Great Diamonds of the World; , Hist. of Madras, chap. xxiii.)

On 20 Dec. 1710, when Pitt was settled again in England, the court of the East India Company made arrangements to confer with him on Indian affairs, and not only took his advice, but gave evident signs of regretting his recall. While in India Pitt had looked after the management of his ‘plantations and gardens in England, and had added to his estates, often showing his dissatisfaction with his wife's conduct of his affairs in his absence. He now began to consolidate his properties. Besides Mawarden Court at Stratford and the Down at Blandford, he acquired Boconnoc in Cornwall from Lord Mohun's widow in 1717, and subsequently Kynaston in Dorset, Bradock, Treskillard, and Brannell in Cornwall, Woodyates on the border of Wiltshire, Abbot's Ann in Hampshire, and Swallowfield in Berkshire. He resumed his place in parliament, being elected for Old Sarum on 25 Nov. 1710, and reelected on 16 Feb. 1714 and in 1715, on both occasions with his son as colleague. In 1714 he ‘declared himself against every part of the address,’ and in 1715 was appointed a commissioner for building new churches under the acts beginning with 9 Anne, c. 22. On 3 Aug. 1716 he accepted the government of Jamaica, and vacated his seat. But he never assumed the office, possibly because he failed to secure instructions to his liking, and he resigned in favour of another. At a by-election on 30 July 1717 he was elected to parliament for Thirsk. In 1722 he was returned for Old Sarum.

Pitt died at Swallowfield, Berkshire, on 28 April 1726, and was buried at Blandford St. Mary's, in the church which he had restored. A stone or brass, with a somewhat ‘extravagant laudation’ commemorating his benefactions, was extant in the church until 1861, when a restoration swept it away. He also built or restored the churches at Stratford and Abbot's Ann.

Pitt was, above all things, a hard man of business. He gave his son on going up to Oxford characteristic advice: ‘Let it ever be a rule never to lend any money but where you have unquestionable security, for generally by asking for it you lose your ffriend and that too.’ Yet, despite his intolerance of all mismanagement of money matters, his correspondence gives occasional evidence of kindness, consideration, almost of affection.

Pitt married, in 1678 or 1679, Jane (d. 1727), daughter of James Innes of Reid Hall, Moray, who was descended in the female line from the Earls of Moray. He had three sons and two daughters. His eldest son, Robert, was father of William, earl of Chatham [q. v.]; his second son, Thomas, was created Lord Londonderry [q. v.]; his third son, John (d. 1744), was a soldier of some distinction. His second daughter, Lucy, married, on 24 Feb. 1712–13, General James (afterwards first Earl) Stanhope.

Two portraits of Pitt are extant; one at Boconnoc in Cornwall, with the diamond in his hat; another at Chevening, Sevenoaks, is the property of Earl Stanhope. Both are by Kneller.

[Colonel Yule in vol. iii. of the Diary of William Hedges (Hakluyt Soc.), 1889, has collected everything which bears on the biography of Pitt. See also Wheeler's Madras in the Olden Times, 1861, vols. i. and ii. passim; Pope's Works, ed. Elwin and Courthope, iii. 157; Certain Appendices to Life of Lord Chatham, London, 1793, and Collins's Peerage of England, sub ‘Chatham.’] 

PITT, THOMAS, first (1688?–1729), born about 1688, was second son of Thomas Pitt [q. v.], the colonial governor. He represented Wilton in the British House of Commons from August 1713 until the dissolution in July 1727, and served against the rebels in Lancashire in 1715 (Hist. MSS. Comm. 13th Rep. App. iii. p. 55). On 3 June 1719 he was created Baron of Londonderry in the kingdom of Ireland, and took his seat in the Irish House of Lords on 8 July following (Journals of the Irish House of Lords, ii. 608). On 8 Oct. 1726 he was further advanced to the dignities of Viscount Gallen-Ridgeway of Queen's County and Earl of Londonderry, but he never sat in the Irish House of Lords as an earl (ib. iii. 540). At the general election in August 1727 he was returned to the British