Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 45.djvu/363

 in the representation of the family borough of Old Sarum. He immediately joined Pulteney's party of the 'patriots' in opposition to Walpole. He spoke for the first time in the House of Commons on 29 April 1736, when he supported Pulteney's motion for a congratulatory address to the king on the marriage of the Prince of Wales (Parl. Hist. ix. 1221-3). Its covert satire was so offensive to the king that he was shortly afterwards dismissed from the army. 'We must muzzle this terrible young cornet of horse,' Walpole is reported to have said. The vacancy made by 'the supersession of Cornet Pitt' was filled up on 17 May 1736 (Quarterly Review, lxvi. 194). On 22 Feb. 1737 Pitt warmly supported Pulteney's motion for an address to the king, praying that an annuity of 100,000l. might be settled on the Prince of Wales, and in September following he was appointed groom of the bed-chamber to the prince. In February 1738 he spoke in favour of the reduction of the army (Parl. Hist. x. 464-7). On 8 March 1739 he attacked the convention with Spain, which, he described as 'nothing but a stipulation for national ignominy' (ib. x. 1280-3). On this occasion Pitt seems first to have shown his great powers of oratory. He is said by a contemporary writer to have spoken 'very well but very abusively,' and to have 'provoked Mr. Henry Fox and Sir Henry Liddell both to answer him' ('s Walpole, 1798, iii. 519). On 13 Feb. 1741 Pitt supported Sandys's motion for the removal of Walpole (Parl. Hist. xi. 1359-64). In the following month he violently opposed for the encouragement and increase of seamen (ib. xii. 104-5, 115-16, 117). In the account of this debate, furnished by Dr. Johnson to the 'Gentleman's Magazine' for November 1741 (p. 569), Pitt is made to deliver the celebrated retort to Horace Walpole the elder, beginning 'The atrocious crime of being a young man.' Pitt possibly said something of the kind on this occasion, but the phrasing of the retort is clearly Johnson's. An incident of a similar nature appears to have occurred between Pitt and the elder Walpole some four years later (, Letters, 1857-9, i. 405). At the general election in May 1741 Pitt was again returned for Old Sarum. On Walpole's downfall in 1742 he and the 'boy patriots' tried to come to an understanding with the ex-minister, promising to screen him from prosecution if he would use his influence with the king in their favour (, Essays, 1852, ii. 167-8). The proposal was, however, declined. Pitt was not included in Pelham's ministry, and became still more active and acrimonious in his denunciations of Walpole. He supported both of Lord Limerick's motions for an inquiry into Walpole's conduct (Parl. Hist. xii. 482-95, 525-8, 553-63, 567-72), was appointed a member of the secret committee of inquiry, and voted for the bill of indemnity to the witnesses. He also supported George (afterwards first baron) Lyttelton [q. v.] on 1 Dec. 1742 in his attempt to procure the appointment of another committee of inquiry into Walpole's conduct (, Letters, i. 217). On 6 Dec. 1742 Pitt took part in the debate on continuing the army in Flanders, and replied to Murray's maiden speech 'in the most masterly manner' (Memorials of the Eight Hon. James Oswald, 1825, p. 3 ; see also 's Letters, i. 218). Four days afterwards he attacked the practice of paying Hanoverian troops with English money, and declared with great violence that it was too apparent that Great Britain was 'considered only as a province to a despicable electorate' (Parl. Hist. xii. 1033-6). At the opening of the next session, on 1 Dec. 1743, Pitt opposed the address, and stigmatised Carteret as 'an execrable, a sole minister, who had renounced the British nation, and seemed to have drunk of the potion described in poetic fictions, which made men forget their country' (ib. xiii. 135-6 n., 152-70 ;, Letters, i. 280). Pitt continued to abuse Carteret and oppose his Hanoverian policy throughout the session, but he supported Pelham's motion for an augmentation of the force's, in view of the threatened invasion by the Pretender (Parl. Hist. xiii. 666-7, n.} His determined opposition to the system of foreign subsidies, though displeasing to the king, was very popular in the country. The eccentric Duchess of Marlborough, who died in October 1744, left him a legacy of 10,000l. 'upon account of his merit in the noble defence he has made for the support of the laws of England, and to prevent the ruin of his country' (, Anecdotes of the Life of the Earl of Chatham, 1793, i. 197). As one of the committee of nine appointed by the opposition to consider the question of a coalition with the Pelhams against Carteret (who became Earl Granville on 18 Oct. 1744), he gave his vote in favour of joining the Pelhams without exacting any stipulations (Bedford Correspondence, 1842-1846, vol. i. p. xxxiv). On Granville's dismissal in November 1744, several of Pitt's political associates obtained seats in the 'Broad-bottom' administration. But Pitt had to be content with promises. Though he resigned his place in the prince's