Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 45.djvu/368

 xv. 1307-8). Next month Bute resigned, and Grenville became prime minister with Lords Egremont and Halifax as his chief supporters. On Lord Egremont's death in August 1763, the king, by Bute's advice, sent for Pitt, who insisted on the restoration of the great whig families. As the king refused to accede to these terms, the negotiation was broken off, and Grenville remained in power (, Life of Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, 1847, iii. 372-81; Grenville Papers, ii. 93-7, 192 et seq.) On 24 Nov. 1763 Pitt opposed the surrender of the privilege of parliament in Wilkes's case 'as highly dangerous to the freedom of parliament and an infringement on the rights of the people,' but at the same time expressed his thorough detestation of 'the whole series of "North Britons"' (''Parl. Hist'' .xv. 1363-4). On 17 Feb. 1764 he supported a motion condemning general warrants as illegal, and declared that 'if the House negatived the motion they would be the disgrace of the present age and the reproach of posterity' (ib. xv. 1401-3). Towards the end of this year he became finally estranged from the Duke of Newcastle, to whom he never afterwards alluded but in terms of distrust and dislike. At the beginning of 1765 Pitt's health became worse. He remained for several months in retirement at Hayes, and was absent from parliament during the whole of the session in which the Stamp Act was passed. In May 1765 the Duke of Cumberland made a fruitless visit to Hayes in order to induce him to take office. In the following month the duke had again recourse to him, but, after two interviews with the king, he declined to form a government without the concurrence of Temple (Chatham Correspondence, ii. 310-15). In July 1765 the Marquis of Rockingham succeeded Grenville as prime minister. On 14 Jan. 1766 Pitt, whose health had been partially restored by a visit to Bath, reappeared in the House of Commons. In a remarkable speech he declared that he could not give the Rockingham ministry his confidence, for 'confidence is a plant of slow growth in an aged bosom : youth is the season of credulity.' Though he asserted 'the authority of this kingdom over the colonies to be sovereign and supreme in every circumstance of government and legislation whatsoever,' he denied the right of the mother country to tax the colonies, and maintained that taxation was 'no part of the governing or legislative power.' In reply to the charge that he had given birth to sedition in America, he declared that he rejoiced that the colonists had resisted, and added : 'Three millions of people so dead to all the feelings of liberty as voluntarily to submit to be slaves would have been fit instruments to make slaves of the rest.' He concluded his second speech by recommending that the Stamp Act should be repealed 'absolutely, totally, and immediately' (''Parl. Hist''. xvi. 97-100, 101, 103-8). While objecting to the principle of the Declaratory Act in February 1766, Pitt zealously assisted the government in carrying the repeal of the Stamp Act. But he refused to listen to Rockingham's frequent solicitations to join his ministry, though they were agreed on most of the important questions of the day. His conduct in declining this opportunity of forming an honourable coalition with Rockingham is one of the most disastrous incidents of Pitt's political career ; but it may well be doubted whether he would have acted as he did had he been in full possession of his health. His habits had been for some time becoming increasingly eccentric, and there can be little doubt that his mind was already in a morbid condition. On Rockingham's dismissal in July 1766, Pitt, who had warmly avowed his sympathy with the king in his wish to destroy party government, was instructed to form a ministry. Temple proved intractable, and quarrelled with his brother-in-law. Grafton became first lord of the treasury, Northington lord president, Camden lord chancellor, Charles Townshend chancellor of the exchequer, and Shelburne and Conway secretaries of state. Pitt, whose infirmity rendered a constant attendance in the House of Commons impossible, took the sinecure office of lord privy seal (30 July 1766), and was raised to the peerage with the titles of Viscount Pitt of Burton-Pynsent in the county of Somerset and Earl of Chatham in the county of Kent (4 Aug.) Thus was formed the ill-assorted ministry afterwards described by Burke in his famous speech on American taxation as 'a tesselated pavement without cement; here a bit of black stone, and there a bit of white ; patriots and courtiers, king's friends and republicans ; whigs and tories ; treacherous friends and open enemies ... a very curious show, but utterly unsafe to touch and unsure to stand on' (Works of Edmund Burke, 1815, ii. 420). Pitt's acceptance of a peerage was very unpopular. In London the preparations for a banquet and a general illumination of the city in his honour were immediately countermanded when it became known that he had deserted the House of Commons. 'The joke here is,' wrote Lord Chesterfield to his son, 'that he has had a fall upstairs, and has