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 CHAPTER II

DIAMOND PITT

Like Great Britain, Fort St. George has been governed during two epochs by men of the name of Pitt, for Thomas Pitt was Governor from 1698 to 1709, and his second cousin once removed, 1 George Morton Pitt, held that position from 1730 to 1735. The former was the son of the rector of Blandford, in Dorsetshire, where he was born in 1653, four years after the execution of King Charles I. He went to sea, in search of adventure and fortune ; and, at the age of twenty-one, he turned up at Balasore ; and, engaged as a merchant, in disregard of the East India Company's jealous and severe prohibition of " interloping." The local authorities of those days were in no mood to tolerate any trespassing on what they regarded as the lawful preserves of their " honourable masters," and they speedily arrested him, and brought him before the Council in Fort St. George, by whom he was severely admonished, and warned not to do it again. Thereupon he betook himself to Persia, to

1 John Pitt, Clerk of the Exchequer to Queen Elizabeth, had two sons, Sir William Pitt, who died in 1636, and Thomas Pitt, who died in 1643. Sir William Pitt was the father of Edward Pitt ; who was the father of John Pitt, who was the father of a second John Pitt, President of Council at Masulipatam ; who was the father of George Morton Pitt, Governor of Madras (died 1756) ; who was the father of Harriet Pitt, who married Lord Brownlow Bertie, after- wards Duke of Ancaster, a relative of the two Lords Hobart, Governors of Madras. Thomas Pitt, second son of the Clerk of the Exchequer above named, was the father of the Rev. Thomas Pitt, Rector of Blandford ; who was the father of Thomas Pitt, Governor of Madras ; who was the father of Robert Pitt ; who was the father of William Pitt. Earl of Chatham ; who was the. father of William Pitt, the younger.