[30] In the speech against the convention in the House of Commons on 8 March 1739 Pitt said: When trade is at stake, it is your last entrenchment; you must defend it, or perish  ... Sir, Spain knows the consequence of a war in America; whoever gains, it must prove fatal to her  ... is this any longer a nation?

Is this any longer an English Parliament, if with more ships in your harbours than in all the navies of Europe; with above two millions of people in your American colonies, you will bear to hear of the expediency of receiving from Spain an insecure, unsatisfactory, dishonourable Convention?

Pitt considered the war a missed opportunity to take advantage of a power in decline, although later he became an advocate of warmer relations with the Spanish in an effort to prevent them forming an alliance with France.

In 1744, Pitt received a large boost to his personal fortune when the Dowager Duchess of Marlborough died leaving him a legacy of £10,000 as an "acknowledgment of the noble defence he had made for the support of the laws of England and to prevent the ruin of his country".

Pitt and Henry Fox were considered the two favourites for the position, but Newcastle instead rejected them both and turned to the less well-known figure of Sir Thomas Robinson, a career diplomat, to fill the post.

When in June 1756 Menorca fell after a failed attempt by Admiral Byng to relieve it, Pitt's allegations fuelled the public anger against Newcastle, leading him to be attacked by a mob in Greenwich.

Horace Walpole recorded the freedoms of various cities awarded to Pitt: ... for some weeks it rained gold boxes: Chester, Worcester, Norwich, Bedford, Salisbury, Yarmouth, Tewkesbury, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Stirling, and other populous and chief towns following the example.

[47]After some weeks' negotiation, in the course of which the firmness and moderation of "The Great Commoner", as he had come to be called, contrasted favourably with the characteristic tortuosities of the crafty peer, matters were settled on such a basis that, while Newcastle was the nominal, Pitt was the virtual head of the government.

[48] For the past few months Britain had been virtually leaderless, although Devonshire had remained formally prime minister, but now Pitt and Newcastle were ready to offer stronger direction to the country's strategy.

Britain's attempts to take the offensive in North America had ended in disaster, Menorca had been lost, and the Duke of Cumberland's Army of Observation was retreating across Hanover following the Battle of Hastenback.

The scheme of amphibious raids was the only one of Pitt's policies during the war that was broadly a failure, although it did help briefly relieve pressure on the German front by tying down French troops on coastal protection service.

After initially failing to penetrate the French defences at the Montmorency Falls, Wolfe later led his men to a victory to the west of the city allowing the British forces to capture Quebec.

Pitt had stripped the home islands of troops to send on his expeditions, leaving Britain guarded by poorly trained militia and giving an opportunity for the French if they could land in enough force.

When the treaty was discussed in parliament in December of the previous year, although suffering from a severe attack of gout, he was carried down to the House, and in a speech of three hours' duration, interrupted more than once by paroxysms of pain, he strongly protested against its various conditions.

[62] These conditions included the return of the sugar islands (but Britain retained Dominica); trading stations in West Africa (won by Boscawen); Pondicherry (France's Indian colony); and fishing rights in Newfoundland.

In 1763, he spoke against the unpopular tax on cider, imposed by his brother-in-law, George Grenville, and his opposition, although unsuccessful in the House, helped to keep alive his popularity with the country, which cordially hated the excise and all connected with it.

When next year the question of general warrants was raised in connexion with the case of John Wilkes, Pitt vigorously maintained their illegality, thus defending at once the privileges of Parliament and the freedom of the press.

He had personally less to do with the successes in India than with the other great enterprises that shed an undying lustre on his administration; but his generous praise in parliament encouraged Robert Clive, and the forces that acted at the close of the struggle were animated by his indomitable spirit.

[40] Pitt's particular genius was to finance an army on the continent to drain French men and resources so that Britain might concentrate on what he held to be the vital spheres: Canada and the West Indies; whilst Clive successfully defeated Siraj ud-Daulah, (the last independent Nawab of Bengal) at Plassey (1757), securing India.

It has even been said that the only permanent acquisition that England owed directly to him was her Canadian dominion; and, strictly speaking, this is true, it being admitted that the campaign by which the Indian empire was virtually won was not planned by him, although brought to a successful issue during his ministry.

[40] The victorious policy of Pitt destroyed the military prestige which repeated experience has shown to be in France as in no other country the very life of monarchy, and thus was not the least of the influences that slowly brought about the French Revolution.

[62] Edmund Burke described the administration as "chequered and speckled", and spoke of it as "patriots and courtiers, King's friends and republicans; Whigs and Tories  ... indeed a very curious show, but utterly unsafe to touch and unsure to stand on".

Chatham dismissed his allies Amherst and Shelburne from their posts, and then in October 1768 he tendered his own resignation on the grounds of poor health, leaving the leadership to Grafton, his First Lord of the Treasury.

His brave efforts to present his case, passionate, deeply pondered, for the concession of fundamental liberties—no taxation without consent, independent judges, trial by jury, along with the recognition of the American Continental Congress—foundered on the arrogance and complacency of his peers.

This high esteem approached to idolatry according to historian Clinton Rossiter: In the last decade of the colonial period the ideal of the man of public virtue was made real in the person of William Pitt.

[73] In view of the hostile demonstrations of France the various parties had come generally to see the necessity of such a measure but Chatham could not brook the thought of a step which implied submission to the "natural enemy" whom it had been the main object of his life to humble, and he declaimed for a considerable time, although with diminished vigour, against the motion.

The admirers of Mr Pitt extol the reverberation he gave to our councils, the despondence he banished, the spirit he infused, the conquests he made, the security he affixed to our trade and plantations, the humiliation of France, the glory of Britain carried under his administration to a pitch at which it never had arrived—and all this is exactly true.

[73] It has been suggested that Pitt was in fact a far more orthodox Whig than has been historically portrayed demonstrated by his sitting for rotten borough seats controlled by aristocratic magnates, and his lifelong concern for protecting the balance of power on the European continent, which marked him out from many other Patriots.

Pitt married Lady Hester Grenville (1720–1803), daughter of the 1st Countess Temple, on 16 November 1754 by Francis Ayscough under special licence at her home in Argyle Street, London.

Was managing St. Stephen's quorum; If sleekit Chatham Will was livin, Or glaikit Charlie got his nieve in; How daddie Burke the plea was cookin, If Warren Hasting's neck was yeukin; How cesses, stents, and fees were rax'd.