Chatham

“ There little Charles passed some of the happiest years of his childhood, and received the most durable of his early impressions.
Chatham, on the river Medway, derives its name from the Saxon word Ceteham or Cættham, meaning “village of cottages.” It is anything but a “village” now, having since that remote age developed into a river port and a populous fortified town. Remains of Roman villas have been found in the neighbourhood, thus testifying to its antiquity. Chatham is one of the principal royal shipbuilding establishments in the kingdom. ”

“ In spite of his many foibles and weaknesses, Chatham was undoubtedly a man of consummate genius. His mind was singularly fertile in resources. The vice of irresolution was unknown to him. His courage was indomitable, his energy irresistible. 'II faut avouer,' said Frederick the Great, 'que l'Angleterre a été longtems en travail, et qu'elle a beaucoup soufferte pour produire M. Pitt ; mais enfin elle est accouchée d'un homme' (Chatham Correspondence, i. 444-5) . As a war minister, his greatness is beyond question. ”

“ It was in the course of this debate that, pleading for the liberty of the citizen to a very unpropitious audience, Chatham gave utterance to some of his best-remembered sayings.
'It is to your ancestors, my Lords, it is to the English Barons that we are indebted for the laws and constitution we possess. Their virtues were rude and uncultivated, but they were great and sincere. Their understandings were as little polished as their manners, but they had hearts to distinguish right from wrong. They had heads to distinguish truth from falsehood. ”

“ The life of Chatham is extremely difficult to write, and, strictly speaking, never can be written at all. It is difficult because of the artificial atmosphere in which he thought it well to envelop himself, and because the rare glimpses which are obtainable of the real man reveal a nature so complex, so violent, and so repressed. What is this strange career?
Born of a turbulent stock, he is crippled by gout at Eton and Oxford, then launched into a cavalry regiment, and then into Parliament. For eight years he is groom-in-waiting to a prince. ”

“ Interspersed with these sheets were others in which Sloper, the urban John Bull, had his fling with gin bottle and obese umbrella, or the kindly, empty faces of the Royal Family appeared and reappeared, visiting this, opening that, getting married, getting offspring, lying in state, doing everything but anything, a wonderful, good-meaning, impenetrable race apart. . . .
I have never revisited Chatham; the impression it has left on my mind is one of squalid compression, unlit by any gleam of a maturer charity. All its effects arranged themselves as antithetical to the Bladesover effects. ”

“ From Newmarket, White's, and the opposition, he gave you to the world with an air of popularity, which young men usually set out with and seldom preserve:—grave and plausible enough to be thought fit for business; too young for treachery; and, in short, a patriot of no unpromising expectations. Lord Chatham was the earliest object of your political wonder and attachment ”

“ The Duke of Richmond made his motion, to which Chatham listened with profound attention. Soon after, he rose from his seat slowly and with difficulty, leaning on his crutches, and supported by his two young kinsmen.
You will allow me to give you just the opening and the closing sentences. Taking one hand from his crutch, he raised it, and, casting his eyes towards heaven, he said: 'I thank God that I have been enabled to come here this day to perform my duty, and to speak on a subject which has so deeply impressed my mind. I am old and infirm—have one foot, more than one foot, in the grave. ”

“ I brought my fist down upon the bench with a thump. "Does any man tell me," I cried, "that I'm not the match of a dozen snarling rascals such as may chance to pounce upon his Majesty's coach this side of Chatham?"
"What!" said the chandler, starting. "Is there an escort to Chatham to-night?"
"Rot me," says I, feigning to stare at him stupidly. "Whose wits are wool-gathering that you gabble about Chatham? I know what I know," I says, "and I can hold my tongue with any man." "Yes, yes," says the innkeeper, soothingly. "Indeed, sir, 'tis so. ”

“ CHATHAM, a port and municipal and parliamentary borough of Kent, England, on the right bank of the Medway, 34 m. E.S.E. of London by the South-Eastern & Chatham railway. Pop. (1891) 31,657; (1901) 37,057. Though a distinct borough it is united on the west with Rochester and on the east with Gillingham, so that the three boroughs form, in appearance, a single town with a population which in 1901 exceeded 110,000. With the exception of the dockyards and fortifications there are few objects of interest. ”

“ During the debate on the bill of indemnity on 10 Dec. 1766, Richmond called Chatham ‘an insolent minister,’ and when called to order replied that he ‘was sensible truth was not to be spoken at all times and in all places’ (ib. ii. 410; see also Grenville Papers, iii. 396–7) . Both lords were required to promise that the matter should go no further (Journals of the House of Lords, xxxi. 448) . After this quarrel Chatham ‘during the whole of the remainder of his administration appeared no more in the House of Lords’ (Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of George III, ii. 411) . ”

“ This proposition was affirmatively supported as the only sure means of detaching the colonies from France, the ancient enemy of England. The Earl of Chatham (William Pitt) vehemently opposed it. Though a warm friend of the Americans, he could not bear the thought of their separation from the mother country, and, with all the strength of his eloquence, he denounced the proposition. On the 7th of April, the debates on the question ran high, 1778 and Chatham became greatly excited. Sickness and age had broken his physical strength, but the fire of his intellect burned as clear as ever. ”

“ Handsome is that handsome does. What they did for shade here, in warm weather, we did not know, though we read that “fogs are more frequent in Chatham than in any other part of the country; and they serve in summer, instead of trees, to shelter the houses against the heat of the sun. To those who delight in extensive vision,”—is it to be inferred that the inhabitants of Chatham do not?—“they are unpleasant, but they are not found to be unhealthful.” ”

“ Chatham gloried in being a merchant; Lord Castlereagh, to the serious injury of his nation, has indulged himself in the satisfaction of acting the fine gentleman; he has sacrificed his country to fraternise with the great people of the continent, and from that moment has united in his person the vices of the saloon with the cupidity of the counting-house; the duplicity and obsequiousness of the courtier with the haughtiness and insolence of the upstart. The poor English constitution is in imminent danger. ”

“ I know of no sentence by any English speaker more exactly like Chatham, more unlike nearly all others.
One more topic in this historic speech—the comparative strength of the combatants; on the one side the great Mother Country that under Pitt's inspiration, between 1758 and 1761, had performed such wonders in every part of the world; and on the other side three millions of irritated colonists, without generals, without artillery, without fleets. ”

“ Chatham, eager enough to tie his victim to the stake, was doomed to bitter disappointment in an arena utterly unfitted for the exercise of his peculiar powers. The atmosphere of the House of Peers, admirably suited to the calm dignity and sublime moderation of Mansfield, proved too often nipping frost to the burning declamation of the man whose very look could rouse a more popular assembly, and whose words oftener than once had inspired it with the noblest sentiments. ”

“ An inhabitant of Chatham need never wish to visit London, because the triple towns of Chatham, Strood and Rochester—to leave out all count of Gillingham and New Brompton, which are to Chatham even as Hammersmith is to our own great metropolis—contain samples of nearly all that is to be seen in the Capital of the Empire, and much else besides. ”

“ On the other hand, he possessed some qualities in which Chatham was utterly wanting. His temper, though naturally ardent and sensitive, had been schooled in a proud self-command. His simplicity and good taste freed him from his father’s ostentation and extravagance. Diffuse and commonplace as his speeches seem, they were adapted as much by their very qualities of diffuseness and commonplace as by their lucidity and good sense to the intelligence of the middle classes whom Pitt felt to be his real audience. ”

“ During the greater part of this year and throughout 1776 an illness, apparently similar to that which had befallen him during his last administration, prevented Chatham from attending parliament. Though in a state of great weakness, he went down to the house on 30 May 1777, and unsuccessfully moved an address to the crown for the stoppage of hostilities in America. 'You may ravage,' he said ; 'you cannot conquer. It is impossible. You cannot conquer the Americans. ”

“ A man of charm and culture, reared in the days and traditions of the great planters, he kept open house at Chatham, near Fredericksburg, the year around. Travelers en route to and from Williamsburg and Richmond were entertained in a lavish fashion. With the formation of the new government, the stream of visitors increased to such an extent that the Fitzhughs were being eaten out of house and home, and found it necessary to escape from their friends. They selected Alexandria as a place of domicile. Chatham was placed on the market in 1796. ”

“ The danger of war with France, to which Chatham had alluded in the spring, seemed to increase, and men's thoughts began to turn towards the great statesman who had before saved England in similar difficulties. Nor did Chatham refuse to respond to the general expectation; not for many years had he shown such activity as in this session. In moving an amendment on the address, he demanded the withdrawal of all troops from America, stigmatized with due severity the employment of savage Indians in the war, and strove to rouse the national spirit against France. ”

“ His lordship pressed the queen to relieve the people, and, by every possible means, to mitigate the public burdens. But, though her majesty was gentle in her language, she expressed herself positively and decisively as being adverse to his views; and took the opportunity of reminding him of the secrecy of state affairs. As Lord Chatham had once given his solemn promise never to permit those secrets to transpire, he resolved faithfully to keep his engagement, though their disclosure would have opened the eyes of the public to the disgraceful proceedings of herself and ministers. ”

“ Lord Chatham rose with his usual energy, eloquence, and commanding spirit, and reprobated both the war and the mode of prosecuting it; and with vehemence and acrimony asserted, "that a court system of wickedness "had been adopted for the last 15 years, subversive of all faith and confidence, tending to extinguish all principle in the different orders of the community; and that an ascendancy had been obtained by worthless men, the dregs of party, where no influence ought to exist. ”

“ Chatham was as ambitious as any man that ever lived, and full of the faculties that make ambition successful. The Butes, the Bedfords, the Hollands, the Shelburnes, exhibited every shape and shade of cabinet dexterity, of court cabal, of popular influence, and of political knowledge and reckless intrigue. Yet the Duke of Newcastle, with remarkable personal disadvantages—a ridiculous manner, an ungainly address, speech without the slightest pretension to eloquence, and the character of extreme ignorance on general subjects—preserved his power almost to the extreme verge of life ”

“ While that eccentric genius, Charles Townshend, whom no system could contain, is whirled out of existence, our more artificial meteor, Lord Chatham, seems to be wheeling back to the sphere of business—at least his health is declared to be re-established; but he has lost his adorers, the mob, and I doubt the wise men will not travel after his light.
You, my dear Sir, will be most concerned for the poor Duke of York, [1] who has ended his silly, good-humoured, troublesome career, in a piteous manner. ”

“ Up to the year 1774 he lived on his father’s estates at Hayes and Burton Pynsent, amidst some of the choicest scenery in the south of England. The land overflowed with prosperity, which was rightly ascribed in large measure to the genius of Chatham. Until the shadow of the American War of Independence fell on the youth, in his seventeenth year, he was the favourite son of a father44 whom all men revered ”

“ North had begun to disapprove of the colonial policy forced upon him by the king. War with France, declared in May 1778, was imminent. He felt that he could not conciliate the colonies and that conciliation was necessary, and on 31 Jan. he begged the king to accept his resignation and send for Chatham. He repeated his request in March. Men of every rank and political section looked on Chatham as the only hope of the country, and this was made known to George from various sides. He was immovable—not, as it would seem, so much from motives of public policy as from private feelings. ”

“ The army was kept lying in the plague-stricken swamps of Walcheren. Fever began to make fearful ravages. On the 29th Chatham wrote home that he could do no more—that already 3000 of the troops were sick. By September 11,000 men were stricken, and the great bulk of the army was ordered home. Lord Chatham, taking with him as many of the sick as he could, accompanied it. 15,000 men were left to occupy the island. Though the fever still spread with fearful rapidity, the only remedy supplied was a quantity of Thames water, which was constantly sent out. ”