Thomas Picton, 1st Earl of Uxbridge

“ Many anecdotes of individual prowess have been preserved: but of all the brave men who were in the British army on that eventful day, none deserve more honour for courage and indomitable resolution than Sir Thomas Picton, who, as has been mentioned, fell in repulsing the great attack of the French upon the British left centre. It was not until the dead body was examined after the battle, that the full heroism of Picton was discerned. He had been wounded on the 16th, at Quatre Bras, by a musket-ball, which had broken two of his ribs, and caused also severe internal injuries ”

“ Ignoring Sir Thomas Robinson, the political nobody to whom Newcastle had entrusted the management of the Commons, he made frequent and vehement attacks on Newcastle himself, though still continuing to serve under him. In this strange state matters continued for about a year. At length, just after the meeting of parliament in November 1751, Pitt was dismissed from office, having on the debate on the address spoken at great length against a new system of continental subsidies, proposed by the government of which he was a member. ”

“ Allowance must always be made for the restraints and responsibilities of office. In Pitt’s case, too, it is to be borne in mind that the opposition with which he had acted gradually dwindled away, and that it ceased to have any organized existence after the death of the prince of Wales in 1751. Then in regard to the important question with Spain as to the right of search, Pitt has disarmed criticism by acknowledging that the course he followed during Wapole’s administration was indefensible. ”

“ CHATHAM, William Pitt, Earl of, British statesman, b. in Boconnoc, Cornwall, England, 15 Nov., 1708; d. in Hayes, Somerset, 11 May, 1778. His grandfather, Thomas Pitt, was governor of Madras, and brought from India the celebrated Pitt diamond, which he had purchased for £24,000. The Regent Orleans bought it of him for £135,000, and it was esteemed the most precious of the crown jewels of France as long as the monarchy lasted. Gov. Pitt used his wealth in buying rotten boroughs until he acquired for his family a vast parliamentary influence. ”

“ We must however record that the Pitt family was gentle and honourable; 'it had,' says one of them, 'been near two centuries growing into wealth without producing anything illustrious.' [1] But in the eighteenth century it was destined to blossom into no less than four peerages, Londonderry, Rivers, Camelford, and Chatham, not one of which survives. William Pitt's great-grandfather was Vicar of Blandford in Dorsetshire; and there was born Thomas, his grandfather, better known as Governor Pitt, and associated in history with the famous Pitt diamond. ”

“ To this course Bute would not consent, and as his refusal was endorsed by all his colleagues save Temple, Pitt had no choice but to leave a cabinet in which his advice on a vital question had been rejected. On his resignation, which took place in October 1761, the king urged him to accept some signal mark of royal favour in the form most agreeable to himself. Accordingly he obtained a pension of £3000 a year for three lives, and his wife, Lady Hester Grenville, whom he had married in 1754, was created Baroness Chatham in her own right. ”

“ Legge or Sir Thomas Robinson.'
From this we may gather that the Chancellor had never believed in the plan of a leaderless House of Commons. How indeed could he, as a man of sense, much more as a man of rare capacity? Such a plan could only be deemed possible by an alien King and a mountebank Minister. As to the personal point, Hardwicke is not less acute. Pitt, he declares, has stiffened his demand since their interview. Pitt, he is convinced, intended to draw from the Duke a promise that it should be made a point with the King that he should be made Secretary of State within a given time ”

“ The administration formed in 1746 lasted without material change till 1754. It would appear from his published correspondence that Pitt had a greater influence in shaping its policy than his comparatively subordinate position would in itself have entitled him to. His conduct in supporting measures, such as the Spanish treaty and the continental subsidies, which he had violently denounced when in opposition, had been much criticized; but within certain limits, not indeed very well defined, inconsistency has never been counted a vice in an English statesman. ”

“ Tis most clear, no ill betide us, Near the Georgium sidus This planet likes to dwell. Lovely as light, when morning breaks{51} Above the hills in golden streaks, Observe yon blushing rose, Uxbridge, the theme of ev'ry tongue, The sylph that charms the ag'd and young, Where grace and virtue glows. Gay Lady H-e her lounge may take,{52} Reclining near the Indian lake., And think she's quite secure; 51 The beautiful little countess, the charming goddess of the golden locks, was a Miss Campbell, a near relation of the Duke of Argyll. She is a most amiable and interesting elegante. ”

“ The groundwork of Pitt's character was an intense and passionate pride; but it was a pride which kept him from stooping to the level of the men who had so long held England in their hands. He was the first statesman since the Restoration who set the example of a purely public spirit. Keen as was his love of power, no man ever refused office so often, or accepted it with so strict a regard to the principles he professed. "I will not go to Court," he replied to an offer which was made him, "if I may not bring the Constitution with me." For the corruption about him he had nothing but disdain. ”

“ If the question be whether I must be traitor to man or perjured to God, I will be faithful to my Creator. And whatsoever shall befall me from popular rage or my own weakness, I must leave it to that almighty Being, and to the justice and honor of my judges.
My Lords, I conjure you not to make yourselves so unhappy as to disable your Lordships and your children, from undertaking the great charge and trust of this Commonwealth. You inherit that trust from your fathers. You are born to great thoughts. You are nursed for the weighty employments of the kingdom. ”

“ General Picton was a man of action, not of words. There was no palaver about him, nothing superfluous in the way of orations, but he spoke strongly and to the point. Long harangues, as Mr Grattan justly observes, are not necessary to British soldiers. Metaphor and flowers of rhetoric are thrown away upon them. Something plain, pithy, and appropriate is what they like; the shorter the better. "Rangers of Connaught!" said Picton, as he passed the Eighty-eighth, drawn up for the assault of Ciudad Rodrigo, "it is not my intention to expend any powder this evening. ”

“ Minas to Chebucto? Why is this, O traveller of the 'Balaklava?'"
"The reason of it all," replied Picton, with great equanimity of manner, "is entirely owing to the stupidity of the people here; the British government is the best government, sir, in the world; it fosters, protects, and supports the colonies, with a sort of parental care, sir; the colonies, sir, afford no recompense to the British government for its care and protection, sir ”

“ Uxbridge married, first, Mary (d. February 1735–6) , eldest daughter and coheiress of Thomas Catesby of Whiston, Yorkshire, who brought him a son; and, secondly, on 7 June 1739, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir William Bagot of Blithefield, Staffordshire, by whom he had no issue.
In the British Museum are letters from Uxbridge to John Ellis, 1698 (Addit. MS. 28882, f. 159) ; Secretary Vernon, 1700 (Addit. MS. 28885, f. 324) ; Lord-treasurer Harley, 1714 (Addit. MS. 8880, f. 161) ; and Lord Strafford, 1719 (Addit. MS. 31141, f. 246; cf. Tanner MS. cccv. art. 31, in the Bodleian Library) . ”

“ With all deference to Mr Grattan, we cannot but think that the Eighty-eighth were very appropriately placed under Picton's orders. Excellent fighting men though they were, they certainly, according to their champion's own showing, needed a strict hand over them. ”

“ Pitt left the helm of state with honor. He received a pension of three thousand pounds a year, and his wife was made a baroness.
The Earl of Bute succeeded him as premier, and was the first Tory minister since the accession of the house of Hanover. His watchword was prerogative. The sovereign should no longer be a gilded puppet, but a real king—an impossible thing in England. But his schemes pleased the king, and Oxford University, and Dr. Johnson; while his administration was assailed with a host of libels from Wilkes, Churchill, and other kindred firebrands. ”

“ The civil war continued to rage with varying success until the battle of Marston Moor, where the royalists, under Prince Rupert, sustained a defeat they never recovered from, and the only use they could make of their right and left wing was to fly for safety. After this reverse, Charles attempted to get up a treaty called the Treaty of Uxbridge, which, after twenty days of wrangling between the Commissioners of the Parliament and those sent by the king—the former wanting everything and the latter conceding nothing—fell completely to the ground. ”

“ Distrusted by the king, and feebly supported in the House of Commons, where the Duke of Newcastle's corrupt influence was still dominant, Pitt soon found that he was unable to carry on the government of the country with the aid of public opinion alone. ”

“ It is alleged that the Highlanders were thrown into confusion, and it is certain that Picton's last words to his aide-de-camp, Captain Seymour, were, "Rally the Highlanders!" Pack, too, appealed to the 92nd. "You must charge," he said; "all in front have given way." However this may be, the British regiments charged, and the swift and resolute advance of Picton's lines—though it was a charge of 3000 men on a body four times their number—was irresistible. The leading ranks of the French opened a hurried fire, under which Picton himself fell shot through the head ”

“ On the question of [Pg 8] a coalition, no offers have as yet been made. The language of Opposition inclines one to think that their idea is to that, but the conduct of the Prince of Wales marks a desire of avoiding Pitt. I believe he has had no communication with the Duke of Portland, or with any of them, except Sheridan and Lord Loughborough; the latter is supposed to be much in his confidence. Pitt has opened his plan of Regency to Thurlow and Lord Weymouth, and they both approved it; he is to lay it before the Prince of Wales in a few days, and will then make it public. ”

“ We must not attach too much importance to a story which in itself is so very unlikely. It is in the last degree improbable that a statesman like Pitt would have lent himself to so singular a proceeding. Even if an enamoured young Prince were prepared to sanction his affections by a marriage, he would scarcely have found an assistant in the ablest politician of the age. The story of the Axford marriage is far more probable. If Hannah Lightfoot had been married to George she would have been Queen of England, for there was no Royal Marriage Act in those days. ”

“ Picton Castle can boast a record unmatched in the annals of any other Southwallian fortalice; for the place has never once been deserted, but has always been occupied by those who can claim direct descent from the original founder.
It was in the days of William Rufus (when Arnulph the Norman handed over the whole of the surrounding district to his trusty follower) that Sir William de Picton erected the first castle, and gave his own name to his newly-acquired possession. ”

“ Perhaps conjecture would not err in ascribing one of the most expressive to sir William Pickering, a gentleman whose name has been handed down to posterity as an avowed pretender to the royal marriage. That a person illustrious neither by rank nor ancestry, and so little known to fame that no other mention of him occurs in the history of the age, should ever have been named amongst the suitors of his sovereign, is a circumstance which must excite more curiosity than the scanty biographical records of the time will be found capable of satisfying. ”

“ Shelburne's glittering unreality, his showy unreliability, were to have no place in Pitt's scheme of things. Abandoned by Temple, abandoning Shelburne, Pitt went his own way, doing the best he could in the face {237} of tremendous odds and doing it very well. One of his first acts of office was to bring in an India Bill of his own, which was decisively defeated in the Commons. For some months Pitt fought his hard and thankless fight as a minister with a minority behind him. At last, in the end of March, he saw his opportunity for a dissolution and resolved to take it. ”

“ Fox's East India Bill had been strongly opposed by Pitt, who at the early age of twenty-three had been Chancellor of the Exchequer and leader of the House of Commons under the Shelburne ministry. It was to this youth that the king now appealed for assistance, and although the task of forming a ministry of any stability was almost beyond hope, Pitt undertook the struggle. As it was useless to look for any support in the Commons he chose his cabinet entirely from the Upper House, reserving for himself the post of First Commissioner of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer. ”

“ In the long succession of administrators that followed the Norman king, there was none that seems to have grasped so completely and applied so skillfully his principles and methods of political administration as a daughter of the Tudor race. She may not have loved the people in any modern sense ”

“ But the celebration was at once countermanded when it was known that he had become earl of Chatham. The instantaneous revulsion of public feeling was somewhat unreasonable, for Pitt’s health seems now to have been beyond doubt so shattered by his hereditary malady, that he was already in old age though only fifty-eight. It was natural, therefore, that he should choose a sinecure office, and the ease of the Lords. But a popular idol nearly always suffers by removal from immediate contact with the popular sympathy, be the motives for removal what they may. ”