William Pitt, the first Earl of Chatham, was born in Westminster, November 15, 1708. He was sent to Eton at an early age, and admitted a gentleman-commoner of Trinity College, Oxford, in January, 1726. His father, Robert Pitt, Esq., of Boconnock, in Cornwall, died in the following year, and left to him the scanty inheritance of a younger son. He quitted Oxford without taking a degree; spent some time in travelling on the Continent; and entered the army shortly after his return. He obtained a seat in Parliament for Old Sarum in 1735, and attached himself to the party in opposition, then headed in the lower house by the Pulteneys, and favoured in the upper by the Prince of Wales. His known talents, and his determined hostility, soon drew upon him the anger of Sir Robert Walpole, who is reported to have said, “We must at all events muzzle that terrible cornet of horse.” Failing in this, he had recourse to a method of revenge which would not have been tolerated in later times, and took away Pitt’s commission. For this injury, however, the sufferer received an ample recompense in the increased estimation of the public. Pitt spoke with great ability and energy, in 1739, against the proposed convention with Spain, and in 1740, against a bill introduced to facilitate the impressment of seamen, containing very arbitrary and oppressive provisions. Many of his speeches have been preserved, to a certain extent, in the periodical works of the day; though it is probable, from the very imperfect mode of reporting which then prevailed, that little remains of their original garb of words. Walpole was compelled to resign in 1742; but, with his usual dexterity, he contrived, by disuniting the opposition, to secure himself from the consequences of an inquiry into his conduct. Pitt spoke with much heat and eloquence in favour of the inquiry; and two of his speeches on this subject are reported at considerable length. He obtained no share in the ministry upon Walpole’s fall, and continued to be a leader in opposition during the years 1742–3–4. More especially he was earnest in reprobation of the Hanoverian policy, which was supposed at that time to have an undue preponderance in our councils: and his pertinacity on this point engendered in the breast of George II. a strong personal dislike, which is said to have prevented his admission into that which was whimsically termed the “broad-bottomed administration,” formed at the close of 1744. In that autumn he received a bequest of £10,000 from the celebrated Duchess of Marlborough, “upon account of his merit, in the noble defence he has made for the support of the laws of England, and to prevent the ruin of his country.”