On the other hand, William Pitt, as a Minister, was the spoiled darling of fortune. In 1782, at the age of twenty-three, he was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the Shelburne Administration. He was out of office for the nine months in 1783, during which Fox and North were in power. But in December of that year, on the dismissal of the Coalition Government, he became First Lord of the Treasury, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Prime Minister, and he was not yet twenty-five. He held these offices for the unbroken term of seventeen years. As First Lord of the Treasury he had £5,000 a year, and £5,398 a year as Chancellor of the Exchequer. He had, besides, the official residence in Downing Street. The Clerkship of the Pells, a sinecure office worth £3,000 a year, fell vacant on Pitt’s accession to power; and in that age of jobs it was deemed a remarkable instance of disinterestedness that, instead of taking the place himself, and thus acquiring an independence for life, he gave it to a friend. But on the death of Lord North in 1792, George III appointed him to the sinecure office of Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, with a salary of £4,000—reduced by payments to subordinates to £3,080—and the seaside residence of Walmer Castle. For eight years, therefore, he had £10,398 per annum, and for another nine years, £13,478 per annum, from the State. Yet on his resignation in 1801—owing to the refusal of the King to sanction the emancipation of the Catholics, without which Pitt regarded the Union with Ireland which he had just carried as incomplete—he was in debt to the amount of £45,000. As his official salaries were stopped—though, of course, he retained the £4,000 a year as Lord Warden—he was in danger of being thrown into prison as a debtor. The merchants of London offered him a free gift of £100,000, and the King tendered him £30,000 from his Privy Purse, so that he might extricate himself from his unpleasant predicament. He declined both offers. He, however, accepted from fourteen personal friends and political supporters £11,700 as a loan, by which he was enabled to discharge the most pressing of his creditors. In May 1804 he returned to power as First Lord of the Treasury, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Prime Minister, and again drew the double salaries of £10,398 until he died, in office, on January 23, 1806. His debts were paid by Parliament. They amounted to the enormous sum of £40,000, exclusive of the £11,700 advanced to him in 1801 by his friends, who now declined repayment.