DID EDMUND BURKE WRITE "JUNIUS'S LETTERS "? DANIEL O'CONNELL ON EDMUND BURKE AND JUNIUS ANECDOTE BIOGRAPHY. WILLIAM PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM, WHERE WAS WILLIAM PITT BORN? THE curiosity which attaches to the birthplaces of celebrated persons has been strangely exercised in the case of William Pitt. The statesman who, for nearly half a century, "commanded the confidence or excited the dread of our contending grandsires," and became one of the chosen men in our history who deserve the proud distinction of GREAT,—how strange it is that his biographers are at variance as to the place that gave him birth! He is claimed for the respective counties of Cornwall, Wiltshire, and Middlesex-with what share of right it may be amusing to relate. William Pitt was the second son of Mr. Robert Pitt, who succeeded his father, Mr. Thomas Pitt, Governor of Madras, in the possession of Boconnoc, a fine seat in the parish of that name, about three miles from Lostwithiel, in Cornwall. Both the grandfather and father of the great statesman are described in genealogical records as "seated at Boconnoc," whence may have arisen the statement that William Pitt was born there. In the library of the mansion is a large family Bible, in which is the following register of the birth of the statesman, in the handwriting of his father, Mr. Robert Pitt: "This day-November y 15th, 1708, Munday morning, about eight o'clock, my son William was born." The place of birth is omitted: it could not, however, have been Bocon B noc, since the estate was not purchased or tenanted by Governor Pitt until some ten years after the birth of his grandson, William Pitt. Mr. Cyrus Redding, the well-known littérateur, and a native of Penryn, has favoured us with a communication, wherein he says that he has been more than once at Boconnoc, and that in his boyhood, (Mr. Redding is now in his 75th year,) "it was always a matter of dispute whether William Pitt was born in Cornwall or in London, when his father and family were in town for the season; and St. James's, Westminster, was asserted to be the parish." He was, certainly, christened in Wren's newly-built church of St. James, in Piccadilly, but the register, which follows, does not state his place of birth or residence: "1708. Dec. 13. Will, of Robert Pitts, Esq', and Henrietta, born Nov. 15; baptized." About the time of Mr. Redding's boyhood, 1795, Wiltshire was confidently claimed as Pitt's birthplace, by Miss Seward, who, in the second volume of her Anecdotes, says: "This great Minister was born at Stratford House, at the foot of the fortress of Old Sarum; an Engaving of which is appended to this collection, to satisfy that grateful curiosity with which we ever contemplate the birthplace of those who have been the friends and the benefactors of their country." The Plate shows Stratford House to have been an edifice of manorial character, with several gables, and a canopied doorway. Now, we have Governor Pitt's political connexion with Old Sarum, and William Pitt's statement that his father Robert Pitt resided there; but against this presumptive evidence is William Pitt's own record, that he was born in the parish of St. James, Westminster. At the age of eighteen, he was admitted a gentleman commoner of Trinity College, Oxford. The above evidence we owe to a very useful practice, not general in the University, but which prevails in Trinity: the undergraduates, upon admission, enter their names, county, and parentage, in a register provided for the purpose. this register the following is an extract: "Ego Gulielmus Pitt Filius Rob Pitt armi: de Old Sarum in comitatu Wilts, natus Londini in Par: Sancti Jacobi annorum circiter octodecim, admissus sum primi ordinis commensalis, sub tutamine Mag Stockwell, Janri decimo die anno Domini 1726." This evidence was first printed in the Rev. Mr. Thackeray's History of the Earl of Chatham, published in 1827; yet Pitt's subsequent biographers either state his birthplace to have been Boconnoc, or omit it altogether. In the able memoirs in the Penny Cyclopædia and the English Cyclopædia, Boconnoc is given; yet, in the Encyclopædia Britannica, 8th edit.; in the sketch by Lord Macaulay; and in Lord Mahon's History of England, the locus in quo is omitted altogether; as also in the brief outline prefixed to the first volume of the Chatham Correspondence. The founder of the noble family of Pitt was, according to the Genealogical Table in Mr. Thackeray's History, Nicholas Pitt, who lived in the reign of Henry VII., or, according to Edmondson, in that of Henry VI.; and the world-renowned name of William Pitt, son of Nicholas, occurs in the reign of Henry VIII. His son, John Pitt, was Clerk of the Exchequer in the time of Elizabeth; and his eldest son, Sir William Pitt, who died in 1636, was Comptroller of the Household of Charles II. BOCONNOC, AND GOVERNOR PITT. The family of Pitt were first raised to wealth and eminence by his grandfather, Thomas, Governor of Madras; it was he who brought over from India the celebrated "Pitt Diamond," which weighing 127 carats, was the largest yet discovered. He had given 20,000l. for it on the spot, and afterwards sold it to the Regent of Orleans for 125,000l. During the interval, he used, upon his journeys, to conceal it in the cavity of the high-heeled shoes which he wore according to the fashion of that day: the Diamond afterwards became more an object of interest from its being placed in the sword of Napoleon I., between the teeth of a crocodile, so shaped as to form the handle. Governor Pitt acquired political importance by pur chasing the burgage tenure of Old Sarum, and political connexion by the marriage of his daughter with General Stanhope, in 1713. Boconnoc has the finest grounds in the county, which include entrenchments made by the troops of Charles I., who, in his struggle with the Parliament, took up his head-quarters in the house. When Governor Pitt purchased the estate of the widow of Lord Mohun, about 1718, he finished the mansion; it has some good paintings, and a fine bust of Lord Chatham, under which are these lines: Her trophies faded, and reversed her spear, Thy name, great shade, devolve from age to age- By thee she triumphed, and by thee she fell.* Boconnoc was bequeathed by Governor Pitt to his eldest son Robert, the father of the great statesman. The house and grounds became subsequently the property of Lord Grenville, through marriage with the Hon. Anne Pitt, and are now in the possession of his Lordship's nephew, the Hon. G. M. Fortescue,† by whom the Chatham memorials at Boconnoc are scrupulously preserved. PITT AT ETON AND OXFORD. Pitt was much noticed as a boy by his uncle Earl Stanhope, who discovered his rising talents, and according to a family tradition, used to call him "the young Marshal." He was sent to Eton at an early age, and placed upon the foundation of that ancient establishment; and here he had for his friends and competitors George, afterwards Lord Lyttelton; Henry Fox, the first Lord Holland; Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, afterwards the political ballad-writer; Henry * Redding's "Illustrated Itinerary of Cornwall." + Sir Bernard Burke's "Visitation of Seats and Arms," vol. ii. p. 10. |