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 impressinent 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