William Pitt was a rising star of British politics in 1741, so much so that Horace Walpole MP felt he needed his wings clipped — an operation fraught with peril.
On March 10th, 1741, veteran MP Horace Walpole (1678-1757), the Prime Minister’s brother, fancied that he would silence that upstart William Pitt (1708-1778) by drawing attention to his inexperience, and scolding him for his theatrical manners of speech and gesture. He drew a reply of such withering sarcasm that it merely confirmed Pitt as the rising statesman of his generation.
British statesmen were among those who inspired the career of one of America’s greatest men, Frederick Douglass.
At thirteen, escaped slave Frederick Douglass bought a schoolbook, ‘The Columbian Orator’, for fifty cents. It nurtured gifts of understanding and eloquence that brought Douglass to prominence as America’s leading anti-slavery campaigner, and among his favourite passages were speeches by great British statesmen of his day.
William Pitt the Elder doubts the wisdom of letting experts run the country.
In 1769, the colourful John Wilkes MP was repeatedly barred from taking up his seat in the Commons. William Pitt leapt to Wilkes’s defence in the Lords, not concealing his irritation that Lord Justice Mansfield had, in a speech of wit, learning and meticulous argument, completely misunderstood Pitt’s point.
William Pitt the Elder berates Parliament for treating the public like know-nothings.
In June 1770, the Spanish invaded the Falkland Islands. The Government was inclined to sell the islanders out, and smooth over public outrage with words of assurance from King George III. But veteran statesman William Pitt ‘the Elder’, Earl of Chatham, warned them that such a patronising attitude risked losing public trust.