Add MS 70827

WILLIAM PITT THE YOUNGER, PRIME MINISTER: a biography, apparently one of the earliest assessments of Pitt: "The Political Life And Public Services of The Right honorable William Pitt as A Senator, and a Statesman Impartially considered For the King, the Law, and the peop[le]"; 1789. Dedicated to Earl Camden; the dedication is dated 15 Nov. 1789, and the date 1789 appears on the title page; the work is anonymous but the text has been ascribed to George Pretyman Tomline, Pitt's friend, and his tutor and secretary until made Bishop of Lincoln and dean of St Paul's by Pitt in 1787 [but see p. 27]. The hand has been claimed as Tomline's, but this is uncertain. Tomline was to publish a life of Pitt in 1821. The present manuscript is a draft with a number of deletions and corrections; much of the text has survived despite the manuscript having been exposed to damp; some text has been lost, however, and some pages may have been lost or removed during revision - see a small scrap of writing attached to f. 70v. The work consists of twelve chapters, a preface, a dedication and a table of the chapter contents. Chapters 1-11 cover Pitt's career from his early years to the East India Relief legislation of the Parliamentary Session following the king's recovery from his madness; the narrative, however, becomes rather sketchy and disjointed towards the end of the eleventh chapter. Chapter 12 is fuller, and contains general reflections on Pitt and a sketch of his private and public character; it ends with the hope that the public would petition the king successfully for some mark of royal favour to be shown to him.

No edition of the work has been traced, but the title-page (f. 3) with its passage in Latin appears to come from a printed text; much of the text at the bottom of the page has been lost but part reads: "London / Printed [by? ] . . ." Presumably this was added to the manuscript by the author after publication. For manuscripts relating to Tomline's Life of Pitt, see Add. 45107, 45108. Purchased from Howard S. Mott, Inc., Rare Books and Autographs, Sheffield, Mass., USA , Sept. 1991.

Paper; ff. 207 (409 pages). The text is found between ff. 3-255 (pages 1-404), but a number of the pages are blank. 251 x 190mm. Modern binding.