was to be chiefly connected. The object of the expedition was to destroy Napoleon's fleet and arsenals on the Scheldt, after the troops that usually protected them had been withdrawn in order to take part in the Austrian campaign. Flushing was to be reduced, and Antwerp captured. The force under his command was nearly forty thousand strong, while Sir Richard Strachan [q. v.], with thirty-five ships of the line and numerous smaller vessels, was ordered to co-operate with the land forces. Chatham proved himself wholly unequal to the task assigned him. On 29 July part of his army landed at Walcheren and siezed Middleburg, while other divisions captured fortresses about the mouth of the Scheldt. Antwerp, which could easily have been occupied, was neglected in order that Flushing might be besieged. Flushing surrendered on 16 Aug., but meanwhile Antwerp had been strongly fortified, and its garrison reinforced. In September Chatham suspended operations, ordered fifteen thousand troops to Walcheren, and accompanied the others home. The climate of Walcheren told on the soldiers, and half the army there was soon invalided. Orders were thereupon sent from London to destroy Flushing and abandon Walcheren.
Chatham's failure was complete, and provoked a storm of recrimination in parliament. For many of the disasters the differences of opinion in the cabinet, between Castlereagh, the war minister, and Canning, the foreign minister, were responsible. But the thoroughness of the disaster was due to Chatham's lack of energy and military ability. On returning home he, contrary to etiquette, presented a partisan report to the king in private audience, instead of forwarding it to Castlereagh, the secretary of state. An inquiry into his conduct was held, and the revelations deeply compromised his reputation. He attributed fatal delays in his early movements to the dilatoriness of the admiral, Strachan. The situation gave rise to the epigram—
Great Chatham, with his sabre drawn,
Stood waiting for Sir Richard Strachan;
Sir Richard, longing to be at 'em,
Stood waiting for the Earl of Chatham!
Strachan's friends retaliated with a charge of unpunctuality against Chatham, and applied to him the sobriquet ‘the late’ Earl of Chatham.
Nothwithstanding his condemnation, Chatham received further promotion. He was promoted general in the army on 1 Jan. 1812, and on the death of the Duke of Kent, in 1820, he was made governor of Gibraltar. That post he held till his death. He died in London, at 10 Charles Street, Berkeley Square, on 24 Sept. 1835.
Chatham strongly resembled his father ‘in face and person,’ and in nothing else. His manners were said by Wraxall ‘to forbid approach’ and ‘prohibit all familiarity’ (Wraxall, Memoirs, iii. 129). He married, in 1783, Mary Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas, first viscount Sydney. She died in 1821, without issue.
[Doyle's Official Baronage; Debrett's Peerage, 1834; Alison's Hist. of Europe, vi. 251 n., vii. 456 n., ix. 236, 238, 239, 240, 241, 246; Observations on the Documents laid before Parliament &c. on the late expedition to the Scheldt, London, 1810; Royal Military Calendar, 3rd edit. i. 375, London, 1820; Cust's Annals of the Wars, v. 222–31; Cannon's Historical Records of the British Army: History of 4th or King's Own Regiment of Foot.]
PITT, MOSES (fl. 1654–1696), publisher and author, the son of John Pitt, yeoman, of St. Teath, Cornwall, was bound apprentice to Robert Littlebury, citizen and haberdasher of London, for seven years from 1 Oct. 1654, and was made freeman of the Haberdashers' Company on 8 Nov. 1661. He became a publisher, and in 1668 issued ‘at the White-Hart in Little Britain’ an edition of Thomas Brancker's ‘Introduction to Algebra.’ In 1680 appeared the first volume of the magnificent publication for which Pitt is chiefly known, ‘The English Atlas,’ a work formerly held in great estimation. Bishop William Nicolson [q. v.] and Richard Peers [q. v.] were generally responsible for the geographical and historical descriptions, and their names appear on some of the title-pages, but Thomas Lane, Obadiah Walker, and Dr. Todd had compiled the first volume (Wood, Athenæ, ed. Bliss, iv. 291, 480, 534; Letters to R. Thoresby, i. 122); the maps are mainly based on Janssen's ‘Atlas.’ It was to extend to eleven volumes, but only four volumes, and the text of a fifth, large folio, appeared, with the imprint ‘Oxford, printed at the Theater for Moses Pitt at the Angel in St. Paul's Churchyard,’ 1680–2. The names of Christopher Wren, Isaac Vossius, John Pell, William Lloyd, Thomas Gale, and Robert Hook are mentioned in the prospectus as having promised their advice and assistance. Pitt secured the patronage of Charles II, the queen, and the Duke and Duchess of York, and a long list of subscribers is given in the first volume. He claims to have had printed for him many bibles and testaments at Oxford, and to have reduced prices more than one-half (see Cry of the Oppressed, passim, and note to Wood's Life, ed. Clark, ii. 170).
