now almost no personal following, mainly owing to the grave mistake he had made in not forming an alliance with the Rockingham party. But his eloquence was as powerful as ever, and all its power was directed against the Govern ment policy in the contest with America, which had become the question of all absorbing interest. His last appearance in the House of Lords was on the 2d April 1778, on the occasion of the duke of Richmond s motion for an address praying the king to conclude peace with America on any terms. In view of the hostile demonstrations of France the various parties had come generally to see the necessity of such a measure. But Chatham could not brook the thought of a step which implied submission to the " natural enemy " whom it had been the main object of his life to humble, and he declaimed for a considerable time, though with sadly diminished vigour, against the motion. After the duke of Richmond had replied, he rose again excitedly as if to speak, pressed his hand upon his breast, and fell down in a fit. He was removed to his seat at Hayes, where he died on the llth May. With graceful unanimity all parties combined to show their sense of the national loss. The Commons presented an address to the king praying that the deceased statesman might be buried with the honours of a public funeral, and voted a sum for a public monument which was erected over his grave in Westminster Abbey. Soon after the funeral a bill was passed bestowing a pension of 4000 a year on his succes sors in the earldom. He had a family of three sons and two daughters, of whom the second son, William, was destined to add fresh lustre to a name which is one of the
greatest in the history of England.Dr Johnson is reported to have said that " Walpole was a minister given by the king to the people, but Pitt was a minister given by the people to the king," and the remark correctly indicates Chatham s distinctive place among English statesmen. He was the first minister whose main strength lay in the support of the nation at large as distinct from its representatives in the Commons, where his personal following was always small. He was the first to discern that public opinion, though generally slow to form and slow to act, is in the end the paramount power in the state ; and he was the first to use it not in an emergency merely, but throughout a whole political career. He marks the commencement of that vast change in the movement of English politics by which it has come about that the senti ment of the great mass of the people now tells effectively on the action of the Government from day to day, almost from hour to hour He was well fitted to secure the sympathy and admiration of his countrymen, for his virtues and his failings were alike English. He was often incon sistent, he was generally intractable and overbearing, and he was always pompous and affected to a degree which, Macaulay has remarked, seems scarcely compatible with true greatness. Of the last quality evidence is furnished in the stilted style of his letters, and in the fact recorded by Seward that he never permitted his under-secretaries to sib in his presence. Burke speaks of some significant, pompous, creeping, explanatory, ambiguous matter, in the true Chathamic style " But these defects were known only to the inner circle of his associates To the outside public he was endeared as a statesman who could do or suffer " nothing base," and who had the rare power of transfusing his own indomitable energy and courage into all who served under him. "A spirited foreign policy " has always been popular in England, and Pitt was the most popular of English ministers, because he was the most successful exponent of such a policy. In domestic affairs his influence was small and almost entirely indirect. He himself confessed his unfitness for dealing with questions of finance. The commercial prosperity that was produced by his war policy was in a great part delusive, as prosperity so produced must always be, though it had permanent effects of the highest moment in the rise of such centres of industry as Glasgow. This, however, was a remote result which he could have neither intended nor foreseen. More directly attributable to him was the policy which led to the pacification of the Highlands of Scotland. With the happy instinct of a chivalrous mind he advised the formation of the Highland regiments, and so succeeded in transforming high-spirited though mistaken rebels into the bravest and most loyal soldiers of the British crown.
See A History of the Right Hon. William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, (2 vols. 4to, 1827) by the Rev. Francis Thackeray ; Correspondence of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham (4 vols. 8vo. 1838-40) ; and Almon s Anecdotes of Chatham, with his Speeches in Parliament (2 vols. 4to, 1792). A volume of Pitt s letters to his nephew, Thomas Pitt, Lord Camelford, was published in 1804.
(w. b. s.)
CHATHAM ISLANDS, a group in the Pacific, 560 miles east of New Zealand, lying between 43 40 and 45 20 S. lat., and between 176 10 and 177 20 W. long. It consists of three islands, a large one called Wari-Kauri, or Chatham Island, a smaller one, Rangi-Haute, or Pitt s Island, and a third, Rangatira, or South-east Island. There are also several small rocky islets. Chatham Island, according to Dieffenbacb, contains an area of 305,280 acres ; of which, however, 57,600 acres are lakes and lagoons. In the centra is a large brackish lake called Tewanga, about 25 miles long and 6 or 7 broad, which at the southern end is separated from the sea by a sandbank only 150 yards wide, which it occasionally bursts through. The southern part of the island has an undulating surface, and is covered either with an open forest or with high ferns. In general the soil is extremely fertile, and where it is naturally drained, a rich vegetation of fern and flax (Phormium tenax) has sprung up, giving firmness to the soil and yielding a rich harvest to the planter. On the north-west are three or four conical hills of basalt, which are surrounded by oases of fertile soil. On the western side is Petre Bay, 40 miles across, on which, at the mouth of the River Mangatu, is Waitangi, the principal settlement. The country to the east of the great lagoon is quits flat, and is scarcely 50 feet above the sea-level. The climate is very mild, in winter varying only from 45 to 60. The changes of temperature are less sudden than in New Zealand. The inhabitants cultivate potatoes^ turnips, cabbages, taro (escu lent arum), tobacco, and pumpkins. The trees and shrubs resemble those of New Zealand, but the former are of very small size. Horses and cattle are bred in considerable numbers for the New Zealand market. Birds of many kinds, chiefly ducks, snipes, plovers, curlews, redbills, sandlarks, and parroquets, abound. Fish are plentiful on the coast, and whaling is actively prosecuted all round the group. Pitt s Island is about 12 miles long and 8 broad ; it has no harbour. These islands were discovered in 1791 by Lieutenant Broughton, who gave them the name of Chatham from the brig which he commanded. The natives, who are known as Morioris or Maiorioris, were conquered in 1832-33 by the Maoris of New Zealand, who killed great numbers of them, and in 1839 half of those left died of an epidemic of influenza. Their num bers have been reduced from 1500 to 140, and they are now a feeble and degenerate race. The geology and the flora and fauna of the islands indicate their physical connection with New Zealand, to which politically they belong.
the capital of the Pays de la Montagne or Country of the Mountain, in Burgundy, and now at the head of an arrondissement in the department of Cote d Or, is situated about 40 miles south-west of Troyea on the Upper Seine.
It is built on both sides of the river, and formerly consisted
