ABSTRACT
Mr William Pitt, the subject of the present memoir, was born on the fifteenth of November, 1708, In conformity to the usual practice of biographers, it may be expected, that the author should give some account of his extraction and family. He has been treated by a celebrated nobleman, as emphatically a new man. It is agreed on all hands, that Mr Pitt's patrimony was narrow, and lord Chesterfield has fixed it at an annuity of one hundred pounds a year. His original destination was the army, and a cornetcy of horse was his first, and only commission in it. Thus he appears to have set out in life with as bounded a prospect, and as few natural expectancies, as can well be imagined. It was at the period, in which this opposition was consolidated, a period, in the highest degree favourable for public exhibition, that Mr Pitt entered the house of commons.
