lish victories on land and sea. In
Westphalia, British Infantry defeated the armies of Louis the Fifteenth;
Boscawen had sunk a French fleet; Hawke put to flight another; Amherst
took Ticonderoga; Clive destroyed a Dutch armament; Wolfe achieved
victory and a glorious death at Quebec. English arms had marched
triumphant through India and secured for the tight little island an
empire, while another had been gained on the shores of Ontario.

For all this the Great Commoner received most of the glory; and that
this tremendous popularity was too great to last is but a truism.

But in such a year it was that William Pitt was born. His father was
fifty years old, his mother about thirty. This mother was a woman of
rare grace, intellect and beauty, the only sister of two remarkable
brothers--George Grenville, the obstinate adviser of George the Third,
the man who did the most to make America free--unintentionally--and the
other brother was Richard Earl Temple, almost equally potent for right
or wrong.

That the child of a sensitive mother, born amid such a crash of
excitement, should be feeble was to be expected. No one at first
expected the baby to survive.

But tenderness and care brought him through, and he grew into a tall,
spindling boy whose intellect far outmatched his body. He was too weak
to be sent to take his place at a common school, and so his father and
mother taught him.

Between the father and the son there grew up a fine bond of affection.
Whenever the father made a public address the boy was there to admire
and applaud.

The father's declining fortunes drove him back to his family for repose,
and all of his own ambitions became centered in his son. With a younger
man this might not have been the case, but the baby boy of an old man
means much more to him than a brood coming early.

Daily, this boy of twelve or fourteen would go to his father's study to
recite. Oratory was his aim, and the intent was that he should become
the greatest parliamentarian of his time.

This little mutual-admiration society, composed of father and son,
speaks volumes for both. Boys reaching out toward manhood, when they are
neither men nor boys, often have little respect for their fathers--they
consider the pater to be both old-fashioned and tyrannical. And the
father, expecting too much of the son, often fails in faith and
patience. But there was no such failure here. Chatham personally
superintended the matter of offhand