Have a cold?

Or how about a terrible bowel complaint, or, like William Wilberforce, the famous British abolitionist, ulcerative colitis?

Then your nineteenth century doctor prescribes... opium!

Yes, opium, of indeterminate age, size or quantity, taken in granular form (or laudanum, a tincture of opium) so that one can never entirely control one's intake. Wilberforce himself took four grains three times a day for most of his life, and, despite the fact that he was hooked on narcotics, once remarked, "If I take but a single glass of wine, I can feel its effect, but I never know when I have taken my dose of opium by my feelings."

Wilberforce cannot be entirely held accountable for his addiction to opiates, as it was a standard treatment "to mitigate pain, to allay spasm, to promote sleep, to relieve nervous restlessness, to produce perspiration and to check profuse mucous discharges from the bronchial tubes and gastro-intestinal canal."

Gentle Readers, keep this remedy in mind the next time you or a friend wishes to check profuse mucous discharges from the gastro-intestinal canal.

He had to resume hostilities to maintain the balance of power

William Pitt was an extremely reserved, almost haughty person in public, but, in private was extraordinarily affectionate. He did not make friends easily, but Pitt held on tenaciously to those who managed to break past his reserve, and to a point where his Romantic friendships still puzzle scholars (ex. William Wilberforce, who became an outspoken opponent of Pitt's draconian policies during the Wars of the French Revolution but whom Pitt still considered one of his closest friends, and with whom Pitt had an odd but extremely enjoyable amount of slashy subtext in the 2006 film Amazing Grace).

Pitt was willing to bend over backwards for his family, as well, and adored his nieces and nephews. At one point, his niece, Lady Hester Stanhope blacked Pitt's face, while some other family members pinned him down, to amuse the youngest members of the family. This struggle, which evolved into a pillow fight, was interrupted by several members of Pitt's cabinet, including Lord Castlereagh. Pitt's transformation of demeanor was remarkable; he wiped off his face, and straightened up to the point where Lord Roseberry said that, after Pitt had assumed his working personna, "his tall figure seemed to stretch to the ceiling and all these powerful men who came calling bent like willows before him".

Immediately afterwards, Pitt resumed the pillowfight. One wonders if the Cabinet Ministers were asked to join in.

Why on p. 47, I lost all respect for the author.

The field of biography is a tricky one, fraught with many perils, the chief of which is falling in love with your subject. The other is coming off as an absolute idiot, either by failing to explain what was going on, by explaining too much, or by explaining in such a fashion as to make your readers doubt your sanity, your literacy, or your mastery of contemporary English.

I am sorry to say that this passage, from Eric Metaxas's Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery fulfils almost all of them. Since I fear, Gentle Readers, that you will not have any idea of Mr. Metaxas's subject based on what he wrote, allow the Amateur Historian to explain that Mr. Metaxas is describing a carriage ride in the Alps taken by William Wilberforce, he of the great mind and moral character, but diminutive stature, and Isaac Milner, an intellectual and physical giant elected to the Royal Society as an undergraduate at Cambridge. This is copied verbatim.

"The extraordinary felicity of this scene, of these incandescent minds meeting on this subject of eternal things, sailing in their horse-drawn coach through the mountains, seems like something out of a fairy tale, one in which a gnome and a giant on a journey in a sphere of glass and silver discover the Well at the World's End, and drinking a draught therefrom learn the secret meaning at the heart of the universe."

... a gnome? That's just mean.

Pitt and Mademoiselle Necker

Lauren's post on Mme Necker reminded me of yet another amusing incident in the life of William Pitt the Younger. While on his one vacation to the Continent, William Pitt the Younger visited Paris with William Wilberforce and his brother-in-law to be, Edward Elliot. Pitt's father, the Earl of Chatham, was extremely popular and Pitt met with a number of French officals, including Jacques Necker, the Finance Minister to Louis XVI. Pitt made quite an impression. Mme Necker became dead-set on having Pitt as a son-in-law, since Pitt had become an MP at 21, the Chancellor of the Exchequer at 23 and looked to be the Prime Minister at 24.

Mademoiselle Germaine Necker, was not quite so impressed. Mlle Necker, later Mme de Stael, was said to have refused because it would have meant being away from, what were at the time, the two great loves of her life (aka Paris and Papa)-- a fate worse than death.

William Pitt the Younger either brushed off this rejection or refused the idea of marrying Germaine Necker by saying, "I am already married to my country." The Amateur Historian reads this as a sign of Pitt's workaholic nature, his recognition that Germaine Necker was far too much for him a handle, a possible sign that he was quite piqued at Germaine Necker's total dismissal of his suit and his usual self-awareness and self-knowledge, as Pitt later refused to marry in 1797 because he didn't think it fair on any woman to be married to a man "who could not give a proper share of time to his wife, for how would it be if he was always at the House, or in business, and she always at the opera, or whiling about in her carriage" (from Lady Hester Stanhope's Memoirs, vol. 1, p. 180).

Other historians, however, have taken this to be a sign of Pitt's homosexuality. History is a strange field.

Pitt the Younger Goes Grouse Shooting

Funny things tended to happen to Pitt the Younger when he was, well... younger. It is possible that this was because Pitt, who was a notorious drinker, could outdrink most university students and often led his college friends in drunken routs. At one point in time, Pitt instigated a practical joke by stealing a friend's top hat during a house party at William Wilberforce's villa in Wimbleton, cutting the hat to pieces and then planting the pieces in the garden.

The Amateur Historian is sure the joke made more sense when drunk.

However, one of the most amusing of his university experiences had to be when he was invited to the country estate of his friend, Henry Bankes, along with William Wilberforce and a number of others. Pitt readily accepted this invitation, as he was a younger son without a country estate and London (this was at the beginning of the industrial revolution, and also at a point where London was one of the msot populated cities on the planet) was said to be deadly in the summer. While they were there, Pitt and his friends engaged in some grouse shooting.

No record remains of what they shot, except that the short-sighted Wilberforce took aim at Pitt and nearly shot him in the head by mistake.

Grouse shooting later came back to haunt Pitt the Younger; in 1797, his bill to introduce some regulation and social security for child laborers failed when the MPs decided they'd rather debate grouse-shooting insted.

Wilberforce got the worst end. For the rest of his life, his friends teased him for having taken "a shot a greatness" and missed.

Pitt the Younger Has Fun Times in France

History can be fascinating for a variety of reasons. This Amateur Historian must admit to her Gentle Readers that part of her fascination with the 18th century is thanks to her fascination with Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger. Why yes, Gentle Reader, you have found the only Pitt the Younger fangirl this Amateur Historian knows about, though she would be glad to start a club.

To the below right you have Gainsborough's stately portrait of a Prime Minister in perfect control of both himself and his elegant setting (note the neatness of Pitt's attire and how the line of the pen matches the line of his right arm- very orderly is the young Mr. Pitt) and to the upper left you have Gillray's less than flattering print of Pitt the Younger as a "An Excrescence; – a Fungus; – alias – a Toadstool upon a Dung-hill", as Gillray believed Pitt's power to stem solely from rotten Royal Favor. Note the rosy nose, which is a pot-shot at Pitt's habit of drinking three bottles of port a day.

William Pitt the Younger became Prime Minister of Great Britain at 24, a position he held (except for two years) until his death, which not only makes him the youngest Prime Minister in history, but also one with the second longest term in office. Many people, including Pitt himself, who was and MP at 21 and Chancellor of the Exchequer at 23, were quite surprised when George III tried to bully Pitt into taking office in 1782, just as Pitt was about to complete his gentlemanly education by taking a Grand Tour of the Continent with two of his friends, William Wilberforce (who spearheaded the British Abolition movement) and Edward Eliot (who later married one of Pitt’s sisters).

Being bullied by a monarch is enough to put anyone into a tizzy, which is probably why none of these gentlemen thought to get a letter of introduction. In the 1780s, letters of introduction served not only as a passport into a country, but a passport into society. The three gentlemen managed to secure a letter to a certain Monsieur Coustier in Rheims, just before they had to leave England.

In the words of Mr. William Wilberforce: “From Calais we made directly for Rheims, and the day after our arrival dressed ourselves unusually well, and proceeded to the house of Mons. Coustier to present, with not a little awe, our only letters of recommendation. It was with some surprise that we found Mons. Coustier behind a counter distributing figs and raisins. I had heard that it was very usual for gentlemen on the continent to practice some handicraft trade or other for their amusement [Marie Antoinette liked pretending to be a milkmaid, herself], and therefore for my own part I concluded that his taste was in the fig way, and that he was only playing at grocer for his diversion; and, viewing the matter in this light, I could not help admiring the excellence of his imitation; but we soon found that Mons. Coustier was a ‘véritable epicier,’ and that not a very eminent one.”

They thus spent what one can assume was an extremely boring week at Rheims, since their friend the grocer did not even sell figs to the local aristocracy and could not introduce them to anyone. Since they spoke no French (Wilberforce had slacked off at Cambridge, Eliot had studied law, not languages, and Pitt had studied classical languages like Greek and Latin which, though helpful for becoming a famous Parliamentary orator, was of no practical value in Rheims) and kept to themselves, they were almost arrested as spies.

Fortunately for them, the bishop of Rheims know Pitt the Elder, the late Earl of Chatham/Pitt’s now-dead father, and took them in as guests, causing Mr. Wilberforce to note: “N.B. Archbishops in England are not like Archeveques in France; these last are jolly fellows of about forty years of age, who play at billiards, &c. like other people”.

Sage words, Mr. Wilberforce, sage words.

Thus concludes the first part of what will be an admittedly long series on Funny Things That Happened to Pitt the Younger.