A Last Scene
In 1778, a dramatic event took place in the House of Lords.
William Pitt, old now and wasted by disease, but the fire of whose genius still burned bright and clear, was about to speak.
France had acknowledged the Independence of the United States. Germany was planning to do so; while Spain stood ready to enter into an alliance with the Americans. England was at war with France. The situation of England seemed desperate.
And on that dramatic day in the House of Lords, the Duke of Richmond was about to move that the royal fleets and armies should be instantly withdrawn from America, and peace be made on whatever terms Congress might see fit to accept.
But William Pitt would not willingly consent to a step that seemed certain to wreck the Empire his genius had won for England.
He had got up from his sick bed, and had come into the House of Lords to argue against the motion.
Wrapped in flannel bandages, and leaning upon crutches, his dark eyes in their brilliancy enhancing the pallor of his careworn face, as he entered the House, supported on the one side by his son-in-law, and on the other by that younger son who was so soon to add fresh glory to the name of William Pitt, the peers all started to their feet, and remained standing until he had taken his place.
In broken sentences, with strange flashes of the eloquence which had once held captive ear and heart, he protested against the hasty adoption of a measure which simply prostrated the dignity of England before its ancient enemy, the House of Bourbon.
The Duke of Richmond’s answer, reverently and delicately worded, urged that while the magic of Chatham’s name could work anything short of miracles, yet only a miracle could now relieve them from the dire necessity of abandoning America.
Chatham rose to reply, but his overwrought frame gave way, and he sank in a swoon upon the floor.
All business was at once adjourned. The peers, with eager sympathy, came crowding up to offer assistance, and the unconscious statesman was carried in the arms of his friends to a house near by, whence in a few days he was removed to his home.
There, after lingering between life and death for several weeks, on the 11th of May, and in the seventieth year of his age, Lord Chatham breathed his last.
The man thus struck down like a soldier at his post, was one whom Americans, no less than Englishmen, have delighted to honour.
John Fiske (Retold)