His banker, Thomas Coutts (with whom Pitt owed a substantial amount of money), urged Pitt to consider returning to the Bar [3]. Deprived of his income as First Lord of the Treasury, Pitt's only source of revenue was the £3,000 a year he received as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. King George III offered Pitt £30,000 towards the payment of his debts, but Pitt declined this, preferring to maintain his strict political independence; he did, however, reluctantly agree to a personal loan from several of his close friends [4].
Below is a list of Pitt's debts as of early 1801, undated, and written in an unknown hand (although it may have been written by Joseph Smith), which is amongst the Rose Papers, Vol. 2: BL Add Ms 42773, f. 3:
"To Coutt’s - advanced upon security of Burton Pynsent - £ 5,800
Ditto - on bond - £6,000
Ditto - overdrawn - £1,750
Mortgage - Hollwood - £11,000
State of debts - as of Feb (1801) - £7,408
Old debts - Hollwood - £2,198
Mr. Soane (presumably what Pitt owed to Soane for designs and improvements at Hollwood) - £2,098
Bills unpaid - £9,618
Total - £45, 864 (actually it should be £45,872)"
Unfortunately, even after the loan from his friends and other drastic reductions in his expenditure, Pitt was forced to sell his beloved country villa Holwood. One of Pitt's biographers best summed up Pitt's lifestyle post-1801 as one of "self-imposed gentlemanly poverty"[5].
References:
1. Rose Papers, Vol. 2: BL Add Ms 42773, f. 3
2. Ehrman, J. (1996) The Younger Pitt: The Consuming Struggle. London: Constable, p. 859.
3. Stanhope (1867) Life of the Right Honourable William Pitt, Vol. 3 (3rd edition). London: John Murray, p. xxxii; L.C.G. III, Vol. 3, p. 487, n. 1. Duffy, M. (2000) Profiles in Power: The Younger Pitt. Harlow: Pearson Education, p. 213.
4. Duffy, M. (2000) Profiles in Power: The Younger Pitt. Harlow: Pearson Education, p. 214.
5. Ibid., p. 214.
That's quite a lot of money to be in debt by, even in the modern day... I don't even want to speculate as to what that might actually be now in modern terms. What was it with these Pitt men and spending money they didn't own? Did they see it as some sort of cachet or something?
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