Presented to both Houses of Parliament by Command of Her Msjesty. PRINTED FOR HER MAJESTY'S STATIONERY OFFICE, PRINTERS TO THE QUEEN'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY. And to be purchased, either directly or through any Bookseller, from JOHN MENZIES & Co., 12, HANOVER STREET, EDINBURGH, and HODGES, FIGGIS, & Co. LIMITED, 104, GRAFTON STREET, DUBLIN. [C.-6660.] Price 28. 7d. 1892. INTRODUCTION. The founder of Dropmore, Lord Grenville appears to have devoted some time, after his retirement from political life, to arranging such of his letters and papers as he considered worthy of preservation. His system was to collect together the letters from each of his principal correspondents, and to place them in chronological order in separate portfolios. Other papers were similarly arranged under the countries or the subjects to which they related. The whole collection occupies about 300 small portfolios, of which several contain letters of an earlier period, such as the correspondence of Lady Grenville's great grandfather, Robert Pitt, some letters to Miss Ann Pitt, labelled Literary Curiosities," and some to Richard Berenger, the author of two books on horsemanship and other works. " . Although the letters at Dropmore would obviously have furnished valuable material for the Duke of Buckingham's Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George III., and Lord Stanhope's Life of Pitt, they were never shown to either of these members of Lord Grenville's family, and they remained practically unknown until their present owner, Mr. J. B. Fortescue, gave permission to Mr. Maxwell Lyte to examine them on behalf of the Historical Manuscripts Commission. The present volume contains a Calendar in chronological order of the principal letters and papers down to the end of the year 1790, a date which practically corresponds with that of Grenville's elevation to the peerage. The original documents have, however, been kept in the order in which they were placed by him. During the first twenty-eight years of the period, from 1698 to 1790, embraced in this volume, the central figure is Thomas Pitt, Governor of Madras for the East India Company, and founder of that branch of the Pitt family which gave England two of her greatest statesmen. Madras was the principal seat of English commerce in the East when Governor Pitt, accompanied by his 67609. Wt. 5262. a 2 3 eldest son Robert, landed there on the 6th of July 1698.1 His rule was conterminous with a most important crisis in the fortunes of the East India Company. For years before it began, the Madras Presidency had fallen into a state of disorganisation." In the same year, 1698, the monopoly of trade between the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn, which the Old, or London, Company, established in the reign of Elizabeth, had enjoyed since the first year of the century, was broken by the formation of a New, or English, Company, under a charter of William III. Moreover, the agents whom the New Company despatched to the East, went from England clothed with the authority and the privileges of British consuls. This situation of affairs imposed on the Governor of Madras the double task of correcting abuses and restoring order in his Presidency, and of maintaining, under disadvantageous conditions, the interests of his employers against a rival enterprise, operating in its immediate neighbourhood. And although, as appears from a letter of George White, dated March 10, 1702-3, a sense of the ruinous consequences of their strife soon led the Old and New Companies to coalesce as a United Company, under a common Board of Managers, the union for several years afterwards was neither cordial nor complete. The correspondence shows that passions engendered by rivalry continued to run high, and that trading interests continued to clash both in London and in India, during the whole term of Pitt's Government. Another circumstance of great moment in the history of the Company marked his tenure of office. This was the death of Aurungzebe in 1707, an event speedily followed by the dissolution of the Mogul Empire. The correspondence opens with letters from Robert Pitt to his mother and other friends in England, referring chiefly to private trade with China and Japan, in which his father was extensively engaged. Besides carrying on this external commerce, Thomas Pitt, soon after his arrival at Madras, opened a lucrative traffic in diamonds with native merchants from the interior of the country. In March 1702, he purchased for 48,000 pagodas, from Ramchund, one of these dealers, a stone of extraordinary 1 p. 2. 2 p. 1. 'p. 2 3, 4. 3 p. 2. 'p. 7. 6 p. 48. size and beauty, with which his name has since been associated. A very full account of this transaction will be found under date of July 29, 1710.1 In October 1702, he sent his son Robert to England in charge of the great diamond. Robert was also entrusted with the guardianship of his younger brothers, and the general management of his father's affairs. A paper, entitled "Memorandums to my son Robert Pitt on his going to England," contains minute instructions for the safe keeping of the gem during the voyage, and for Robert's future conduct as his father's representative at home. Several letters written during the following twelve months, reveal the Governor's anxiety for the safety of his diamond, and the high estimate he had formed of its value. They also complain bitterly of his son's silence." It appears by a letter to Governor Pitt from Thomas Styleman, dated November 18, 1703, that Robert, within a few months after his return, married Harriet Villiers daughter of Viscountess Grandison. She is referred to several times in the correspondence, and always in terms of extraordinary praise." His marriage and preparations for his election as M.P. for the borough of Old Sarum, of which Thomas Pitt had acquired control by purchasing the site of the castle from Lord Salisbury in the year 1691,6 would seem to have so engrossed Robert's mind as to cause him to neglect his father's instructions, and particularly that one enjoining frequent correspondence with Madras. His first letter from London announcing to the Governor his safe arrival with the diamond, and subsequent marriage, is dated December 30, 1703.7 Moreover, he was soon engaged in violent quarrels with his mother, brothers, and sisters; highly-coloured accounts of which, sent to Madras by the parties themselves and by candid friends, excited the Governor's bitter indignation. The great diamond was also, in many ways, an occasion of trouble to Governor Pitt. Circumstances relating to its purchase and transmission to England, which he had desired to shroud in absolute secrecy, were noised abroad, with much fictitious embellishment, through, as he thought, his son's indiscretion." |