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William Pitt the Younger

59 quotes

“If we carry our views out of France, and look at the dreadful catalogue of all the breaches of treaty, all the acts of perfidy at which I have only glanced, and which are precisely commensurate with the number of treaties which the republic have made (for I have sought in vain for any one which it has made and which it has not broken); if we trace the history of them all from the beginning of the revolution to the present time, or if we select those which have been accompanied by the most atrocious cruelty, and marked the most strongly with the characteristic features of the revolution, the name of Buonaparte will be found allied to more of them than that of any other that can be handed down in the history of the crimes and miseries of the last ten years. His name will be recorded with the horrors committed in Italy, in the memorable campaign of 1796 and 1797, in the Milanese, in Genoa, in Modena, in Tuscany, in Rome, and in Venice.”
William Pitt the Younger (1759–1806) first seen 1800 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (3 February 1800), quoted in The Speeches of the Right Honourable William Pitt, in the House of Commons. Vol. IV. (1806), p. 35
“[O]n what grounds are we to be convinced that he [Napoleon] has an interest in concluding and observing a solid and permanent pacification? Under all the circumstances of his personal character, and his newly acquired power, what other security has he for retaining that power, but the sword? His hold upon France is the sword, and he has no other. Is he connected with the soil, or with the habits, the affections, or the prejudices of the country? He is a stranger, a foreigner, and an usurper; he unites in his own person every thing that a pure Republican must detest; every thing that an enraged Jacobin has abjured; every thing that a sincere and faithful Royalist must feel as an insult. If he is opposed at any time in his career, what is his appeal? He appeals to his fortune; in other words to his army and his sword. Placing, then, his whole reliance upon military support, can he afford to let his military renown pass away, to let his laurels wither, to let the memory of his achievements sink in obscurity? Is it certain that, with his army confined within France, and restrained from inroads upon her neighbours, he can maintain, at his devotion, a force sufficiently numerous to support his power? Having no object but the possession of absolute dominion, no passion but military glory, is it certain, that he can feel such an interest in permanent peace, as would justify us in laying down our arms, reducing our expense, and relinquishing our means of security, on the faith of his engagements?”
William Pitt the Younger (1759–1806) first seen 1800 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (3 February 1800), quoted in The Speeches of the Right Honourable William Pitt, in the House of Commons. Vol. IV. (1806), pp. 42-43
“The advocates of the French revolution boasted in its outset, that by their new system they had furnished a security for ever, not to France only but to all countries in the world, against military despotism; that the force of standing armies was vain and delusive; that no artificial power could resist public opinion; and that it was upon the foundation of public opinion alone that any government could stand. I believe, that in this instance, as in every other, the progress of the French revolution has belied its professions; but so far from its being a proof of the prevalence of public opinion against military force, it is instead of the proof, the strongest exception from that doctrine, which appears in the history of the world. Through all the stages of the revolution military force has governed; public opinion has scarcely been heard. But still I consider this as only an exception from a general truth; I still believe, that, in every civilized country (not enslaved by a jacobin faction) public opinion is the only sure support of any government.”
William Pitt the Younger (1759–1806) first seen 1800 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (3 February 1800), quoted in The Speeches of the Right Honourable William Pitt, in the House of Commons. Vol. IV. (1806), p. 45
“He defies me to state, in one sentence, what is the object of the war. I know not whether I can do it in one sentence; but is one word, I can tell him that it is SECURITY: security against a danger, the greatest that ever threatened the world. It is security against a danger which never existed in any past period of society. It is security against a danger which in degree and extent was never equalled; against a danger which threatened all the nations of the earth; against a danger which has been resisted by all the nations of Europe, and resisted by none with so much success as by this nation, because by none has it been resisted so uniformly, and with so much energy. This country alone, of all the nations of Europe, presented barriers the best fitted to resist its progress. We alone recognised the necessity of open war, as well with the principles, as the practice of the French revolution. We saw that it was to be resisted no less by arms abroad, than by precaution at home; that we were to look for protection no less to the courage of our forces, than to the wisdom of our councils; no less to military effort, than to legislative enactment. At the moment when those, who now admit the dangers of jacobinism while they contend that it is extinct, used to palliate its atrocity, and extenuate its mischief, this house wisely saw that it was necessary to erect a double safeguard against a danger that wrought no less by undisguised hostility than by secret machination.”
William Pitt the Younger (1759–1806) first seen 1800 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (17 February 1800), quoted in The Speeches of the Right Honourable William Pitt, in the House of Commons. Vol. IV. (1806), p. 61
“[W]e had not an option at this moment, between the blessings of peace and the dangers of war that from the fatality of the times, and the general state of the world, we must consider our lot as cast, by the decrees of Providence, in a time of peril and trouble that he trusted the temper and courage of the nation would conform itself to the duties of that situation that we should be prepared, collectively and individually, to meet it with that resignation and fortitude, and, at the same time, with that active zeal and exertion, which, in proportion to the magnitude of the crisis, might be expected from a brave and free people; and that we should reflect, even in the hour of trial, what abundant reason we have to be grateful to Providence, for the distinction we enjoy over most of the countries of Europe, and for all the advantages and blessings which national wisdom and virtue have hitherto protected, and which it now depends on perseverance in the same just and honourable sentiments, still to guard and to preserve.”
William Pitt the Younger (1759–1806) first seen 1803 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (23 May 1803), quoted in The Speeches of the Right Honourable William Pitt, in the House of Commons. Vol. IV. (1806), p. 234
“Much has been said of the danger of arming the people. I confess that there was a time when that fear would have had some weight; but there never was a time when there could have been any fear of arming the whole people of England, and particularly not under the present circumstances. I never, indeed, entertained any apprehensions from a patriot army regularly officered, according to the manner specified in the measure before the house, however I might hesitate to permit the assemblage of a tumultuary army otherwise constituted. From an army to consist of the round bulk of the people, no man who knows the British character could have the least fear if it even were to include the disaffected; for they would bear so small a proportion to the whole, as to be incapable of doing mischief, however mischievously disposed. There was indeed a time when associations of traitors systematically organized, excited an apprehension of the consequences of a sudden armament of the populace: but that time is no more, and the probability is now, as occurred in the case of the volunteers, that, if there are still any material number of disaffected, by mixing them with the loyal part of the community, the same patriotic zeal, the same submission to just authority will be soon found to pervade the whole body, and that all will be equally anxious to defend their country or perish in the attempt.”
William Pitt the Younger (1759–1806) first seen 1803 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (18 July 1803), quoted in The Speeches of the Right Honourable William Pitt, in the House of Commons. Vol. IV. (1806), p. 247
“We ought to have a due sense of the magnitude of the danger with which we are threatened; we ought to meet it in that temper of mind which produces just confidence, which neither despises nor dreads the enemy; and while on the one hand we accurately estimate the danger with which we are threatened at this awful crisis, we must recollect on the other hand what it is we have at stake, what it is we have to contend for. It is for our property, it is for our liberty, it is for our independence, nay, for our existence as a nation; it is for our character, it is for our very name as Englishmen, it is for every thing dear and valuable to man on this side of the grave.”
William Pitt the Younger (1759–1806) first seen 1803 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (22 July 1803), quoted in The Speeches of the Right Honourable William Pitt, in the House of Commons. Vol. IV. (1806), pp. 262-263
“[T]he result of this great contest will ensure the permanent security, the eternal glory of this country; that it will terminate in the confusion, the dismay, and the shame, of our vaunting enemy; that it will afford the means of animating the spirits, of rousing the courage, of breaking the lethargy, of the surrounding nations of Europe; and I trust, that, if a fugitive French army should reach its own shores after being driven from our coasts, it will find the people of Europe reviving in spirits, and anxious to retaliate upon France all the wrongs, all the oppressions, they have suffered from her; and that we shall at length see that wicked fabric destroyed which was raised upon the prostitution of liberty, and which has caused more miseries, more horrors to France and to the surrounding nations, than are to be paralleled in any part of the annals of mankind.”
William Pitt the Younger (1759–1806) first seen 1803 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (22 July 1803), quoted in The Speeches of the Right Honourable William Pitt, in the House of Commons. Vol. IV. (1806), p. 263
“I need not remind the house that we are come to a new era in the history of nations; that we are called to struggle for the destiny, not of this country alone, but of the civilized world. We must remember that it is not for ourselves alone that we submit to unexampled privations. We have for ourselves the great duty of self-preservation to perform; but the duty of the people of England now is of a nobler and higher order. We are in the first place to provide for our security against an enemy whose malignity to this country knows no bounds: but this is not to close the views or the efforts of our exertion in so sacred a cause. Amid the wreck and the misery of nations, it is our just exultation, that we have continued superior to all that ambition or that despotism could effect, and our still higher exultation ought to be, that we provide not only for our own safety, but hold out a prospect to nations now bending under the iron yoke of tyranny, what the exertions of a free people can effect; and that at least in this corner of the world, the name of liberty is still revered, cherished, and sanctified.”
William Pitt the Younger (1759–1806) first seen 1804 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (25 April 1804), quoted in The Speeches of the Right Honourable William Pitt, in the House of Commons. Vol. IV. (1806), pp. 334-335