ld for L680 to pay pressing claims. The unpaid bills
now amount to L9,618. Old debts come to L9,600 more. Mr. Soane
and Mr. Coutts might be asked to wait, as neither would suffer
from it. The debt due to Banker (L5,800) cannot surely be a
separate one of Pitt's; for I think he could give no security on
it. Probably it is a debt contracted jointly with Lord Chatham,
the whole of which Pitt may have to pay. Of the last sum which
in his own deep distress he borrowed on the security of Holwood,
he gave (I know) L1,000 to Lord Chatham. These are trifling
considerations compared with that of getting him to accept the
means of relief. They are as follows: (1) a vote from
Parliament; (2) a free gift from the King; (3) a private
subscription; (4) an additional office for life. The first and
second of these Pitt has peremptorily declined. The third he
refused in 1787 when the London merchants offered L100,000. The
fourth course would not be wholly creditable, but Pitt thinks it
the least objectionable. He dislikes the second and third
alternatives because the second (as he thinks) would give the
King a hold over him and the third would entitle the subscribers
to his favour. The notion of an execution by bailiffs in his
house is too painful to contemplate. I consider the first or
second alternatives the best.

The reference here to a gift, or loan, from Pitt to his brother prompts
the inquiry whether similar acts of benevolence may not explain his
difficulties. We find the second Earl of Chatham in August 1797
acknowledging a loan of L1,000 from Pitt. The bishop, replying to Rose
on 24th July 1801, states that the debt of L5,800 was to the best of his
knowledge a sum advanced through Thomas Coutts, the banker, to Lady
Chatham upon the Burton Pynsent estate. He adds that she ought to pay
interest to Pitt upon it, but did not. It seems that Pitt advanced
L11,750 in all on behalf of the Burton Pynsent estate. Here, then, was a
grievous family burden. Probably the debt was left by his father, and
may have been increased by his mother. So far back as November 1793 he
wrote to her stating his desire to help her at any time of need; and in
August of the following year, when she believed her end to be near, she
begged her sons to pay her "just debts," which were due, not to vain
expenses, but to outlays upon the farm which she at the time believed to
be f