,500 a year to
be given to my nieces if the public should think my long services
deserving it; but I do not presume to think I have earned it."[783] He
then named those to whom since 1801 he owed sums of money: Long, Steele,
Lords Camden and Carrington, the Bishop of Lincoln and Joseph Smith; he
also entrusted his papers to the bishop and to Lord Chatham.

Already Bishop Tomline had warned him of his approaching change and
besought him to prepare his mind for the Sacrament. This he declined,
alleging his unworthiness to receive it. Thereupon the bishop prayed
with him. He calmly murmured the responses and humbly confessed that he
had too much neglected prayer. Nevertheless, he affirmed the steadiness
of his religious faith and principles, and declared that he had ever
sought to fulfil his duty to God and to mankind, though with many errors
and failures. While the bishop was overcome with emotion, the dying man
thanked him earnestly for all his kindness throughout life. Once his
thoughts recurred to his own conduct; he expressed heartfelt
satisfaction at the innocency of his life, and declared that he died in
perfect charity with all mankind.[784]

He lingered on to the early hours of 23rd January, the twenty-fifth
anniversary of his entry into Parliament. During that night the cares of
state once more pressed upon him. He spoke often about a private letter
from Lord Harrowby, probably the pathetic effusion quoted above. At
times he asked his nephew the direction of the wind, and on hearing it
was in the east he murmured: "East--ah that will do: that will bring him
quick."[785] Then he fell into conversation with a messenger, or, again,
he murmured "Hear, hear," until sleep enfolded him. The last thoughts of
Napoleon are said to have centred in his early love and his
army--"Josephine:--Tete d'armee" he gasped as he neared his end. In
Pitt's being there was but one master passion; and to it his wandering
fancies returned during a last brief spell of consciousness. As James
Stanhope listened to the breathing, there fell on his ears with a
strange clearness the words: "My country! How I leave my country!" Then
the sufferer fell once more into a deep sleep; and so he lay, until,
some three hours before the dawn, his spirit passed away in a long-drawn
sigh.

FOOTNOTES:

[735] G. Jackson ("Diaries," i, 270) gives a supposed instance of her
interference in favour of Haugwitz.

[736] _Ibid._, i, 301, 305, 314-9.

[737] M