this
point could be obtained. My other means of making the discovery
have failed, and I can devise no other. Williams avowed to
Windham that he had been employed in endeavouring to inflame the
soldiery, but that his mind was not prepared to go the lengths
he found it would be required to go. I am pretty sure the best
way would be to give Williams money, a little, to infuse a
principle of hope. I dare say he is hungry. You must place no
dependence whatever on him, but if he would act for you, he
would be a useful agent, and I think a little money in his case
indispensable. I intreat you not to neglect this. I suppose
there will now be no use in my seeing Ford.

In a second letter, written an hour later, Wilberforce urges Pitt not to
neglect this note. Williams some years ago sought to make a mutiny; he
was skilled in intrigue, had "held Jacobinical language, and was going
on in the most profligate and abandoned way." This is all the
information that the Pitt MSS. yield upon this question. But in the
private diary of Wilberforce there is the significant entry: "Pitt
awaked by Woolwich artillery riot and went out to Cabinet." The cool
bearing of Lord Harrington, commander of the forces in London, helped to
restore confidence. On 3rd June Government introduced and speedily
passed a Bill for preventing seduction of the soldiery. There were
rumours of an intended mutiny in the Guards; but fortunately the troops
remained true to duty, and some of them helped to quell the mutiny at
the Nore.

A survey of Pitt's conduct during these critical months reveals the
limitations of his nature. He was wanting in foresight. He seems to have
been taken unawares both by the Bank crisis and the mutinies. He met the
financial crisis promptly when it became acute, though by means which
caused incalculable inconvenience at a later time. The mutinies also
ought to have been averted by timely concessions to the sailors, who
needed increase of pay fully as much as the soldiery. For this neglect,
however, the Admiralty Board, not Pitt, is chiefly to blame. When the
storm burst, Ministers did not display the necessary initiative and
resourcefulness; and the officials of the Admiralty must be censured for
the delay in bringing forward the proposals on which Parliament could
act. The Opposition, as usual, blamed Pitt alone; and it must be
confessed that he did not exert on officials the almost terrifying