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Lot 165
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William Pitt the Younger signed financial document, three years after appointment as youngest Prime Minister
William Pitt the Younger signed financial document, three years after appointment as youngest Prime Minister
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Description:

Pitt William

1pp partial paper fragment tipped into larger cream-colored sheet signed by British Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger (1759-1806) as “W. Pitt” in the bottom right corner. Two embossed stamp duty seals, each for two shillings and six pence, appear along the left margin. In very good to near fine condition, with light overall paper toning, expected paper folds, two adhesive marks along left edge, and isolated bottom right corner repair. The signed document measures 9.25" x 6.75" while the larger sheet measures 10.75” x 7.25”. Accompanied by a circa 1823 artist’s proof engraving of “The Right Hon.ble William Pitt” by John Henry Robinson (1796-1871) after a painting by George Clint (1770-1854), showing a bust portrait of Pitt the Younger. In very good to near fine condition, with isolated foxing to upper edge of engraving recto, and faint type ghost impressions recto. Engraving sight size measures 2” x 2.75” while actual sheet size measures 7.125” x 10.75”.

On April 12, 1786 from the Court of Saint James’s, seasoned British monarch George III (1738-1820) ordered his Treasury Commissioners to give £60,000 to his Keeper of the Privy Purse, James Brudenell, 5th Earl of Cardigan (1725-1811). Brudenell is here described as “Our Right Trusty and Welbeloved [sic] James Lord Brudenell”. George III’s young and energetic Prime Minister, appointed just three years earlier at the age of twenty-four, further authorized the order. This sizable sum was earmarked “for the use and Service of Our Privy Purse”. The Privy Purse represented the monarch’s private income.

George III assumed the throne following the late October 1760 death of his grandfather George II (1683-1760), alluded to here by the reference to the transfer of the Privy Seal on November 5, 1760, the day that George II was buried. During George III’s sixty-year-long reign, he confronted the Seven Years’ War, the American Revolution, the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, and the latent growth of nationalism and other independence movements. He also endured periodic mental instability, possibly caused by the genetic disorder porphyria, and two assassination attempts. The first assassination attempt happened just four months after George III issued this order, when a deranged mantua maker named Margaret Nicholson (c. 1750-1828) attacked the king in the street with an ivory-handled dessert knife.

George III’s tumultuous reign was stabilized by a series of exceptionally competent Prime Ministers. William Pitt the Younger served as Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer between 1783 and 1801, and later between 1804-1806. Pitt the Younger cleaned up corruption, streamlined administration, reduced the national debt, and shored up English conservatism against French radicalism. During George III’s second manic episode in 1788, which lasted for over six months, Pitt the Younger would have played a pivotal role in providing consistency to the monarchy.

The full text can be seen below:

“Our Will and pleasure is that by Virtue of And in General Letters of Privy Seal, dated the 5th day of November 1760 You do issue and pay or cause to be issued and paid out of any Our Treasure or Presence in the Receipt of the Exchequer applicable to the uses of Our Civil Government, unto Our Right Trusty and Welbeloved [sic] James Lord Brudenell or to His assigns the Sum of Sixty Thousand Pounds without Account, for the use and Service of Our Privy Purse, and for so doing this Shall be Your Warrant, Given at our Court at Saint James’s the 12th day of April 1786. In the twenty Sixth Year of Our Reign. By His Majesty’s Command.

W. Pitt

To the Commissioners of Our Treasury”.

Provenance: This item was recently discovered in an extra illustrated volume of “History of the City of New York” by Mary L. Booth, New York, W. R. C. Clark, 1867. The monumental task of expanding the original two volumes to twenty-one volumes was given to Emery E. Childs, Esq. of New York City. A lovely india ink drawing of Mary L. Booth labeled “presented by her to E.E.C.” in pencil appears in the first volume of this work. Next to the title page we find an original letter of Booth to Childs dated April 4, 1872: “I am in receipt of your favor of the 4th inst., and am grateful to hear that you are taking the trouble to illustrate my History of the City of New York in the manner you describe. I shall be happy to see you, should you favor me with a call as I am usually in my office during business hours and should be pleased to facilitate your Enterprise by any means in my power”.

It is assumed that the book took several years to assemble, at which point, presumably through Childs, it made its way to Senator Charles B. Farwell of Chicago (who took the seat of John A. Logan in 1887). Farwell had an extensive library in his Lakeside home that survived the great Chicago fire in 1871. In the American Bibliopolist of November 1871, there is an article about the devastation to libraries caused by the tragedy: “Mr. C. B. Farwell’s library is also fortunately far out from the city, at his country house, and is safe. The same remark will also apply to the extensive collection of books and curiosities belonging to Mr. E. E. Childs.” This establishes the Chicago connection between Childs and Farwell.

These items were preserved for over 140 years and have never been on the market. The mostly pristine state of preservation of the items is due from their being wedged in these volumes.

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