During the summer of 1804 Bonaparte and his host lay menacingly at Boulogne, awaiting that command of the channel “for six hours,” which the great warrior recognised as essential to his plans.  Meanwhile, Pitt laboured to form another coalition, and, at the cost of heavy subsidies, was successful.  Russia, Austria, and Sweden joined in the league against Napoleon; Prussia still hesitated.

In the summer of 1805 Napoleon was again at Boulogne, but his plan of invasion was wrecked by the failure of the French fleet to reach the Channel.  When Napoleon learned that the fleet had gone south, and that the attack upon England had been thwarted, he straightway marched his army to mid-Europe.  Pitt had staked everything on the new coalition, and the surrender of the Austrians at Ulm was news of the utmost bitterness to him.  But a splendid corrective came soon afterwards in the crowning naval victory of Trafalgar.  Although the nation’s feelings were divided between joy at the triumph and grief at the death of the illustrious victor, Pitt’s popularity, which had been somewhat uncertain, was enormously enhanced by the event.  The Lord Mayor proposed his health as “the saviour of Europe.”

Pitt’s reply was nearly as follows:  “I return you many thanks for the honour you have done me, but Europe is not to be saved by any single man.  England has saved herself by her exertions, and will, I trust, save Europe by her example.”  With only these two sentences the minister sat down.  They were the last words that Pitt ever spoke in public.

He was suffering much at this time from gout, and his general health was undermined by anxiety.  In December he journeyed to Bath, and at Bath there reached him the news of the destruction of his coalition at Austerlitz.  The battle was the cause of his death.  He was struck down by a severe internal malady and he was in a state of extreme debility when on January 11, 1806, he returned home to the house he had taken on Putney Heath.  It is said that as he passed along to his bedroom, he observed a map of Europe hanging on the wall, upon which he turned to his niece and mournfully said:  “Roll up that map.  It will not be wanted these ten years.”

For a few days the doctors had hopes that he might recover, but on the 22nd it became evident that he could not live for twenty-four hours.  Early in the morning of the 23rd he died.

“At about half-past two,” wrote the Hon. James Hamilton Stanhope, who was at his bedside, “Mr. Pitt ceased moaning, and did not make the slightest sound for some time.  Shortly afterwards, in a tone I never shall forget, he exclaimed:  ‘Oh, my country!  How I love my country!’ From that time he never spoke or moved, and at half-past four expired without a groan or struggle.  His strength being quite exhausted, his life departed like a candle burning out.”

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ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY