“He said, if the rising broke out anywhere, it would be at Glasgow and Paisley; where many rich merchants and all they supported would be sure to suffer, while no one could certainly foretell how soon it might be put down.  This led him to his favorite notion, that the loyal should be taught to rely more upon themselves, and less upon the Government, in their own defense against the disloyal.  It was this, he thought, that formed and kept up a national character:  while every one was accustomed to rely upon the Government, upon a sort of commutation for what they paid to it, personal energy went to sleep, and the end was lost:  that in England, he observed, every man who had the commonest independence, one, two, five or six hundred, or a thousand a year, had his own little plan of comfort—­his favorite personal pursuit, whether his library, his garden, his hunting, or his farm, which he was unwilling to allow anything (even his own defense) to disturb; he therefore deceived himself into a notion that if there was a storm it would not reach him, and went on his own train till it was actually broke in upon by force.  This led to supineness and apathy as to public exertion; which would in the end ruin us:  the disposition therefore must be changed, by forcing them to exert themselves; which would not be if Government did everything in civil war, they nothing:  hence his wish for a volunteer force.  All this was exceedingly sound, and showed the reach of his reflecting mind as an observer of human nature, as well as a statesman and soldier, more than anything I have yet seen.”

There is a curious passage touching Pitt’s dying moments.

“At the time Mr. Ward accepted the post of Under-Secretary of State, (resigning that of Welsh Judge,) it had been promised him that the apparent risk of such a step to the future prospects of his family should be guarded against by the grant of a pension, to commence when he should cease to hold office.  He had been but a year in the post thus accepted, and amid the pressure of other matters the contemplated arrangement had never been completed.  More than once in his last illness did Pitt allude to his unfulfilled promise, and speak with kindness of him to whom it had been made.  Later on, when he could no longer continuously articulate, he made the name ‘Robert Ward’ audible, and added signs for paper and ink.  His trembling hand having feebly traced a number of wandering characters, and added what could be easily recognized as his well-known signature, he sank back.  The precious paper (precious, whatever may have been its unknown import, as a proof of remembrance at so solemn a moment) was afterward handed over by the physician in attendance, Sir Walter Farquhar, to Mr. Ward; and many a time did he declare, as he displayed it to me, that he would give anything he valued most in the world to be able to decipher its unformed characters.”

Some posthumous compositions of Mr. Ward are appended