PITT WILLIAM Letter Signed W Pitt as de facto Prime Minister

Sale 2276 - Lot 97

Price Realized: $ 2,160

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Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000

PITT, WILLIAM. Letter Signed, "W Pitt," as de facto Prime Minister, to the Governor of Connecticut [Thomas Fitch], ordering Connecticut to raise an army for the coming Canada campaign. 6 pages, folio, with integral blank; sent duplicate, stitched, minimal wear. Whitehall [London], 7 January 1760

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William Pitt the Elder (1708-1778), later the Earl of Chatham, was an opponent of the American war later in life, and his son of the same name became Prime Minister in the wake of the British defeat. 'His Majesty having nothing so much at heart as to improve the great and important advantages gained in the last campaign in North America, & not doubting that all his faithful & brave subjects there will continue most cheerfully to cooperate . . . induce them to raise with all possible dispatch, within your government, at least as large a body of men as they did for the last campaign . . . to begin the operations of the campaign by the first of May if possible . . . by an irruption into Canada, in order to reduce Montreal & all other posts belonging to the French in those parts, & father to annoy the enemy.' Provenance: G.A. Baker's Jane H. Norton sale, 24 October 1938, lot 34.