Quote#Politics & Power
Without having ever asked any one single employment in my life, I was…
Quote byWilliam Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham · 1708–1778
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Resignation speech to the Council (2 October 1761), quoted in Basil Williams, The Life of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham. Volume II (1914), pp. 112-113.
English (original)
Without having ever asked any one single employment in my life, I was called by my Sovereign and by the Voice of the People to assist the State when others had abdicated the service of it. That being so no one can be surprised that I will go on no longer since my advice is not taken. Being responsible I will direct, and will be responsible for nothing that I do not direct.
— William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham
More from William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham
He wanted to call this country out of that enervate state, that twenty thousand men from France could shake it. The maxims of our Government were degenerated, not our natives. He wished to see that breed restored, which under our old …
My Lord, I am sure I can save this country, and no one else can.
It must cut up Liberty by the root and poison the Fountain of Publick Security; and who that has an English heart can ever be weary of asserting Liberty?
We are now to examine whether it is probable that we shall preserve our commerce and our independence, or whether we are sinking into subjection to a foreign power.
Our seamen have always been famous for a matchless alacrity and intrepidity in time of danger; this has saved many a British ship, when other seamen would have run below deck, and left the ship to the mercy of the waves, or, perhaps, of a …
A gloomy scene for this distressed, disgraced country.