"Time and again he showed a rare sense of what was due to the occasion. With astonishing magnanimity he forebore to reveal Charles James Fox's involvement in an intrigue with the Russian court in 1790, traversing ministerial policy, which by any standard came near to the verge of a treasonable misdemeanour and gives a lamentable impression of Fox's flawed political integrity. When a bad harvest sent bread prices rocketing Pitt plunged into state trading in grain – until Parliament imposed its veto. In these and other ways...the liberal impulses in Pitt's mind survived against revolution after 1790. And this was also true of foreign affairs... Even under the stress of war the Pittite circle preserved its sympathy for the idea of French constitutional monarchy, was not averse to seeing those elements that were of value salvaged from the Revolution of 1789 and...hung back from any endorsement of the Bourbon princes' demands for a return to the pre-revolutionary regime."
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Prime Ministers of the United KingdomPoliticians from EnglandLawyers from EnglandPeople from LondonChancellors of the Exchequer
Original Language: English
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A review of John Ehrman, The Younger Pitt: The Reluctant Transition
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Pitt_the_Younger
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William Pitt the Younger
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