The Political Theory of William Pitt the Younger

Although the Younger Pitt was undoubtedly a pragmatic politician, the intellectual influences upon his political attitudes are worthy of analysis. Commencing with a reassessment of Pitt's relationship with his father, this article challenges the notion that Country Whig ideology provides the key to understanding his early career. On the contrary, it is argued that Pitt should be located within the tradition of Court Whiggery. The influence of Enlightenment thought is assessed, with particular emphasis upon the socio‐economic determinism of Montesquieu, the incisive rationalism of William Paley and David Hume, and the free‐trade economic theories of Adam Smith. As a case study, Pitt's anonymous contributions to the Anti‐Jacobin Review in 1797–8 are examined in the light of these and other influences. Such an approach provides a means of unravelling the paradoxical transformation of Pitt from the supposedly enthusiastic reformer of his youth into the reactionary icon of the French revolutionary era.