The news of the battle of Trafalgar arrived four days later, and seemed for a moment to revive him.Forty-eight hours after that most glorious and most mournful of victories had been announced to the country came the Lord Mayor's day; and Pitt dined at Guildhall.His popularity had declined.But on this occasion the multitude, greatly excited by the recent tidings, welcomed him enthusiastically, took off his horses in Cheapside, and drew his carriage up King Street.When his health was drunk, he returned thanks in two or three of those stately sentences of which he had a boundless command.Several of those who heard him laid up his words in their hearts; for they were the last words that he ever uttered in public: "Let us hope that England, having saved herself by her energy, may save Europe by her example."This was but a momentary rally.Austerlitz soon completed what Ulm had begun.Early in December Pitt had retired to Bath, in the hope that he might there gather strength for the approaching session.While he was languishing there on his sofa arrived the news that a decisive battle had been fought and lost in Moravia, that the coalition was dissolved, that the Continent was at the feet of France.He sank down under the blow.Ten days later he was so emaciated that his most intimate friends hardly knew him.
He came up from Bath by slow journeys, and, on the 11th of January 1806, reached his villa at Putney.Parliament was to meet on the 21st.On the 20th was to be the parliamentary dinner at the house of the First Lord of the Treasury in Downing Street;and the cards were already issued.But the days of the great minister were numbered.The only chance for his life, and that a very slight chance, was that he should resign his office, and pass some months in profound repose.His colleagues paid him very short visits, and carefully avoided political conversation.
But his spirit, long accustomed to dominion, could not, even in that extremity, relinquish hopes which everybody but himself perceived to be vain.On the day on which he was carried into his bedroom at Putney, the Marquess Wellesley, whom he had long loved, whom he had sent to govern India, and whose administration had been eminently able, energetic, and successful, arrived in London after an absence of eight years.The friends saw each other once more.There was an affectionate meeting, and a last parting.That it was a last parting Pitt did not seem to be aware.He fancied himself to be recovering, talked on various subjects cheerfully, and with an unclouded mind, and pronounced a warm and discerning eulogium on the Marquess's brother Arthur.
"I never," he said, "met with any military man with whom it was so satisfactory to converse." The excitement and exertion of this interview were too much for the sick man.He fainted away;and Lord Wellesley left the house, convinced that the close was fast approaching.
