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Who Was Better? Pitt the elder or Lord Palmerston?

Qasiel

Member
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Tell me when your father's stopped scratching himself.
 

iamblades

Member
Pitt the Elder.

One could make the argument that if Pitt and his cabinet had not contributed to Britain's triumph in the Seven Years War, then the American .. and subsequently the French Revolution would not have occurred.

The American revolution is a point in favor of Pitt in hindsight, he warned about that shit and no one listened to him.

The argument though(as far as I understand it) is supposed to be about what his contemporaries thought of him though, and it's pretty clear that Palmerston wins that battle.

It's really hard to compare since the time periods are so different. At the time of Palmerston, the British empire was at it's peak, and the loss of the American colonies seemed completely insignificant. At a time like that it's easy to be popular.
 

Ogodei

Member
Pitt the Elder.

One could make the argument that if Pitt and his cabinet had not contributed to Britain's triumph in the Seven Years War, then the American .. and subsequently the French Revolution would not have occurred.

Pitt was awesome enough to get a major American city named after him, which is not the case for Palmerston.
 

Cocaloch

Member
The American revolution is a point in favor of Pitt in hindsight, he warned about that shit and no one listened to him.

The argument though(as far as I understand it) is supposed to be about what his contemporaries thought of him though, and it's pretty clear that Palmerston wins that battle.

It's really hard to compare since the time periods are so different. At the time of Palmerston, the British empire was at it's peak, and the loss of the American colonies seemed completely insignificant. At a time like that it's easy to be popular.

Pitt could argue whatever he wanted to argue because he wasn't essentially an outsider with no connection to the government until the exact moment where he wasn't and totally abandoned all of his older principles. In being a massive hawk Pitt in large part brought about the revolution. All the subsequent bumbling was to some degree avoidable, but the key constitutional question behind the revolution was inevitably going to come up by that point.

Also Pitt was a snake with too strong oligarchical tendencies to follow his arguments to their natural Wilkite or Painian conclusion.

The real question is Walpole vs Gladstone.
 
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