Excerpt from War Speeches of William Pitt: The Younger William pitt, the younger, became Prime Minister in December 1783. At that moment the fortunes of the British Commonwealth had reached their lowest level. The American War, in which France, Spain, and Holland had been leagued with the insurgent colonies against Great Britain, had recently closed with a humiliating peace. The secession of the American colonies from the Commonwealth was now an acknowledged fact. Our position in India was undermined by administrative abuses and threatened by French intrigues. Ireland was seething with discontent. The national finances were in a desperate condition: the funded debt was well over and the 3 per cent. Government stock stood at 57. No wonder that jealous continental Governments believed that a final decline of British power had at last begun. It seemed as if Britain, crippled and friendless, could never recover her place among the leading States of Europe. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.