CHAPTER IX
RETIREMENT
1785-1788
Of the great measures proposed by Pitt in the period which elapsed between his accession to power and the outbreak of the French Revolution, there was hardly one which cannot be shown to have had an origin in the brief period when Shelburne was at the head of the Treasury. If Pitt in 1785 proposed to complete the Irish commercial reforms begun in 1780 by North, it was Shelburne who, in the latter year when in opposition and in 1782 when in office, had declared that the American and African trade must be opened to Ireland, and colonial produce be allowed to be reshipped from that country to any part of Great Britain. If Pitt understood the urgent necessity of controlling the monopoly of the East India Company, so did Shelburne. If Pitt in 1785 introduced sweeping reforms into the public offices, it was Shelburne who in 1782 originated these measures. The sinking fund, whatever the advantages or disadvantages of it may have been, was as much if not more the idea of Shelburne than of Pitt. When the latter in 1787 introduced the commercial treaty with France, he was only carrying into effect the ideas which Shelburne had put forward in 1782 as those which ought to govern the relations between the two countries. It is not intended by these remarks to detract from the greatness of Pitt. His
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