William Pitt the Younger provinces: the predominantly French Lower Canada and the predominantly English Upper Canada. In August 1792, coincident with the capture of Louis XVI by the French revolutionaries, George III appointed Pitt as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, a position whose incumbent was responsible for the coastal defences of the realm. The King had in 1791 offered him a Knighthood of the Garter, but he suggested the honour go to his elder brother, the second Earl of Chatham. An early favourable response to the French Revolution encouraged many in Great Britain to reopen the issue of parliamentary reform, which had been
William Pitt the Younger by yellow fever, the much dreaded "black vomit", made conquering St. Domingue impossible, but an undeterred Pitt launched what he called the "great push" in 1795, sending out the largest British expedition yet mounted to conquer St. Domingue. In November 1795, the "great push" began with 218 ships leaving Portsmouth for St. Domingue. After the failure of the Quiberon expedition earlier in 1795 when the British landed a force of French royalists on the coast of France who were annihilated by the forces of the republic, Pitt had decided it was crucial for Britain to have St. Domingue, no matter