William Pitt the Younger intelligence network of spies and informers to crush the United Irishmen. In April 1797, the Pitt government was badly shaken by the mutiny of the entire fleet at Spithead with the sailors demanding a pay increase to match inflation. The Spithead mutiny occurred at exactly the same moment that the French and their Dutch allies were preparing for an invasion of Great Britain which threw the government into a state of panic. To regain control of the fleet, Pitt agreed to sailors' demands for pay increases and to have George III pardon the mutineers. By contrast, the more political "floating
William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham were also five sisters: Harriet, Catherine, Ann, Elizabeth, and Mary. From 1719 William was educated at Eton College along with his brother. William disliked Eton, later claiming that "a public school might suit a boy of turbulent disposition but would not do where there was any gentleness". It was at school that Pitt began to suffer from gout. In 1726 Governor Pitt died, and the family estate at Boconnoc passed to William's father. When he died the following year, Boconnoc was inherited by William's elder brother, Thomas Pitt of Boconnoc. In January 1727, William was entered as a gentleman commoner