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
Hester Pitt, Countess of Chatham Hester Pitt, Countess of Chatham Hester Pitt, Countess of Chatham, 1st Baroness Chatham (; 8 November 1720 – 9 April 1803), who was Baroness Chatham in her own right, was the wife of William Pitt (the Elder), 1st Earl of Chatham, who was Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1766 to 1768. The sister of George Grenville, who was Prime Minister from 1763 to 1765, she was also the mother of Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger and a niece of the noted Whig politician Richard Temple, 1st Viscount Cobham, who had served as her husband's mentor. Chatham and Elizabeth