the arrogance and complacency of his peers. After war had broken out, he warned that America could not be conquered. Due to his stance, Pitt was very popular amongst the American colonists. This high esteem approached to idolatry according to historian Clinton Rossiter: In the last decade of the colonial period the ideal of the man of public virtue was made real in the person of William Pitt. The cult of this noblest of Whigs, "the Genius of England and the Comet of his Age" was well advanced toward idolatry at least five years before the Stamp Act. The greatest of "the great men of England", the last and noblest of the Romans, was considered the embodiment of virtue, wisdom, patriotism, liberty, and temperance ... Pitt, "glorious and immortal", the "guardian of America", was the idol of the colonies ... A Son of Liberty in Bristol County, Massachusetts, paid him the ultimate tribute of identification with English liberty: "Our toast in general is,—Magna Charta, the British Constitution,—PITT and Liberty forever!" Death Pitt had now almost no personal following, mainly owing to the grave mistake he had made in not forming an alliance with the Rockingham party, but his eloquence was as powerful as ever, and all its power was directed against the government policy in the contest with America, which had become the question of all-absorbing interest. His last appearance in the House of Lords was on 7 April 1778, on the occasion of the Duke of Richmond's motion for an address praying the king to conclude peace with America on any terms. In view of the hostile demonstrations of France the various parties had come generally to see the necessity of such a measure but Chatham could not brook the thought of a step which implied submission to the "natural enemy" whom it had been the main object of his life to humble, and he declaimed for a considerable time, though with diminished vigour, against the motion. After the Duke of Richmond had replied, he rose again excitedly as if to speak, pressed his hand upon his breast, and fell down in a fit. His last words before he collapsed were: "My Lords, any state is better than despair; if we must fall, let us fall like men." James Harris MP, however, recorded that Lord Nugent had told him that Chatham's last words in the Lords were: "If the