no debater of even second rate rank sat beside the minister. It was under these circumstances that Perceval conducted the government; and by his patriotic spirit and dexterity in debate succeeded in rallying his supporters, and in winning the confidence of the country. He died in 1812; and his death afforded the plainest proof of the strength which his presence had imparted to the ministry, since it immediately led to their defeat in Parliament. At the time at which he died his contemporaries imagined that his exertions and his talents had won for him lasting fame. Thirty years afterwards men only recollected that he had resisted emancipation, that he had resisted reform, and that he had occasionally stooped to defend an indefensible sinecure. Posterity forgot, and history overlooked, the zealous support which he had given to the war, and which forms his chief claim to the gratitude of his fellow-countrymen. So true it is that The evil that men do lives after them: The good is oft interrèd with their bones. СНАР. III. On Perceval's death the fall of the Tory Govern- Lord ment seemed certain. An address was carried in the Liverpool. House of Commons for the formation of a strong administration; and attempts were made both to reconstruct the existing cabinet and to replace it with another. The ministry, however, failed to secure the adhesion of Lord Wellesley and Canning, to whom they in the first instance. applied for assistance; and Lord Wellesley, in his turn, failed to form a government from among his own friends and the Whig party. No other alternative remained but the continuance of the existing ministry in office; and the Regent promoted Lord Liverpool to the post of Prime Minister. Robert Banks, second Earl of Liverpool, the eldest son of the first earl, was Prime Minister of this country for nearly fifteen years. His father had com1 For this account see Yonge's Liverpool, vol. i. T VOL. I. CHAP. III. menced his political career as private secretary to Lord Bute; had become a Lord of the Admiralty under the Duke of Grafton, Secretary at War under Lord North, and a member of the Board of Trade under Pitt. Pitt raised him to the peerage as Lord Hawkesbury, and promoted him ten years later to the Earldom of Liverpool. The new earl was a competent statesman; he was an excellent father. His son was sent, at a very early age, to the Charterhouse; from the Charterhouse he proceeded in due course to Oxford; from Oxford, where he made acquaintance with Canning, he started on a grand tour through the Low Countries, France, and Italy. On his return from abroad, while still a minor, he was elected for Sir James Lowther's borough of Appleby; and, after displaying some promise as a speaker, he was, when only twenty-three years of age, appointed by Pitt to a seat at the India Board. Lord Hawkesbury's appointment by Pitt in 1793 to a situation at the India Board was the commencement of an official career which is probably unparalleled in the British annals. From 1793 to 1801 the young lord continued, first at the India Board, second as Master of the Mint, in a comparatively obscure position. On the formation of Addington's administration he was offered and accepted the seals of the Foreign Office. Pitt took occasion to compliment the new government on Hawkesbury's promotion, and spoke of the young nobleman's abilities in terms which, some critics thought, were sarcastic. Lord Hawkesbury, however, discharged the duties of his high office with credit. He laboured to Most people recollect the witty lines in which his son's resemblance to him was described : Happy, happy, Mr. Jenkinson; Happy, happy, Mr. Jenkinson; I'm sure to you Your lady's true, For you have got a winking son!' Lockhart's Scott, p. 73. conclude the peace which was the main result of Addington's administration; and was not more responsible than the rest of his colleagues for its temporary character. Pitt, on resuming the seals of office in 1804, continued to retain Lord Hawkesbury's services, though he moved him from the Foreign Office, which he filled with Lord Harrowby, to the Home Department. Lord Hawkesbury, in his new office, displayed his usual industry and good sense; and acquired such a position in the cabinet that, on Pitt's death, he was selected by his colleagues to convey their resignations to the king. The king seems to have pressed Lord Hawkesbury to attempt the absolutely impossible task of carrying on the government himself. Lord Hawkesbury contented himself with securing the Wardenship of the Cinque Ports, which Pitt's death had vacated, and retired. It is difficult to see that Lord Hawkesbury had any claim to the sinecure which he thus obtained, or to justify his accepting it under the circumstances from the king. Lord Hawkesbury had been continually in office for thirteen years. For a little more than a year he enjoyed a short interval of leisure. But, on the fall of the Talents administration, he again returned to his official duties at the Home Office, and presided over that department till the autumn of 1809. On the retirement of the Duke of Portland, Canning, and Castlereagh from the administration, Lord Liverpool-for in the interval he had succeeded to the earldom-undertook the still more important office of Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. In this capacity he was directly responsible for the conduct of the war, and was brought into immediate communication with Wellington. He continued to hold the office till the death of Perceval, when, after some delay, he became Prime Minister. He retained the Premiership till he was afflicted with the fatal seizure from which he never even imperfectly recovered. CHAP. III. CHAP. III. Lord Eldon. Lord Liverpool, then, may be said to have passed the whole of his life in the service of the public. From his first appointment to the India Board in 1793, when he was only twenty-three years of age, to the fatal seizure, which terminated his political career in 1827, with the exception of a short interval of only a few months, he was constantly in office. It was his good fortune, as Secretary of State for the Foreign Office, to win the gratitude of his country by concluding the peace of Amiens; it was his good fortune as Secretary of State for the Colonies to supervise the operations of the Peninsular campaign; it was his good fortune as Prime Minister to conclude the most durable peace by which the perseverance of a nation or the ability of a commander had ever been rewarded. But, though Lord Liverpool's official career was, in proportion to his days, longer than that of any other British minister, and though his name is associated with some of the most important occurrences in the history of the world, he is not usually regarded as a great statesman. Respectable in everything that he undertook, he was eminent in nothing. His smooth and sensible oratory never rose to eloquence; his steady and business-like administration never displayed any genius. During his long career he excited no popular sympathy; but he aroused no aristocratic prejudices. His was eminently the temperament to deal with materials and constitutions as he found them. He had neither the audacity which attempts reform or the penetration which foresees its necessity. No repressive law was abolished, no popular change was accomplished, at his own instance, during his long administration. But the machinery of government was preserved unimpaired, the authority of the executive was largely, and perhaps needlessly, increased during his tenure of office. Lord Eldon was Lord Chancellor for even a longer period than that during which Lord Liverpool retained the Premiership. He received his high office at the very commencement of the century; he retained it, with the exception of one short interval, during which he was in Opposition, till the close of Lord Liverpool's ministry. He served as Chancellor with five prime ministers, and he survived four out of the five. During his long political career he undoubtedly made a striking impression on the politics of his time. For twenty-five years his was the genius which withstood all reform, and violently resisted every change in the constitution of Parliament. By no means bigoted in his own religious views, he would not listen to any proposal for the relief either of the Roman Catholics or of the Dissenters. With a singularly kind heart, he saw no unkindness in punishing the most trivial offences with the extreme penalty of death. His peculiarly just mind discovered no injustice in withholding all share of political power from the great masses of his fellow-countrymen and the most important communities. When he was made Chief Justice he applied to the king, at Lady Eldon's instigation, for leave to wear no wig. 'No, no,' was George III.'s answer, 'I will have no innovations in my time.'1 The dislike which the king entertained to innovation found ready sympathy in the new Chief Justice. Lord Eldon, throughout his long career, might have used the same words, 'I will have no innovations in my chancellorship.' Though, however, he was narrow in his views, though his influence undoubtedly retarded the accomplishment of many necessary and beneficial reforms, Lord Eldon's name will always be remembered with honour. His eminent ability, his unflagging industry, his strict honesty, his unfailing consistency, his immovable loyalty, illustrate and adorn his public life: just as his genial manners, his excellent temper, and his cheerful, affectionate disposition endeared him to his family and his 1 Twiss's Eldon, vol. i. P. 340. СНАР. III. |