University Of Oxford Alumni

"Ireland is our weakest point, and to that our attention must be most directed; for anything else I have very little apprehension."

"You know, I believe, that it was always my opinion—and I think it is yours—that the Union with Ireland would be a measure extremely incomplete and defective as to some of the most material benefits to be expected from it, unless immediate advantage were taken of it to attach the great body of the Irish Catholics to the measure itself, and to the government as administered under the control of the United Parliament."

"Obedience to the laws was very properly regarded as a principal source of improvement. He admitted that no country could be tranquil or prosperous, where the laws were not generally obeyed; but before they could expect that general obedience, the laws themselves ought to be made equal to all."

"In the House of Lords, Lord Grenville moved the resolutions upon the Union with Ireland in a speech of four hours; putting the arguments on strong grounds of detailed political necessity."

"The Corresponding Societies in England had been mentioned. What those societies were, he need not remind their lordships: their publications, their meetings, their declarations, were in the memory of every man. A criminal had lately been convicted at Maidstone, of attempting to seduce the troops, and he was found to belong to these societies. A noble lord had told them, that even the United Irishmen would not have proceeded to the lengths they had done, without the encouragement of these societies. In one word, he could distinctly state, that, in every corner of the king's dominions, whatever sedition or treason could be found, whatever incitement to domestic tumult, whatever encouragement to foreign invasion, to these societies it was uniformly to be traced."

"I can see no grounds, in the state of this country, to hope for such an exception in our favour, and I do verily believe that we must prepare to meet the storm here, and that we must not count upon the continuance of a state of domestic tranquillity which has already lasted so much beyond the period usually allotted to it in the course of human events. I trust that we shall at least meet it with more firmness than our neighbours, but even in order to do this, we ought not to blind ourselves at the moment of its approach. It seems too probable that it is decreed by Providence that a stop should be put (for reasons probably inscrutable to us) to the progress of arts and civilization among us. It is a melancholy reflection to be born to the commencement of such a scene, and to be called to bear a principal share in it, but I trust we may hope that our strength may be proportioned to our trial."

"[There is an] advantage, and even necessity, of uniting at this time in the public service the great bulk of the landed property of the country, and doing away all distinctions of party between those who wish the maintenance of order and tranquillity here."

"The treasonable speeches and writings which had of late been so assiduously disseminated at public meetings, most particularly called for the interference of parliament. As one of the king's servants, indeed, he might say as a member of that House, he felt it an indispensable duty to endeavour to check their flagitious tendency."

"Upon the Speaker's arrival, therefore, in the royal presence, his Majesty immediately desired him to undertake the conduct of affairs; and when he earnestly requested to be excused, the King said to him, in the most emphatic manner, "Lay your hand upon your heart, and ask yourself where I am to turn for support if you do not stand by me." And undoubtedly this was a question which the Speaker must have found it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to answer satisfactorily. Such, however, was his reluctance to accept a station which would have been to many others the highest object of ambition, that he resolved again to endeavour to reconcile matters; and with this object, on retiring from the King's presence, he a second time consulted Mr. Pitt, whose reply showed that he viewed the question in the same light in which his Majesty had done: "I see nothing but ruin, Addington, if you hesitate.""

"But however the higher and more intellectual class, perhaps London, might estimate him, Addington had a hold on the country of which you do not seem to me to be aware. The country gentlemen were for him almost to a man, and they had then a weight and influence which are now almost forgotten. They disliked the haughty and unbending Pitt and his contemptuous condescension; they hated Canning, who quizzed, satirised, and laughed at them; they held Fox for an irreclaimable Jacobin. The mediocrity of Addington suited their mediocrity... He was with them easy, frank, jovial, loved Port wine as well as the most resolute fox-hunter. To the end he described himself as the sole survivor of the "Port wine faction.""

"No one in the present day will differ much from you in your estimate of the mediocrity of Addington and his Government as to abilities and intellect. Sincere as was my regard and esteem for him, and however warm my gratitude for his kindness, hospitality, and friendship (I never in my life met with a more honourable, upright, generous man, one whose judgment I would sooner have abided by in any question of honour or principle), I must acknowledge that he never seemed to me, according to the phrase, up to the very high position which he had attained."

"He considered the present bill as part of a system for suppressing an evil, that not only threatened the security of the subject, but menaced the very existence of the constitution. The system to overthrow all order had been gradually proceeding for three years. The fact was notorious."

"During one of the debates upon the reform question, he held a friendly colloquy with Earl Grey, who, he always thought, had been carried far beyond the views and intentions he originally entertained on the introduction of this measure. "I hope," Lord Sidmouth said, "God will forgive you on account of this bill: I don't think I can." To this Lord Grey replied, "Mark my words: within two years you will find that we have become unpopular, for having brought forward the most aristocratic measure that ever was proposed in parliament.""

"The object of effecting a revolution in this country by inflaming the worst passions of the lowest orders of society has been unremittedly pursued for many years past. During the war its success was in great measure impeded by the large amount of military force then at the disposal of Government, by the extraordinary powers given by Parliament to the Crown, and by the great interest which the mass of our community took, and very justly, in the success of that contest. Since the peace the progress of these designs has been manifestly much more rapid. It has indeed been favoured, from time to time, by circumstances of temporary and local distress; but these have not been greater, they may be truly said to have been much less, than had before been frequently experienced without leading to any such results. So great a change as has been shown since the peace in the general temper and conduct of a large proportion of our population, has perhaps rarely occurred in any country. It seems no exaggeration to say, that if the promoters of general confusion can make as much new way in the next three or four years as they have done in the last, we must consider insurrection and civil bloodshed as inevitable; though even then we may hope that their issue would not be doubtful."

"Pitt is to Addington As London is to Paddington."

"The person who addressed me was a tall, square, and bony figure, upwards of fifty years of age, I should suppose, and with thin and rather grey hair; his forehead was broad and prominent, and from their cavernous orbits looked mild and intelligent eyes. His manner was affable, and much more encouraging to freedom of speech than I had expected."

"You must take the Home Department, Lord Sidmouth—it will be every thing to me."

"Sheridan said upon this occasion that he had known many men knocked their heads against a wall, but he had never before heard of any man who collected the bricks and built the very wall with an intention to knock out his own brains against it."

"But without Pitt nothing, in the opinion of the country or of Europe, could be strong—an axiom of which Addington was never sufficiently persuaded."

"It is a curious speculation in history to see how often the good people of England have played this game over and over again, and how incorrigible they are in it. To desire war without reflection, to be unreasonably elated with success, to be still more unreasonably depressed by difficulties, and to call out for peace with an impatience which makes suitable terms unattainable, are the established maxims and the regular progress of the popular mind in this country. Yet, such as it is, it is worth all the other countries of the world put together, so we must not too much complain of it."

"In all periods of our history, instances were to be found of the evils arising from tumultuous assemblies; and experience must show, from the frequency with which they were now held, the absolute necessity for their suppression."

"See yon old, dull important Lord, Who at the long'd-for Money-Board Sits first, but does not lead: His younger Brethren all Things make; So that the T[reasur]y's like a Snake, And the Tail moves the Head."

"Had he to choose between the re-enactment of the popery laws and Catholic emancipation, coupled with parliamentary reform, as the means of restoring tranquillity to Ireland, he should give the preference to the former; but it was because he objected to both those measures that he gave his cordial support to the contemplated union."

"My determination is to keep clear of all parties, to avoid the reality, and, as far as possible, even the appearance of cabal, to attend the house not constantly but upon such occasions as seem to me to require it, either from a sense of duty to the public or myself: but I will not be the stalking-horse or cat's paw of Opposition nor will I be extinguished by Mr. Pitt. My course seems clear before me."

"This disquiet and habit of never finishing, which, too, proceeded frequently from his beginning everything twenty times over, gave rise to a famous bon mot of Lord Wilmington,—a man as unapt to attempt saying a good thing, as to say one. He said, "the Duke of Newcastle always loses half an hour in the morning, which he is running after the rest of the day without being able to overtake it.""

"Until it is proved that some great practical evil is justly attributable to the present structure of that House, and that it would admit of a remedy which would not be productive of some evil of equal or greater magnitude, my objections to a general reform will remain unshaken. Still I am compelled to feel that this ground is no longer tenable; and that an attempt must be made to satisfy the more temperate and conscientious reformers, without endangering the established institutions of the country."

"Sir Spencer Compton was at this time Speaker of the House of Commons, Treasurer to the Prince, and Paymaster to the army, he was a plodding, heavy fellow, with great application, but no talents, and vast complaisance for a Court without any address; he was always more concerned for the manner and form in which a thing was to be done than about the propriety or expediency of the thing itself; and as he was calculated to execute rather than to project, for a subaltern rather than a commander, so he was much fitter for a clerk to a minister than for a minister to a Prince; whatever was resolved upon, he would often know how properly to perform, but seldom how to advise what was proper to be resolved upon. His only pleasures were money and eating; his only knowledge forms and precedents; and his only insinuation bows and smiles."

"But as Sir Spencer Compton had conceived too strong hopes of being Sir Robert's superior ever to serve in the House of Commons quietly under him, and that it might be dangerous, consequently, to suffer him in the chair of a new Parliament, Sir Robert advised the making him a peer; accordingly he was created Baron of Wilmington... [H]e did not seem to feel the ridicule or the contemptibleness of his situation: that snowball levee of his, which had opened and that gathered so fast, melted away at as quick a pace; his visionary prospects of authority and grandeur vanished into air; and yet he seemed just as well satisfied to be bowing and grinning in the antechamber, possessed of a lucrative employment without credit, and dishonoured by a title which was the mark of his disgrace, as if he had been dictating in the closet, sole fountain of Court favour at home, and regulator of all the national transactions abroad."

"I have said, and said most truly, that if the country was well governed, and its affairs ably conducted, I cared little in whose hands the Administration was placed. To a very few I have been more explicit, by declaring my strong and increasing repugnance to office, arising from various causes...and my fixed determination never to return to it, except under the positive obligation of public duty, and that, after the experience of the last four years, I could not admit the existence of such an obligation, unless I was to be placed in a situation of perfect and unqualified responsibility: in other words, to use a recent expression of the Speaker, that I would not be a Noun adjective to any Government."

"He was very able, however, in the chair, but had not the powers of speech out of it."

"The President is as contemptible and subservient as ever."

"[L]et me humbly and earnestly, for God's sake, for the sake of your own glory, for the love of your king and your country, which I know is sincere and ardent in you; let me entreat your lordship to go to the king without loss of time, and say to him what your own honour and excellent understanding shall suggest to you upon the present occasion. You are unsuspected by him on all sides: he cannot in thought object any thing to you with relation to his son; you, and you only, have all the talents and all the requisites that this critical time demands to effectuate this great event, and save your country, if it be to be saved."

"My Lord Wilmington is about 65 years old, strong made, but of late much troubled with the stone. His stature is something more than of the middle sort and he is not corpulent though full fleshed. He is proud, though affable to those who visit him, and is rare of his speech, but then positive. He maintains no debates in the House of Peers, but never swerved from voting as the Ministry would have him, being very servile to his Majesty's inclinations. He has no great genius, but cannot want experience, having formerly been Speaker of the House of Commons, and for many years President of the Council, which post he executes notably well. He is extremely covetous, and formal in business, was never married, but has children unlawfully begotten, which he stifles the knowledge of as much as in him lies. He has no ambition, and has told me the true interest of England was to have no chief minister, but that every great office should be immediately dependent on the King and answer for itself. He also is for making the basis of the Government so broad, that many interests may be taken into it, but I believe he will be for leaving the King's power as great as he can contribute to make it."

"I have neither memory to retain, judgment to collect, nor skill to guide, their debates; nor can I boast of any thing that could entitle me to the favor of the Commons, but an unshaken fidelity to the Protestant succession."

"The basis of Protestant Union, and the material of all public declarations against further concession should be an unshaken and inviable attachment to the Constitution as established at the Revolution, and a determination to uphold it against innovation, as the best security of our civil and religious liberty."

"It is reported of Sir Spencer Compton, that when he was Speaker, he used to answer to a Member, who called upon him to make the House quiet, for that he had a right to be heard; "No, Sir, you have a right to speak, but the House have a right to judge whether they will hear you." In this he was certainly mistaken; the Member has a right to speak, and the House ought to attend to him, and it is the Speaker's duty to endeavour, for that that purpose, to keep them silent; but where the love of talking gets the better of modesty and good-sense, which sometimes happens, it is a duty very difficult to execute in a large and popular assembly."

"For strength of reasoning, for the enlarged views of a great statesman, for dignity of manner, and force of eloquence, Lord Grenville's was one of the best speeches that I have ever heard delivered in Parliament."

"The final resolution must be now taken, either to stop the evil here, or to acquiesce in its progress until it actually brings us to insurrection and civil war."

"He was the only minister he ever heard of who did not fear the people."

"He raised me from the bottomless pit of humiliation—he made me feel I was something."

"His manner was very imposing, very dignified, and he talked his vague generalities in the House of Lords in a very emphatic way, as if something grand were at the bottom, when, in fact, there was nothing at all."

"If lord Shelburne was not a Catiline, or a Borgia in morals, it must not be ascribed to any thing but his understanding."

"In regard to what you say about any intimate connexion between Lansdowne and me, I agree almost entirely with you, except perhaps that I do not give him the credit for sincerity in any system which you seem to do. I never can have a good opinion of him, and still less a great one. However, we are upon terms of the greatest civility, and it must be confessed that his conduct for these last three years has had an openness and consistency, which entitles him to every outward mark of respect, from those who think as we do."

"Lord Shelburne was the first great minister who comprehended the rising importance of the middle class; and foresaw in its future power a bulwark for the throne against "the Great Revolution families." Of his qualities in council we have no record; there is reason to believe that his administrative ability was conspicuous; his speeches prove that, if not supreme, he was eminent, in the art of parliamentary disputation, while they show on all the questions discussed a richness and variety of information, with which the speeches of no statesman of that age except Mr. Burke can compare."

"Great moments have always produced great men, and great actions. The time of conflict is the time in which nature seems to delight in her grandest productions. From the Grecian republics, down even to our modern history, the most resplendent powers of man have been shown in the times of the greatest danger. The present, therefore, is a school for Frenchmen; every youth devotes himself to the cause of liberty, and thus actively engaged on the grand scene, all the powers of his soul take a warlike direction; it becomes a fashion, and the whole of the rising generation are educated in the military art; not, my lords, as our youth are educated to the military art, as one only of the professions in which they may rise to eminence or distinction, but the enthusiasm of war enters into the heart only from the enthusiasm of liberty; and the whole country is taught to feel that their only occupation, their only passion, ought to be arms, because their only good, their only blessing, is independence."

"He was of opinion that some precaution was necessary, and these admissions, he trusted, would at least be sufficient to exempt him from the charge of Jacobinism.—But the present bills appeared to him greatly to overshoot the mark. The circumstances did not warrant such an inroad on the constitution."

"Noble lords would do him the justice to recollect, that not one session had passed over since 1793, in which he had not, to use a vulgar but a strong expression, bored their lordships with his prophetic admonitions."

"Situated as we are between the old world and the new, and between the southern and northern Europe, all that we ought to covet upon earth is free trade, and fair equality. With more industry, with more enterprize, with more capital than any trading nation upon earth, it ought to be our constant cry, let every market be open, let us meet our rivals fairly, and we ask no more."

"His principles on the subject were well known; he had repeated them from year to year in their lordships' hearing, that he never would consent, under any possible given circumstances, to acknowledge the independency of America. He knew those ideas, both within and without doors, were in some measure unpopular, but he preferred the performance of his duty, and the discharge of his conscience, to every other consideration."

"What, then, is the result of this part of the treaty, so wisely, and with so much sincere love on the part of England clamoured against by noble lords? Why this. You have generously given America, with whom every call under Heaven urges you to stand on the footing of brethren, a share in a trade, the monopoly of which you sordidly preserved to yourselves, at the loss of the enormous sum of 750,000l. Monopolies, some way or other, are ever justly punished. They forbid rivalry, and rivalry is of the very essence of the well-being of trade."