University Of Oxford Alumni

"The King...said...[he] thought the Duke of Portland weak and of no use, and that he was governed by the Bishop of Meath, who was an unsound man.—This is curious."

"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."

"He was a great master of irony, and no man ever expressed bitter scorn for his opponents with more art or effect. His speeches were not only animated and entertaining, but embittered the contest, and enlivened the whole debate."

"Goldsmith the other day put a paragraph into the newspapers, in praise of Lord Mayor Townshend. The same night we happened to sit next to Lord Shelburne, at Drury Lane; I mentioned the circumstance of the paragraph to him; he said to Goldsmith, that he hoped that he had mentioned nothing about Malagrida in it. "Do you know," answered Goldsmith, "that I never could conceive the reason why they call you Malagrida, for Malagrida was a very good sort of man." You see plainly, what he meant to say, but that happy turn of expression is peculiar to himself."

"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."

"The Marquis denied having recommended a change of Government; he only desired the present system should be changed for a constitutional system; and he would contend for a constitutional Government, even though it was the fashion for Ministers to insinuate, that those who recommended any change were Jacobins. He denied having any Jacobin principles about him, and asserted, he had always advised Ministers against Jacobin principles, because he was convinced they went to a community of goods, and other absurd and pernicious doctrines."

"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."

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

"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."

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

"The Duke of Portland waves the chancellorship of the duchy, and agrees to remain in the cabinet without office. Nothing could be kinder or handsomer than his whole conduct."

"The conduct, temper, and apparent disposition of the present ministers, were so strongly marked with infamy, weakness, and wickedness, that he would cheerfully co-operate with any set of men, to drag them from their present situations, and render them the objects of example, by punishing them in a manner suited to their crimes and notorious demerits."

"He would tell him what he meant by carrying the English constitution to America, and establishing it there, was the recovering the dependency of that country upon this. Not a corrupt or slavish dependency, calculated to enlarge the influence of the crown, already grown much too formidable for the honest purposes of a limited government, or procuring for ministers new sources of corruption, for dividing the prince and people from each other, and separating their interests, which can never be wisely or safely done, so long as even the forms of the constitution remain; but a fair, honest, wise, and honourable connection, in which the constitutional prerogatives of the crown, the claims of parliament, and the liberties, properties, and lives of all the subjects of the British empire, would be equally secured. Such an union, and no other than this, he would ever endeavour to bring about. Such an union he would ever contend for; and without such an union, he was of opinion, that this country could never exist, as an independent state, in respect of the other powers of Europe, nor as a free one, in respect of its own internal polity."

"Deprived of America, we must sink into a petty state, when compared to some of the great powers on the continent. Holding America in a state of unconstitutional subjection, we would shortly become slaves, or at least hold the mere shadow of our former liberties, at the will and pleasure of the crown, and its subordinate instruments. Having thus explained his present opinions and future apprehensions, he said, he would sit down with this open declaration, that he never would serve with any man, be his abilities what they might, who would either maintain it was right, or consent to acknowledge the independency of America."

"He would never, consent that America should be independent. The idea he ever entertained of the connection between both countries was, that they should have one friend, one enemy, one purse, and one sword; and that Great Britain should superintend the interests of the whole, as the great controuling power. That both countries should have but one will, though the means of expressing that will might be different, distinct, and varied. He contended, that all this might have, been procured not long since; and he still retained strong hopes that it could be effected, and that, too, without measures of blood. It was once optional, and still possible; and he would never adopt any scheme which would go to dissever our colonies from us; for as soon as that event should take place, then, added his lordship emphatically, "the sun of Great Britain is set, and we shall no longer be a powerful or respectable people, the moment that the independency of America is agreed to by our government!""

"My lords; it is extremely evident, whether we commence a war with Spain, or tamely crouch under the insults of that haughty kingdom; it is extremely evident, whether we spiritedly draw the sword, or purchase an inglorious security by the sacrifice of our national honour, that we shall neither be united at home, nor respected abroad, till the reins of government are lodged with men who have some little pretensions to common sense and common honesty."

"He condemned, in general, the madness, injustice, and infatuation of coercing the Americans into a blind and servile submission."

"He considered the earl of Chatham yet as the greatest ornament of the two Houses, in which he had shone with such unrivalled lustre; the most efficient servant of the crown, and while he had life in him, the nerve of Great Britain. A plan from such a man, that had been mentioned with approbation by one of our most ancient and respectable colonies, Virginia; that contained the real substantial points, without subtlety or refinement, which this country ought to aim at, was, in his opinion, the most eligible."

"His lordship confessed, in respect to the recovery of North America, he had been a very Quixote, and expected, because he most anxiously wished, that our colonies might be prevailed upon to return to their former state of connection with this country. He had indeed pushed his expectations further and longer, he believed, than any impartial person, informed of all the circumstances both here and in America, the present administration excepted, ever had: but his hopes had long since vanished. He had waked from those dreams of British dominion, and every important consequence which he flattered himself might be derived from them."

"Mr. Grenville...was of all the heads of party the worst patron...he weighed every favour in the nicest scale; but I knew my honour would be always safe with him... He had nothing seducing in his manners. His countenance had rather the expression of peevishness and austerity... He was to a proverb tedious...he was diffuse and argumentative, and never had done with a subject after he had convinced your judgment till he wearied your attention—the foreign ministers complained of his prolixity which they called amongst each other, the being Grenvilisé. The same prolixity rendered him an unpleasant speaker in the House of Commons... Yet though his eloquence charmed nobody, his argument converted... his skill upon all matters of finance, of commerce, of foreign treaties, and above all the purity of his character...gave him...weight."

"He was a man born to public business, which was his luxury and amusement. An Act of Parliament was in itself entertaining to him, as was proved when he stole a turnpike bill out of somebody's pocket at a concert and read it in a corner in despite of all the efforts of the finest singers to attract his attention. Order and economy were so natural to him that he told me from the first office he ever held till he became minister he had made it an invariable rule to add the year's salary to his capital contenting himself with carrying the interest the succeeding year into his expenses. His prudence rather bordered upon parsimony."

"George Grenville complained that men objected to laying burthens on the sinking fund, and called rather for new taxes. He wished gentlemen would show him where to lay them. Repeating this question in his querulous, languid, fatiguing tone, Pitt, who sat opposite to him, mimicking his accent aloud, repeated these words of an old ditty—Gentle shepherd, tell me where! and then rising, abused Grenville bitterly. He had no sooner finished than Grenville started up in a transport of rage, and said, if gentlemen were to be treated with that contempt—Pitt was walking out of the House, but at that word turned round, made a sneering bow to Grenville and departed. The latter had provoked him by stating the profusions of the war. There is use in recording this anecdote: the appellation of The Gentle Shepherd long stuck by Grenville; he is mentioned by it in many of the writings on the stamp act, and in other pamphlets and political prints of the time."

"Mr. Grenville is universally able in the whole business of the House, and, after Mr. Murray and Mr. Fox, is certainly one of the very best parliament men in the House."

"Much as he valued America; necessary as the possession of the colonies might be to the power, glory, dignity, and independence of Great Britain; fatal as her final separation would prove, whenever that event might take place; as a friend to liberty, as a reverer of the English constitution, as a lover of natural and political justice—he would be much better pleased to see America for ever severed from Great Britain, than restored to our possession by force of arms, or conquest. He loved his country; he admired its political institutions; but if her future greatness, power, and extent of dominion were only to be established and maintained on the ruins of the constitution, he would be infinitely better pleased to see this country a free one, though curtailed in power and wealth, than possessing every thing the most sanguine expectation could picture to itself, if her greatness was to be purchased at the expence of her constitution and liberties."

"After the dismission of the present worthy chancellor, the seals would go a begging; but he hoped there would not be found in the kingdom a wretch so base and mean spirited, as to accept of them on the conditions on which they must be offered."

"Mr. Grenville was, confessedly, the ablest man of business in the House of Commons, and, though not popular, of great authority there from his spirit, knowledge, and gravity of character. His faults, however, had been capital, and to himself most afflicting. His injudicious Stamp Act had exposed us to the risk of seeing all our Colonies revolt."

"I have mentioned his jealousy and ill-treatment of the Favourite Lord Bute]; his manners made him as distasteful to the King, as his engrossing fondness for power had made him to the Favourite... that awkward man of ways and means, whom nature had fitted for no employment less than a courtier's, fatigued the King with such nauseous and endless harangues, that, lamenting being daily exposed to such a political pedant, the King said to Lord Bute of Grenville, "When he has wearied me for two hours, he looks at his watch to see if he may not tire me for an hour more.""

"A wise government knows how to enforce with temper, or to conciliate with dignity, but a weak one is odious in the former, and contemptible in the latter."

"Undoubtedly Mr. Grenville was a first-rate figure in this country. With a masculine understanding, and a stout and resolute heart, he had an application undissipated and unwearied. He took public business, not as a duty which he was to fulfil, but as a pleasure he was to enjoy; and he seemed to have no delight out of this House, except in such things as some way related to the business that was to be done within it. If he was ambitious, I will say this for him, his ambition was of a noble and generous strain. It was to raise himself, not by the low, pimping politics of a court, but to win his way to power, through the laborious gradations of public service; and to secure to himself a well-earned rank in parliament, by a thorough knowledge of its constitution, and a perfect practice in all its business."

"Though Mr. Grenville is a most disagreeable man to do business with, he is nevertheless the fittest person to be at the head of this country."

"Ungrateful people of America! Bounties have been extended to them. When I had the honour of serving the crown, while you yourselves were loaded with an enormous debt, you have given bounties on their lumber, on their iron, their hemp, and many other articles. You have relaxed, in their favour, the Act of Navigation, that palladium of the British commerce; and yet I have been abused in all the public papers as an enemy to the trade of America."

"I do not load you with personal assurances; but I never knew a time when I thought it more incumbent upon me to exert myself in support of the government; and I rejoice, for your sake and for my own, that affairs are put into your hands, where my private friendship, and my political opinion unite, in engaging me to do all I can, and call upon me to act in character; and how great had my difficulty been, if a contrary determination had put me under the necessity, of demurring between the support of the king, and reconciling my conduct with the measures of those, who are incapable of acting a right part, where interest, ambition, or vengeance, can at all influence their actions."

"I told His Majesty that I came into his service to preserve the constitution of my country, and to prevent any undue and unwarrantable force being put upon the Crown; that upon these principles I should continue to act, and would endeavour, as far as I was able, to assist the King in the difficulties he lay under; but that the success of these endeavours must depend upon the King himself, and upon the cordial union of all such as were attached to his service."

"The late Lord Essex informed the Editor that one of the Under Secretaries of that day had often said to him, "Mr. Grenville lost America because he read the American despatches, which none of his predecessors ever did." There is no doubt that the business of the colonies was despatched in a very slovenly manner—or to use Mr. Burke's words, it was treated "with a salutary neglect;" and the many volumes of Minutes of Colonial Affairs still preserved at the Board of Trade, relate generally to such insignificant transactions as to be almost ludicrous."

"When I proposed to tax America, I asked the House, if any gentleman would object to the right; I repeatedly asked it, and no man would attempt to deny it. Protection and obedience are reciprocal. Great Britain protects America; America is bound to yield obedience. If not, tell me when the Americans were emancipated? When they want the protection of this kingdom, they are always very ready to ask it. That protection has always been afforded them in the most full and ample manner. The nation has run itself into an immense debt to give them their protection; and now they are called upon to contribute a small share towards the public expence, an expence arising from themselves, they renounce your authority, insult your officers, and break out, I might almost say, into open rebellion. The seditious spirit of the colonies owes its birth to the factions in this House."

"Pelham was a timid and peace-loving politician, without any commanding abilities or much strength of character. He was a good man of business, and both an able and an economical financier. His temper was somewhat peevish, but his manners were conciliatory, and his opinions were tolerant. Though not a brilliant orator, he was an able debater and an excellent parliamentary tactician. His speeches were marked by readiness and common-sense."

"It has been remarked by a firm friend of Mr. Pelham, that, in the House of Commons, his language was often timid and desponding; and that the candour and openness of his temper, led him occasionally to depreciate the resources of the country, and to magnify the strength of the rival power. On no occasion was this remark more strongly verified, than in this debate; for, though his general arguments against any intemperate provocation of France, while the two states seemed to be in perfect amity, were sound and unanswerable, yet it cannot be denied that he made too many concessions in favour of France, and said, what it did not become a British minister to admit, that England was unable to cope single-handed with the House of Bourbon."

"My brother has all the prudence, knowledge, experience and good intention that I can wish or hope in a man."

"The Memorial I have read, and doubt not its being a very proper one; I am no judge of the propriety of such draughts, especially in French, which language I understand very imperfectly. But that we must speak strong, and abide by what we say, I know very well."

"I felt attaching the name of rebellion hastily, and traitors, to the Americans, and comparing them to the Scots at Derby—which was the language used—dangerous, and perhaps both imprudent and unjust."

"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."

"In the beginning of March the ministry of Great Britain had been left without a head by the death of Mr. Pelham, which was not only sincerely lamented by his sovereign, but also regretted by the nation in general, to whose affection he had powerfully recommended himself by the candour and humanity of his conduct and character, even while he pursued measures which they did not entirely approve."

"George Grenville came to the rescue, and spoke strongly on his favourite theme, the profusion with which the late war had been carried on. That profusion, he said, had made taxes necessary. He called on the gentlemen opposite to him to say where they would have a tax laid, and dwelt on this topic with his usual prolixity. "Let them tell me where," he repeated in a monotonous and somewhat fretful tone. "I say, sir, let them tell me where. I repeat it, sir; I am entitled to say to them, Tell me where." Unluckily for him, Pitt had come down to the House that night, and had been bitterly provoked by the reflections thrown on the war. He revenged himself by murmuring, in a whine resembling Grenville's, a line of a well known song, "Gentle shepherd, tell me where." "If," cried Grenville, "gentlemen are to be treated in this way"—Pitt, as was his fashion, when he meant to mark extreme contempt, rose deliberately, made his bow, and walked out of the House, leaving his brother in law in convulsions of rage, and every body else in convulsions of laughter. It was long before Grenville lost the nickname of the Gentle Shepherd."

"Peace is what I want, both for the sake of my king, my country, and myself. Peace will be had. I heartily wish it may be no worse, than what is represented in your paper. If so, I am sure it is to be defended; but if not so, it must be defended, and shall be, by me at least, if I have the honour to serve the king, at the time of trial."

"I did indeed disapprove of his complimenting H.R.H. and his Grace to their own destruction, and I think the events have shewn it, I mean by amusing them that this war could be carried on another year, that Holland would bring such an army into the field as would turn the balance in our favour, when he must know, if he knew anything at all, that they were no government, that they were a bankrupt people, and could not pay the very small sums they owe to us for our advanced payments for them. This I disliked, and this is the principle upon which I have acted."

"What does the king say? Does he make no observation upon that silence on all business, in the duke of Bedford's letters? I am sure he sees it, and, if he does not take notice of it, it proceeds from the apprehensions he has of another rupture; and, as I have long seen, quiet is what he loves better than all of us put together. If the idleness or ignorance of any one does not give him personal trouble, he will take no notice of it."

"I wish it was in my power to keep touch with you all, but when I came into the Treasury I found a vast arrear and the expenses have increased, and the revenue diminished ever since, this I hope will plead my excuse."