described to the constituency as the best man of
business in England, and one of the ablest practical statesmen that
could engage in the concerns of a commercial country. The speeches made
to his constituents during the ten years for which he served them are
excellent specimens of Canning's rich, gay, aspiring eloquence. In
substance they abound in much pure toryism, and his speech after the
Peterloo massacre, and upon the topics relating to public meetings,
sedition, and parliamentary reform, though by sonorous splendour and a
superb plausibility fascinating to the political neophyte, is by no
means free from froth, without much relation either to social facts or
to popular principles. On catholic emancipation he followed Pitt, as he
did in an enlarged view of commercial policy. At Liverpool he made his
famous declaration that his political allegiance was buried in Pitt's
grave. At one at least of these performances the youthful William
Gladstone was present, but it was at home that he learned Canningite
doctrine. At Seaforth House Canning spent the days between the death of
Castlereagh and his own recall to power, while he was waiting for the
date fixed for his voyage to take up the viceroyalty of India.

CANNING

As from whig John Gladstone turned Canningite, so from presbyterian
also he turned churchman. He paid the penalty of men who change their
party, and was watched with a critical eye by old friends; but he was a
liberal giver for beneficent public purposes, and in 1811 he was
honoured by the freedom of Liverpool. His ambition naturally pointed to
parliament, and he was elected first for Lancaster in 1818, and next for
Woodstock in 1820, two boroughs of extremely easy political virtue.
Lancaster cost him twelve thousand pounds, towards which his friends in
Liverpool contributed one-half. In 1826 he was chosen at Berwick, but
was unseated the year after. His few performances in the House were not
remarkable. He voted with ministers, and on the open question of
catholic emancipation he went with Canning and Plunket. He was one of
the majority who by six carried Plunket's catholic motion in 1821, and
the matter figures in the earliest of the hundreds of surviving letters
from his youngest son, then over eleven, and on the eve of his departure
for Eton:--

_Seaforth, Mar._ 10, 1821.

I address these few lines to you to know how my dear mother is, to
thank you for you