ion of mortal disease, inspired the governing classes of
England to endure ten more years of exhausting war, to save Europe (as
he foretold) by their example, and to crown his own work at Waterloo.
His lofty eloquence, which has been described as a gift independent of
statesmanship, was indeed a product of statesmanship, for it consisted
in no mere witchery of words, but in a luminous and convincing
presentation of essential facts. He may have been inferior to his own
father in fiery rhetoric, to Peel in comprehensive grasp of domestic
policy, and to Gladstone in the political experience gained by sixty
years of political life, but in capacity for command he was inferior to
none. If he was not an ideal war minister, he was not a war minister by
his own choice; his lot was cast in times which suppressed the exercise
of his best powers; and he was matched in the organisation of war,
though not in the field, against the greatest organising genius known to
history. He must be judged by what he actually did and meditated as a
peace minister; his conduct of the war must be compared with that of
those able but not gifted men who strove to bend the bow which he left
behind him; and we must assuredly conclude that none of his colleagues
or rivals was his peer either in powers or in public spirit.

FOOTNOTES:

[13] Buckingham, _Court and Cabinets_, iii., 242; Lewis,
_Administrations of Great Britain_, p. 225.

[14] Buckingham, _Court and Cabinets_, iii., 282-90; Pellew, _Life of
Sidmouth_, ii., 113-31; Stanhope, _Life of Pitt_, iv., 20-39.

[15] See vol. x., p. 399.

[16] Pellew, _Life of Sidmouth_, ii., 145-47; Stanhope, _Life of Pitt_,
iv., 88-93.

[17] For a list of Canning's squibs, belonging to this period, see
Lewis, _Administrations_, p. 249, note.

[18] It was not fair to hold Addington entirely responsible for the
promotion of his brother, who had been a junior lord of the treasury
under Pitt. The taunt came with a particularly bad grace from Canning,
who had himself been paymaster-general in the last administration.

[19] Pellew, _Life of Sidmouth_, ii., 250.

[20] _Annual Register_, xlvi. (1804), p. 34.

[21] Stanhope, _Life of Pitt_, iv., 135-44.

[22] See the letter in Stanhope, _Life of Pitt_, iv., appendix, pp.
i.-iii.

[23] There is preserved a sketch in Pitt's handwriting of a combined
administration with Melville, Fox, and Fitzwilliam as secretaries of
state, and Grenville as lord president.

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