rippled
for want of supplies; it is forgotten that it was he who selected
Wellington, and that he loyally strained every nerve to keep him
supplied with troops, provisions, and specie, when few but himself
believed in the policy of the Peninsular war, and Sir John Moore had
assured him that if the French dominated Spain, they could not be
resisted in Portugal. It is remembered--or rather it is assumed--that he
was the eager promoter of coercive and reactionary legislation at home;
it is forgotten, or ignored, that he was among the earliest and
staunchest advocates of catholic emancipation, and that a despotic
temper is belied by the whole tone of his speeches. Above all, he is
unjustly credited, in the face of direct evidence to the contrary, with
being the champion of absolutism in the councils of Europe, the fact
being not only that his voice was always on the side of moderation and
conciliation, but that Canning himself, on succeeding him, dissociated
Great Britain from the holy alliance by taking his stand upon an
admirable despatch of Castlereagh and adopting it as his own. When he
met with his tragical end, the brutal shouts of exultation raised by a
portion of the crowd at his funeral were the expression of sheer
ignorance and not of intelligent public opinion. He was a tory, in days
when most patriots were tories, but he was a tory of the best type; and
we of a later generation can see that few statesmen of George III.'s
reign have left a purer reputation or rendered greater services to their
country.

[Pageheading: _CANNING AND PEEL._]

George Canning, his successor, has been far more favourably judged by
posterity, and not without reason, if intellectual brilliancy is a
supreme test of political merit. A firm adherent of Pitt, and a somewhat
unscrupulous critic of Addington, he was probably the first
parliamentary orator of the nineteenth century, with the possible
exception of Sheridan. Pitt's eloquence was of a loftier and simpler
type, Fox's was more impetuous and spontaneous; Peel's range of
political knowledge was far wider; Gladstone excelled all, not only in
length of experience but in readiness and dialectical resource.
Canning's rhetoric was of a finer quality and was combined with great
debating power, but he was a man to inspire admiration rather than
confidence, and had not held one of the higher political offices since
his resignation in 1809, after his quarrel with Castlereagh. He accepted
a m