[306] Lord John Russell.
[307] Lewis, describing this visit in a letter to his mother, says, ‘I happened to wake about six o’clock, and hearing the billiard balls in motion, I put on my dressing-gown and went into the gallery, from whence looking down into the great hall, I descried Tom Sheridan and Mr. Chester (who had not been to bed all night) playing with great eagerness. Fortunately, Tom was in the act of making a stroke on which the fate of the whole game depended; when I shouted to him over the balustrade, “Shame! Shame! A married man!” on which he started back in a fright, missed his stroke, and lost the game’ (Life and Correspondence of M. G. Lewis, ii. 5).
[308] Hon. Henry Edward Fox (1802–59), afterwards fourth Lord Holland; always a weakly child from birth. He was afflicted with a form of hip disease, which gave him much trouble all his life.
[309] Lord Holland says in the Memoirs of the Whig Party: ‘Mr. Ponsonby was brought into Parliament at the beginning of the session for the purpose of assuming an ascendency over a large, intelligent, and independent body of gentlemen with scarcely twenty of whom he was personally acquainted. A preposterous scheme!’
[310] William Belsham (1752–1827), author of a series of works, which he combined to form a History of Great Britain to the Conclusion of the Peace of Amiens.
[311] Napoleon’s insistence on one of the secret articles of the Treaty of Tilsit, requiring Russia to close her ports against English vessels, was the actual reason for the Czar’s declaration of war against England. Lord Granville Leveson left St. Petersburg early in November 1807.
[312] Prince Stahremberg was Austrian Minister in London. Lord Holland states that he did not consider his information reliable except where it was substantiated by documents. Metternich was Austrian Ambassador at Paris. The declaration of war of both Austria and Prussia was entirely due to Napoleon’s instigation, as one step in his campaign against British commerce. Both countries had the sense to give no reason for their action.
[313] These letters, Mr. Fox asserted in a speech in the House of Commons, were the origin of the rupture of the peace of Amiens. Certainly they were the means of rousing Napoleon’s ire, for Coleridge had to leave Rome in 1806 in all haste, after a friendly warning that the Emperor intended his arrest. He was Secretary to the Governor of Malta, Sir Alexander Ball, 1804–5, a post which was rather the result of a chance visit to the island than an official appointment. He wrote for the Courier for several years at this period of his life.
[314] George, second Lord Kenyon (1776–1855), who succeeded his father in 1802. Lord Kenyon seconded the Address, but his speech was delivered in so low a tone as to be inaudible below the bar (Hansard).
[315] The British expedition to Copenhagen in September 1807, which resulted in the seizure of the Danish fleet and the bombardment of that city. Canning had private information of the secret clauses of the Treaty between Napoleon and Alexander at Tilsit. His refusal to produce papers which would incidentally have brought his secret agent to light, coupled with what they considered his shabby behaviour in joining the Tory Government, caused him much odium amongst the Whigs.