In the course of the memoir, there is a letter of Addington's, speaking of Sheridan's famous speech on the Begum question. Addington voted in the majority against Hastings; but, though he does not exactly say that Sheridan's famous speech was the cause of his vote, he yet joins in the general acclamation.
It has been the habit of late critics to decry the merits of this famous oration, and even to charge it with being frivolous, outrageous, and bombastic, an immense accumulation of calumny and clap-trap, which the craft of Sheridan would not submit to the public ordeal, and which he has therefore left to its chance of a fantastic and visionary fame. But this we find it impossible to believe. That in a speech of five hours and a half, there may have been—nay, there must have been, passages of extravagance, and even errors of taste, is perfectly probable; but they must have been overcome by countless passages of lustre and beauty,—by powerful conceptions and brilliant examples of language; at once resistless and refined,—by living descriptions, and thoughts of daring and dazzling energy, sufficient to have made it one of the most memorable triumphs of senatorial eloquence in the world. How, on any other supposition, is it possible to account for the effects which we know it to have produced?
Addington's letter, alluding to this subject, says "The papers will convey but a faint idea of a speech, which I heard Fox declare to be the most wonderful effort of the human mind that perhaps had ever been made. Mr Pitt, and indeed the whole House, spoke of it in terms of admiration and astonishment, scarcely inferior to those of Mr Fox."
The papers, indeed, convey a worse than inadequate idea of this wonderful oration, for they give merely a few fragments, in which they have contrived either to select their examples with the most curious infelicity, or to blunder them into bombast. But nothing can be more childish than to suppose, that Pitt would have given his praise to tawdry metaphor, that Burke would have done honour to feeble truisms, that Fox should have been unable to distinguish between logic and looseness of reasoning, or that the whole assembly, who had been in the habit of hearing those pre-eminent orators, should have been tricked by theatric dexterity or charlatan rhetoric into homage. The oration must have been a most magnificent performance, and we have only to deplore the loss of a great work of genius.
Another young phenomenon shot across the parliamentary horizon within the same month. It was the late Earl Grey. A letter of Addington to his father thus describes the debut of this young Liberal.
"Feb. 22, 1787.—We had a glorious debate last night, upon the motion for an address of thanks to the King, for having negotiated the commercial treaty. A new speaker presented himself to the House, and went through his first performance with an éclat that has not been equalled within my recollection. His name is Grey; he is not more than twenty-two years of age, and he took his seat, which is for Northumberland, only in the present session. I do not go too far in declaring, that in the advantages of figure, elocution, voice, and manner, he is not surpassed by any one member of the House; and I grieve to say, that he was last night in the ranks of Opposition, from which there is no prospect of his being detached."
It is curious to see, how easily the exigencies of party mould men, and how readily under that pressure they unsay their maxims, and retract their principles. The object of the commercial treaty was, to put our commerce in some degree on a fair footing with that of France. The object of Mr Grey's rhetoric was, to show that the commercial treaty was altogether a blunder, which, as being a Tory and ministerial performance, it must be in the eyes of a Whig and an oppositionist. But the maxim on which he chiefly relied, was the wisdom of that established system of our policy, in which France had always been regarded with the most suspicious jealousy at least—if not as our natural foe. Of course this Whig maxim lasted just so long as the Whigs were out of office, and could use it as a weapon against the Minister. But, from the moment when France became actually dangerous, when her councils became demoniac, and her factions frenzied, Whiggism, despairing of turning out the Minister by argument, resolved to make the attempt by menace. Hopeless in the House, it appealed to the rabble, and France was extolled to the skies. We then heard nothing of the "natural enmity," but a vast deal of the instinctive friendship. England and France were no longer to be two hostile powers sitting on their respective shores, with flashing eyes and levelled spears, but like a pair of citizen's wives loaded with presents and provisions for each other, and performing their awkward courtesies across the Channel.
It must be acknowledged, however, that the Whig maxim, though a watchword of faction, was no blunder of fact. A commercial treaty with the French in that day, or in any other day before or since, was a dream. To bring the Frenchman to any rational agreement on the subject of trade, or to keep him steady to any agreement whatever, has been a problem, which no British statesman has been able to solve. No commercial treaty, even with all the genius of Pitt, has ever produced to England the value of the paper on which it is written. Whether, if they were two Englands in the world, they might not establish commercial treaties with each other, may be a question. But we regard it as an absolute waste of time, to think of trading on fair terms with any of the slippery tariffs of foreign countries. In fact, this is now so perfectly understood, that England has nearly given up the notion of commercial treaties. She trades now, where the necessities of the foreigner demand her trade. The foreigner hates John Bull, Just as the Athenian peasant hated Aristides, and for the same reason. He hates him for being honest, manly, and sincere; he hates him for the integrity of his principles, for the purity of his faith, and for the reality of his freedom; he hates him for his prosperity, for his progress, and for his power. And while the Frenchman capers in his fetters, and takes his promenade under the shadow of the fortifications of Paris; while the German talks of constitutions in the moon; and while the Holy Alliance amuses itself with remodelling kingdoms, John Bull may be well content to remain as he is, and leave them to such enjoyment as they can find in sulkiness and sneering.
Grey's brilliant debut appears not to have been sustained: he spoke little during the session, but talked much—a fatal distinction to a parliamentary aspirant. Ambitious of figuring, he attempted to figure on all occasions; and, once or twice, unluckily daring the great champion of the treasury bench to the field, he was driven from it with wounds which, if they did not teach him a sense of his weakness, at least taught him a sense of his danger. Mr Grey's credit, says Addington in a letter, "as a man of discretion and temper, remains to be established. His reputation for abilities has not increased within the last two months, while he has in all respects enhanced that of the person (Pitt) to whom he ventured to oppose himself."
In alluding to the intercourse of Addington with Wilberforce, the biographer, we think very justly, complains of the sillinesses which have transpired in the latter's diary. Addington took higher views on ecclesiastical subjects; and was less rapid in his movements for the abolition of the slave-trade; being of opinion that precipitate measures would only increase the traffic to an enormous extent, deprive England of all power of restraining the frightful atrocities of the middle passage; and, by throwing the whole trade into the hands of foreigners, leave it open to all the reckless abominations of mankind.