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for an inquiry into the State of the Nation, be took an able view of the effect of the war upon our commerce, from its commencement, and contended that, not withstanding the weight of so great a war, the commercial situation of Great Britain was more prosperous than at any antecedent period.

On the 28th of May, 1796, Mr. Jenkinson participated in the honours of his family so far as to exchange that appellation, for his father's second title -Lord Hawkesbury; his venerable parent being at that time created Earl of Liverpool. In 1799 Lord Hawkesbury was appointed Master Worker of the Mint, which he held until his important preferment in March 1801.

We now approach the period of the introduction of the noble subject of our Memoir into the Cabinet, and of his first possession of that important share in the public councils, which, with the exception of a very short interval, he retained for above a quarter of a century. After the temporary retirement of Mr. Pitt from power, in 1801, the new Ministry, at the bead of which was Mr. Addington, was announced on the 14th of March. Lord Hawkesbury was appointed to the important office of Secretary of State for the Foreign Department, and actively engaged in the debates which ensued. In one of those debates, Mr. Pitt took an opportunity of warmly eulogising him; and asked the gentlemen on the opposite side of the House, “if they knew any one among them superior to the noble Secretary saving, indeed, one person, unnecessary to name, whose transcendant talents made him an exception to almost any rule."

The great business of the succeeding summer and autumn, was the adjustment of preliminaries of peace with France; and Lord Hawkesbury, as Foreign Secretary, was intrusted with the interests of Great Britain in the nego tiation. In the memorable debate on this peace, May 13, 1802, his Lordship defended the treaty in a speech of great length, and which was considered at the time to be much the ablest that had been delivered on the subject in either House of Parliament.

On Lord Hawkesbury devolved, at this period, much of what is called the management of the House of Commons, and of course he spoke on every topic involving the character of the Administrarion; but, at the opening of the next Session, in Dec. 1803, in order to strengthen the Ministry in the House of Lords, he was summoned by writ to that House, to sit in his father's barony. The

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only measure of importance, however'. which in that Session he brought forward in his new situation in the legislature, was the Volunteer Consolidation Bill.

On the 12th of May 1804, it was announced that Mr. Addington had resigned. Mr. Pitt returned to the head of administration; and Lord Hawkesbury received the seals of the Home Department.

On the death of Mr. Pitt in Jan. 1806, his late Majesty honoured him, in the first instance, with his confidence and commands with respect to the formation of a new Ministry; but Lord Hawkesbury, well knowing the situation and relative strength of public parties, with that sound good sense which always distinguished him, declined the flattering offer. He received, however, a decided proof of the King's attachment, by being appointed to the vacant situation of Warden of the Cinque Ports.

On the return of Mr. Pitt's friends to power in the following year, Lord Hawkesbury resumed his situation in the cabinet as Secretary of State for the Home Department; still declining any bigher, and especially avoiding the highest office. In the defence of all the great measures of Government,-particulraly the expedition to Copenhagen, and the celebrated Orders in Council,he took, however, a prominent and most efficient part.

At the latter end of 1808, Lord Hawkesbury was called to the mournful office of attending the death-bed of his revered parent; who, after a lengthened illness, died, on the 17th of December. By this event the subject of our memoir was placed at the head of his family, as second Earl of Liverpool.

When the quarrel and subsequent duel between Lord Castlereagh and Mr. Canning induced them to resign their situations in the Government, and the Duke of Portland to withdraw from being its nominal head, Mr. Perceval, still finding the Earl of Liverpool averse to the premiership, united in name, as he had already done in effect, the two offices of first Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Earl of Liverpool, however, consented in this new arrangement to become Secretary of State for the War Department. In this capacity he nobly exhorted Parliament and the country to an energetic perseverance in the vigorous efforts which were then making. On the 13th of June, in particular, after Earl Grey had submitted to the House of Lords a motion on the state of the nation, the Earl of Liverpool, in contrast to the gloomy picture

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which had been exhibited by the noble Earl, insisted that a favourable change was taking place in the posture of our affairs. The result, although not immediate, proved how well founded were his anticipations.

At length an event as unexpected as it was calamitous, the assassination of Mr. Perceval, on the 11th of May 1812, left, the ministry in so disjointed a state, that the Earl of Liverpool yielded to the request of the Prince Regent to place bimself at its head. So reluctant, however, was he, to the last, to become the chief minister of the realm, that he did not consent until Marquis Wellesley, and Lords Grey and Grenville, had decidedly declined the offer.

No man ever rose to an exalted station by more gradual or more natural steps than those by which the Earl of Liverpool attained the premiership. He had now been in Parliament twenty years, taking in each house successively a leading part in every debate of national importance; and he had been, during more than half that period, in the confidential service of the Crown. In the prime and vigour of his life, he had enjoyed, in all the momentous changes external and internal to which the affairs of the country were exposed, an unequalled opportunity for experience; had been trained in the practice of the constitution, and had fought some of its hardest battles with each variety of its foes above all, he had imbibed that spirit of patient confidence in a righteous Providence, and in his country's good cause, which peculiarly fitted him to take the helm in her present exigency.

On the 8th of June, 1812, his Lordship rose in his place in the House of Peers, and stated that the Prince Regent had on that day been pleased to appoint him First Commissioner of the Treasury, and had given him authority for completing the other arrangements for the administration as soon as possible. The only additions to the ministry on the occasion were, Lord Sidmouth, and Mr. Vansittart, now Lord Bexley.

To pursue the course of the Minister's subsequent exertions in the public service, even with that brief survey with which we have been enabled to trace his earlier progress, would lead us far beyond our present limits. It may be

useful to observe that it has been done with much judgment in the volume of "Annual Biography and Obituary" recently published (to which we thankfully acknowledge our obligations in this article), and still more amply in a volume published in 1827, under the title of "Memoirs of the Public Life and

[Jan.

Administration of the Right Honourable › the Earl of Liverpool."

On the 9th of June 1814 the Earl of Liverpool was elected a Knight of the most noble Order of the Garter.

After the animated debates on the subject of the second Regency, his Lordship bad glided, by an easy transition from the councils of the father to those of the son; and when the reign of the former was closed by death, the changes frequently consequent on such occurrences were neither expected nor witnessed. When the Premier and the other Ministers resigned their seals, pro formá, on the morning after the King's demise, they were severally reinstated in their respective offices.

On the 12th of June 1821, his Lordship was deprived, by death, of his amiable and excellent lady. Various official duties claimed bis attention in the autumn, particularly in the King's absence from the country; but his Lordship was a real mourner, and we do not find him bearing any prominent part, even at the Coronation. On the 24th Sept. 1822, bis Lordship was again married, to Mary, daughter of the Rev. Charles Chester, formerly Bagot, sister to Sir Charles Chester, the present Master of the Ceremonies, and first cousin to the present Lord Bagot. The Earl is survived by his second Countess.

The Earl of Liverpool's last appearance in public was in February 1827. It is remarkable that the two last motions he made in the House of Peers were personally connected with the Royal Family-those of moving an address of condolence to his Majesty on the death of the Duke of York, and for a further provision for the Duke and Duchess of Clarence. The latter duty was per formed on the 16th of February; and it was the last occasion on which this faithful servant of the crown and of the country was seen at his post. His Lordship retired to rest at Fife House at his usual hour, and apparently in good health. On the following morning, Saturday, the 17th of February, he took his breakfast alone, in his library, at ten o'clock. At about that hour also, he received the post letters. Some time after, his servant, not having, as usual, heard his Lordship's bell, entered the apartment, and found him stretched on the floor, motionless and speechless. From his position, it was evident that he had fallen in the act of opening a letter. Dr. Drever, the family physician, happened at that moment to call, and Sir Henry Halford and Sir Astley Cooper were immediately sent for; when it appeared that his Lordship had been

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seized by a fit both of an apoplectic and a paralytic nature; which affected the whole of his right side. As soon as his situation would admit, he was removed to his seat in Combe Wood. There he remained for the nearly two remaining years of his life, with various fluctuations of his disease, although at no time with the slightest prospect of con

valescence.

He had been for some days in his ordinary state, and no symptoms calculated to excite immediate apprehension bad occurred, when, on Thursday the 4th of December last, he was attacked with convulsions and spasms soon after breakfast, and before Mr. Sandford, a medical friend in the neighbourhood, could arrive, his Lordship had breathed his last. The Countess, his brother, and Mr. Child his steward, were present in the apartment.

If the Earl of Liverpool was not a man of brilliant genius, or lively fancy, he was possessed of powerful talents, sound principles, and unimpeachable integrity. He seemed born to be a statesman. From his youth he abstained from mixing in the common-place business of the world; he had no relish for those amusements and occupations which other men pursue with such eagerness; he looked upon life as a gift bestowed upon him with the condition that it should be entirely devoted to the service of his country. It was so devoted; and the disease by which he was eventually attacked, the effect of his unremitting labours, proved how thoroughly the condition had been fulfilled. He combined, in an extraordinary degree, firmness with moderation. measures were the result of deep deliberation; but when once adopted, were pursued with inflexible resolution, and despondency formed no feature of his character.

His

Lord Liverpool's eloquence, if it did not reach the highest point of excellence, always impressed the hearer with a conviction of the sincerity and the patriotism of the speaker. In debate he was vehement, but never intemperate. He did not seem to entertain one angry feeling towards his parliamentary antagonists, however wanton their attacks, or undeserved their insults. He never refused to others the tribute of applause which he thought they merited; and bis courteous though dignified deportment, unruffled by the coarsest personalities which could be vented against him, has frequently disarmed his fierceest adversary.

In private life, Lord Liverpool was most amiable, and was greatly beloved.

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Like the sovereign who first bestowed on him royal confidence and political ascendancy, Lord Liverpool afforded an admirable and striking example of domestic and social virtue to the higher ranks in this country. In other respects there was great similarity between the two characters. The same soundness of judgment, and the same firmness of purpose, not to be beguiled out of what was once understood, and not to be induced to act without understanding, distinguished the royal master and bis faithful servant: the same steadiness in their greater attachments, and it may be added, in their few decided aversions : the same contempt of intrigue, with the same noble consciousness of being superior to it above all, that uncompromising honesty of principle, which adds dignity to any station, which, while the un hinking and unprincipled are naturally slow to admire it, all honourable men must approve, and the existence of which, in both these cases, all honourable men did at last acknowledge.

On the 15th of December the remains of this truly British statesman were removed from Combe Wood, to the family vault at Hawkesbury in Gloucestershire. The funeral train was arranged with that unostentatious propriety which was one of the features of his character. A hearse, drawn by six horses, bearing the coronet and the armorial distinctions of the deceased, was followed by three mourning coaches and six, containing the domestics of his Lordship's establishment; then came his Lordship's own carriage, followed by those of his brother and the Marquis of Bristol, and afterwards that of his Royal Highness the Duke of Clarence, who unsolicited paid this mark of respect to his deceased neighbour. The carriages of Viscount Sidmouth and C. N. Pallmer, esq. M. P., closed the procession. The inhabitants of Kingston could not be prevented from paying their last mournful tribute of gratitude to one who had been to them a father and friend; for the absence of public splendour was amply supplied by the strongest exhibitions of private feeling. At the alms-houses, the inhabitants of which had always partaken of his Lordship's bounty, the funeral was met by a long train of the heads of families, to whom for many years past his Lordship had annually given a liberal reward for good conduct, and which he has perpetuated by his will. To these followed the corporation of Kingston, of which his Lordship was High Steward, in full mourning. Upon the fine new bridge lately erected at Kingston, principally under bis Lordship's sanction and sup

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1812.

His Lordship's Baronetcy, conferred on the family of Bishopp in 1620, has devolved on his first cousin and heir male, the Rev. George Bisshopp, Archdeacon of Agbadoe in Ireland, the son of his Lordship's uncle, Edward Bisshopp, esq. an army agent, who died leaving a very large fortune in 1792, and of whom some notices will be found in vol. LXII. p. 89.

SIR EWEN CAMERON, BART. Lately. Aged 90, Sir Ewen Cameron, of Fassifern and Collert, co. Argyll, and of Arthurstone, co. Angus, Bart. father of "the valiant Fassifern," slain at Quatre Bras.

He was the eldest son of John Cameron, of Fassifern, by Jean, daughter of John Campbell, of Achaladder, and nephew to Donald Cameron, of Lochiel, who was chief of his clan, and forfeited his estates by joining in the rebellion of 1745.

Sir Ewen married Louisa, daughter of Duncan Campbell, of Barchaldine. Their eldest son was John, Colonel of the 92d foot, who, in reward for his distinguished services in Holland, 1799, in Egypt, 1801, and during the whole of the Peninsular war, but more especially in the actions of Arroyo Moulino, Oct. 28, 1811, the pass of Maya, July 25, 1813, the passage of the river Gave, at Arriverette, near Bayonne, Dec. 13, 1813, and the capture of Acre, Feb. 17, 1814, was honoured by the following heraldic insignia, pursuant to a royal warrant, dated May 20, 1815. To the arms of Cameron, which are Gules, three bars Or, were added the honourable augmentations of, On a bend Ermine a sphinx between two wreaths of laurel Proper; and on a chief embattled a view of a fortified town, and thereunder, the word ACRE; also a crest of augmentation, a Highlander of the 92d Foot, up to the middle in water, grasp ing in his right hand a broad-sword, and in his left a banner inscribed “920,' within a wreath of laurel: as supporters, on either side, a Highlander in the

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uniform of the 92d regiment, in the exterior band a musket; and as mottoes, on the first crest, ARRIVERETTE; under the arms, MAYA. Colonel Cameron was slain at Quatre Bras June 16, 1815, and his loss is particularly lamented in the Duke of Wellington's dispatch of June 29. The title bestowed in consequence upon his father, was the free spontaneous gift of our gracious Sovereign, who thus sought to alleviate the sorrows of the aged chieftain, by reflecting back upon him the honours earned by his gallant son. The Baronetcy was announced in the London Gazette in September 1815, but appears not to have been created by letters patent till March 8, 1817.

Sir Ewen Cameron's other children were two other sons, 2. Sir Duncan, who has succeeded to the baronetcy, and is a barrister-at-law; 3. Patrick, a Captain in the service of the East-India Company; and three daughters: 1. Mary, who was married to the late Alex. Macdonald, esq. of Glanco, and is now dead; 2. Jean, married to the late Roderick Macneil, esq. of Barra, and is also deceased; 3. Catherine, married to the late Col. Duncan Macpherson, of Clunie.

Sir Ewen married, secondly, Katherine, daughter of Major Macpherson, and widow of Buchanan; but by

her he had no issue.

ADMIRAL SPRY.

Nov. 27. At Tregoles, near Truro, aged 76, Thomas Spry, esq. Admiral of the Red.

The paternal name of this venerable naval officer was Davy, and be assumed that of Spry on the death of his uncle, Admiral Sir Richard Spry, of Place, in Cornwall.

He obtained the rank of Post Captain May 5, 1778, and in the same year commanded the Europe, of 64 guns, under the orders of Commodore Evans, in the expedition against the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon, on the coast of Newfoundland. They were taken possession of on the 14th September, the French fishery entirely destroyed, and their boats, &c. burnt. This service having been accomplished, the deceased exchanged ships with the late Sir Richard King, and, in November, turned to England in the Pallas, of 36 guns.

On the 13th May, 1779, the Pallas formed part of a small squadron under Sir James Wallace, when that officer followed several French men of war into Concale Bay, and succeeded in capturing La Danãe, of 34 guns, and 250 men.