mistice accordingly took place; and it was on that occasion that the empress Catharine requested and obtained the bust of Mr. Fox, whom she considered as the presiding genius who had hushed the storm of war.

As the ministers had deferred explanation during the struggle, and at its termination studiously avoided the subject, Mr. Whitbread, on the 29th of February 1792, moved, "That a committee of the whole house should take into consideration the papers on the table, respecting the late armament against Russia." On being seconded by Mr. Grey, the member for Bedford, after an eloquent speech of an hour's duration, moved his resolution: That no arrangement, respecting Oczakow and its district, appears to have been capable of affecting the political or commercial interests of this country, so as to justify any hostile interference, on the part of Great Britain, between Russia and the Porte."

Earl Fitzwilliam, at the same time, called the attention of the other house to the same subject; but the minister, in both cases, triumphed, so far as the suffrages of large parliamentary majorities could be deemed a triumph. It was visible, however, that from this period he ceased to be popular, and was obliged to recur to the influence of numbers, instead of that of opinion, for support.

In the struggles of the minority in parliament, and of the people out of doors, to prevent the commencement of that series of wars which have now desolated Europe for twenty-five years, Mr. Whitbread was one of the small minority who rallied round Mr. Fox, and whose voice was always raised in the cause of liberty and humanity. To follow his career during this eventful period, and to give the most imperfect sketch of his speeches on various occasions, would far exceed our limits; they form part of the public and parliamentary history of the times, to which we refer the inquisitive reader.

In 1795 a considerable degree of scarcity prevailed, and the situation of the poor became truly deplorable. The hardships incident to labourers, tradesmen, and manufacturers, were referred to the consideration of the house by the member for Bedford, who observed, that the maximum, or highest ex,

tent of wages to husbandmen was fixable by the magistrate, but not the minimum, or lowest, a circumstance which was productive of these hardships. Accordingly, a few days after this, he brought in a bill to authorise justices of the peace to regulate still further the price of labour at every quarter-session. On this occasion he was supported by Messrs. Fox, Jekyll, and Honeywood; and opposed by Messrs. Burdon, Buxton, Vansittart, and Pitt.

Mr. Whitbread, as well as the party with whom he acted, from the beginning, blamed the war with France, as impolitic and unnécessary. It is not, therefore, surprising that they should seize on every opportunity to close the scene of blood; and we accordingly find that, when Buonaparte, on his return from Egypt, had overturned the authority of the directory, and supplied their power by a consulate, of which he was the organ, hopes were entertained of a speedy pacification. The soldier of fortune was consequently no sooner invested with the supreme power than he addressed a letter to the king of England, in which he evinced an ardent desire for the termination of hostilities. His majesty, however, was advised to treat this overture with contempt, but there were some who thought differently; and, when Mr. Dundas moved an address to compliment the throne, Feb. 3, 1800, the subject of this memoir made a most able speech, in which he contended that the war might have been avoided in the first instance; that, had it not been for the interference, the folly, and ambition, of the other powers of Europe, the French revolution would have had a very different result; that Buonaparte's letter to his majesty was full of good sense, equally free from republican familiarity and courtly adulation; that, under our present circumstances, we ought not to refuse the proposals of the first consul for a general pacification; and that it was the interest of this country that a peace should be concluded' as speedily as possible.

Mr. Whitbread had by this time acquired a high character for talents and integrity, and was considered as only second to Mr. Fox in the house of commons. His exertions in the cause of his country, his large fortune, his

zeal, stimulated into exertion by afflicting abuses, but at the same time moderated by good sense, had obtained for him a high reputation. Clients, in the original sense, were not wanting. He received applications for redress from all parts of the kingdom.In respect to cases of this kind, we shall only mention two, in both of which Mr. Whitbread took the lead. The one was that of the rev. Fyshe Palmer, who, with Skirving, Muir, Margarot, and Gerald, were driven into exile, for exercising the right of uttering those very opinions, the popularity of which had procured for the premier the exalted station which he then held; and has finally led, in the course of events, to his apotheosis! The other was that of Mr. Morison, a respectable farmer in the county of Banff, who, without the commission of any known crime, and on the most contemptible evidence of a remote possibility of disloyalty, was in danger of being cut off from the intercourse of society.

In 1801, Mr. Pitt and his colleagues withdrew suddenly from office. Mr. Addington leaped from the speaker's chair to the treasury-bench, and became minister; and, as he professed himself a friend of economy, a fruit ful crop of abuses presented themselves. Those in the naval department alone excited at once the attention and the indignation of the nation. Nine previous reports of the commissioners had been treated with attention; but the tenth implicated lord Melville, who had returned to power, but who, on many accounts, was far from being popular. He had been one of the most zealous in the prosecution of the American war; he was said to have been the chief cause of the continuance of the slave-trade; and he had, on all occasions, been the decided enemy of constitutional reform and liberal government.The circumstances of his trial are recorded in our former pages.

The rupture of the treaty of Amiens, which has caused the shedding of such rivers of blood, was the constant theme of Mr. Whitbread's honest animadversions, from the day of the famous imessage, in March 1803, when it was asserted that the French were making preparations in their ports, till within a short period of his death. The friends of liberty, who had opposed the former war against

the constitutional monarchy and republic of France, and whose exertions doubtless tended to shorten that war, had themselves justly become the enemies of Buonaparte, who, in 1799, had availed himself of his popularity, and usurped the supreme power. The warparty, who from the first had aimed at the forcible restoration of the Bourbons, availed themselves, therefore, of this feeling of the friends of peace, and both parties now united in the new war, not against France, it was said, but against the tyranny of Buonaparte. The friends of the Bourbons, and the systematic opponents of all liberty, were therefore blended on this occasion with the genuine friends of liberty, who equally disliked the Bourbons and the uncontrolled sway of Buonaparte. Thus, the war became popular, and few lovers of liberty perceived, in the first instance, the snare into which they were falling. Mr. Fox and Mr. Whitbread were, however, among those few. They contended, on every occasion, in opposition to the origi nal war-party, that the war was unnecessary; and they urged to those known friends of liberty, who were among the most vehement partizans of the war, that foreign nations ought not to interfere with the internal policy of other countries; that the alleged ty ranny of Buonaparte was a mere French question; and that any supposed benefit of a Bourbon, or any other government, to be imposed by foreign armies, was not worth the sacrifices of blood and treasure, called for by such a war. The eloquence of these patriots failed, however, in its effect; thousands of pounds were spent in printing and circulating tracts, in prose and verse, to inflame the public mind; and perhaps no war was ever so popular as that which was thus commenced about Malta, the alleged surveys of our ports by authorised spies (though the best surveys might be purchased for a few shillings), and the alleged preparations in the French ports. An extensive party favoured the renewal of a contest of which it had always approved; and another party yielded its judgment on minor questions to its honest, but ill-directed, hostility to the misconduct of the head of the French government, in having dissolved the constitutional bodies by the bayonet!

A systematic opposition to this war constituted, therefore, for the last twelve years, a chief feature in the public labours of Mr. Whitbread. It was an onerous, irksome, and often ungracious task. He objected to its principle, and yet was often called upon to praise the valour of the fleets and armies of the executive-and at one time, when the country was considered in danger, he raised and organised a battalion of 350 volunteers at Bedford. This was noble and exemplary; he condemned the measures which had brought the country into danger; yet it was in danger, and, without regarding the cause, he discharged the duty which ought ever to distinguish patriotism, and was disposed, if needful, to part with life in its defence. In nothing did he appear greater; in nothing could he be greater.

A representative of the people is expected to support their interests in parliament, whatever may be the wishes and policy of the ministers of the crown, and for that purpose he is armed with freedom of speech. Few members, however, have the courage to do their duty, because the ministers artfully contrive to identify themselves with the country; and to oppose them, is, they say, to be against the country. The people too become the dupes of this sophistry, and the patriot finds that the little good he can do is not worth the sacrifice of his peace and comfort. No man was ever, perhaps, more the more the victim of this system of misrepresentation than Mr. Whitbread. He opposed the policy of the ministry, and he was, by their partizans, said to be the enemy of his country; he opposed the war, and he was said to be the friend of the country's enemy; he insisted on economy in the expenditure of the public money, and he was held up as the eneiny of his prince. It required, therefore, courage almost superhuman, and patriotism which abhorred every selfish consideration, to persevere in a systematic and spirited opposition to the career of the ministry during the last twenty-five years. It is, however, evident, in regard to a country in which the conservation of liberty depends on the representatives of the people, that good sense and virtue is no less called for in the people than in their representatives; and that, if the people suffer

themselves to be deluded by the sophistry and artifices of ministers, the exertions of their representatives must at all times be paralized and feeble. It ought to be a principle interwoven with the feelings of every British heart, that the representatives of the people are at least as much identified with the country as the ministers, and that the doctrines of an honest representative, acting in oppostion, may be as truly British as that of any minister; otherwise no duty can be more harassing, useless, and hazardous, than that of a member of parliament.

When Mr. Fox and the whig party came into power, in 1806, it was understood that Mr. Whitbread might have enjoyed a high appointment; but, as he considered that a seat in the legislature ought not to be used as a passport to office, and that any office would shackle his wonted independence, he contented himself in voting with the ministry on such questions as he approved; but, on the violent rupture of the negociations, after the decease of Mr. Fox, we again find him protesting with energy against the principle, the expediency, and the justice, of the war.

About this time Mr. Whitbread, in the opinion of many of his friends, unnecessarily committed himself, by replying publicly to a circular address of sir Francis Burdett to the electors of Westminster, of whom Mr. W. was one. Sir Francis retorted with energy, on the hustings, to the insinuations of Mr. Whitbread, who was led to demand a formal explanation. These quarrels among patriots, about slight differences of opinion, are to be lamented, as giving relative strength to their political opponents; yet they are a consequence of conduct, founded on a sense of rectitude, which steadily adheres to all its principles. Mr. Whitbread had been a member of the famous society of the friends of the people, in 1790, and he always voted in favour of parliamentary reform; yet, after the dissolution of that society, he never made the desire of parliamentary reform the chief test of patriotism; and in this he appears to have differed from sir Francis Burdett, Messrs. Cartwright, Cobbett, and a very numerous party.

The miscellaneous parliamentary labours of Mr. Whitbread include nearly every

branch of political economy; and the detail of his speeches would constitute a luminous history of the last twenty years. Against the slave trade, in all its ramifications, he was ever animated-in whatever regarded the diffusion of knowledge, and the extension of education, he was zealous and in every measure connected with the melioration of the condition of the people, with the reform of the penal laws, and with the management of the poor, he was active and useful even to the day of his lamented death. Few legislators ever exhibited more perfect intelligence on so many complicated subjects as those which were constantly brought before him in debate his intellectual vigour was irresistible; and, in whatever business he engaged, his decision was so prompt and immoveable, that it savoured of severity, though its correctness could seldom be disputed.

The declining state of his health and spirits may be inferred from his silence during the recent events on the continent, which in so special a manner have called for the application of great and liberal principles of morals and public policy. If Mr. Whitbread thought the war unnecessary and unjust in its origin, how much must he have objected to the application of the terms of a treaty to the head of the French government, which treaty, in his view, was not only not founded in any original right of justice, but which had been reduced to waste paper by the non-performance of its conditions on the part of the allies! Never were the public services of a great man more untimely suspended. Never, was the world deprived of an intrepid and respected moral censor, at a season when the energy of truth was more requisite to check the arrogance of power. Never was there a period in the history of Europe more critical, and one which required more exertions on the part of those who seek the glory of patriotism. All those qualities, which once constituted the boasted features of the English character, are now basely deserted. The name of LIBERTY is considered as the signal of discord, because it excites the opposition of its enemies; the name of TRUTH is deemed seditious, because it falsifies the assertions of ministers; and the name of INTEGRITY is a

libel, because it appertains to so few public characters. We see an association of kings, calling themselves the friends of liberty, and, in that new character of meters of liberty, obtaining credence and applause from a large portion of mankind. We hear men boasting of the liberty which is conferred at the point of the bayonet; and it is the popular doctrine of the day, that kings know better what degree of liberty suits their subjects than sub jects know themselves. We are openly told, that the guardians of the independence and liberty of Poland, Genoa, Norway, and Saxony, have proved their qualifications to preserve the independence and liberties of France and all Europe. We find it likewise maintained, on the highest authority, that certain states are not bound by public treaties, but may absolve themselves from their obliga tions, though the articles continue not less obligatory on the other party; and we see it publicly proclaimed, that to resist hostility, commenced to maintain the violation of treaties, is "to disturb Europe, and to de stroy the human race." We see wars commenced without justifiable cause, and then hear it asserted that a right of the aggressors may grow out of the wrong which they inflicted. We hear the cause of Xerxes and his nillion of armed slaves, in seeking to destroy the liberties and independence of Greece, quoted for the first time as a justifi able precedent. We hear the glories of Brennus exalted for the vengeance he took on the citizens of Rome, and on their public buildings; and we are daily doomed to see Themistocles and Camillus called rebels, whom it was the proper duty of Xerxes and Brennus to hang up amid the smoking ruins of Athens and Rome! In such a state of moral disorganization, when it is dangerous to life or liberty call a spade a spade, how afflicting, how irreparable is the loss of so courageous and inflexible an asserter of truth and freedom as Mr. Whitbread!

A few years since he was induced, partly from motives of friendship, and partly from a taste for the drama, to undertake to reorganize the chaos of the Drury Lane pro perty, and to rebuild the theatre, which had been two seasons in ruins. The frauds, the baseness, and the chicanery, which he had to

encounter and overcome in this task, resembled the labour of Hercules in cleansing the Augean stable; yet he surmounted every difficulty and, by the influence of his integrity and perseverance, the most perfect establishment of the kind has been raised that exists in the world. The gratitude of the proprietors, and the applause of the public, were unbounded; yet the dividends fell short of Mr. Whitbread's hopes, and he stood committed to many personal friends, who had staked all their property in the concern. These circumstances lacerated his feelings, and, though apparently insignificant to a mind occupied with mighty objects, which included the welfare of his country and the destiny of the human race, they were that feather which turned the scale-they were that last drop which made the cup run overand they produced an intellectual plethora -fits of mental distraction-and, finally,

DEATH!

This event took place on Thursday, July the 6th, about ten in the morning, at his house in Dover-street, Piccadilly. On the same evening a coroner's jury sat on the body, and, after hearing the evidence of some of his intimate friends, they found a verdict of insanity.

For the satisfaction of his friends and the public, it was deemed proper to submit the brain to the examination of an eminent physician and surgeon, and the following is the REPORT:—“ On removing the upper part of skull, it was observed that the dura matter had become thickened and ossified to the extent of a quarter of an inch in length, and an eighth of an inch in breadth, on the left side of the longitudinal sinus, not far from the lamboidal suture. The vessels of the pia mater were considerably distended with blood, and this membrane was thickened and opaque near to the ossified part of the dura mater. The ventricles of the brain contained more fluid than usual, by one-third at least, and the pia mater covering the cerebellum, was thicker than usual.

ing, and had transacted business, and entertained his friends on the previous day, without sensible change; the shock, therefore, of an event so unforeseen, was like that of an earthquake, and it spread itself over the town with equal rapidity, and communicated similar feelings of grief and dismay.

Mr. Whitbread was allied to earl Grey by a double marriage; having been united, in 1788, to Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of sir Charles, afterwards earl, Grey, by whom he had four surviving children; while his sister, Mary Whitbread, in 1789, gave her hand to the hon. George Grey, brother of earl Grey. Another sister, Emma, in 1780, was married to the late lord St. John, of Bletsoe, whom she survives; and a third, and eldest, was united, in 1789, to his neighbour, Mr. Gordon, of Moore-park.

Whatever may have been the transcendant qualities of Mr. Whitbread as a public cha racter and patriot, he maintained the consistency of his principles in all the relations of private life. He was a kind and indulgent husband; a tender and affectionate parent; zealous and faithful in his friendships; and a master to whom his servants were devoted through life. His fire-side was always cheerful and happy. He kept an hospitable table; and was, at Southill, a living portrait of the race of independent country gentlemen, of which few counties possess now more than a solitary instance. He has often been represented as severe, in exacting from all connected with him the performance of their duties; but this was with him a principle. It was his maxim that every man in his sphere ought to do his duty with zeal and honesty-from its practice he never released himself, and he could not brook indifference in others. He used to say, that, if all men performed their relative duties, half the evils which afflict society would not exist; and therefore he deemed it an unpardonable crime for a man to neglect his duty or abuse his trust. Hence also it was, that, in cases of malversation which came within his sphere of action, no consideration of trouble, opposition, or inconvenience, ever deterred him from seeking to correct them, and this he did with such energy as generally secured success One instance within

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