Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

been chosen by the constituents with whom he has for the most part lived, and by whom his qualities have been appreciated from his youth upwards to the present moment, it is no less an honour, and, as we are sure it will continue to be, an advantage for those constituents to possess the abilities, the zeal, and the heart of such a representative.

Mr. Palmer's person is what Sterne has called in the softer, and which is no less applicable to the stronger sex, "of the first order of staturcs." In his youth he was as delicately formed as was consistent with a manly texture of body; his eyes were prominently placed, and full of that vivid fire which denotes energy of mind and quickness of apprehension, and they still retain enough of those indications of a ready and vigorous spirit, mellowed by the hand of time, and, alas! by that of sorrow, which spares neither the just nor unjust. The faculties, however, of his body and mind are yet in that maturity which constitutes, both for thought and for action, an able and valuable member of the British House of Commons, of the great community of man; and the extent of his endeavours for public good, we are justified in predicting, will be bounded only by the extension of his power and of his life.

From residing many years at Bath, Mr. Palmer has enjoyed a most extensive acquaintance; and so worthy is his heart, so open his mind, and so inviting his manners, that his friendships are scarcely less numerous than his acquaintance. He has maintained an unbroken intimacy with most of the first

people

people of the country, and with men of talents of all parties. In this intercourse, he has acquired a general knowledge of people of all characters and descriptions, which was of infinite consequence to him in promoting and carrying on his grand national plan, by influencing and encouraging the minds and governing the passions of such a body of men, even more difficult to rule than a company of comedians, the proprietors of the mail coaches.

No man has ever observed the least change of character or conduct in Mr. Palmer in any situation, bowever prosperous or adverse; and it may be also said of him, that, as he never remembered an injury, so he never forgot an obligation.

And it is amongst the rare instances of a truly great character escaping that malicious rapacity which all greatness more or less creates, that even those who in the Commons' House of Parliament most strongly opposed the benefit of the nation in opposing the postoffice plan, bore honourable testimony to the worth and talents of the projector; nor was there a single hand or voice in the multitude that forms that house which was raised against the man, however they might attempt to obstruct the measure.

[blocks in formation]

LORD MINTO.

THE ELLIOTS are a family of great antiquity in the south of Scotland, where the chiefs of the race were never known in a condition inferior to that of military tenants of the crown, or of the Douglasses, Humes, or Scotts. There are two principal branches of the family; the Elliots of Minto, and the Elliots of Stobbs. The celebrated Elliot who fought and conquered Thurot, a younger brother of one of these families, died not many years since, an old admiral. Lord Heathfield, the famous defender of Gibraltar, was another ornament of the same race and name. Nor are there wanting among the persons who have merited distinction, in the last century, a number of others who do honour to the same descent.

Lord Minto is the third in an unbroken succession of great statesmen, who have been at the head of the family of which he is now the principal representative. His grandfather, Sir Gilbert Elliot, was a judge in the supreme courts of justice civil and criminal, in Scotland. He was distinguished for the rectitude of his decisions, and for the erudition, strength, and acuteness of his law arguments. The affections of the Scots were, in his time, still divided between the exiled Stuarts and the house of Hanover; and, in this situation of affairs, his loyalty and wisdom were eminently proved in the support of the revolution and union settlements, and in his vigilance to defeat every hope of the Jacobites. His son also,

(

Sir

Sir Gilbert Elliot, dedicating his talents wholly to the service of his country in parliamentary and political employments, attained to conspicuous distinction as an orator in the House of Commons, and held, at different times, high secondary offices in administration. He was, in the year 1763, treasurer of the chamber in England, and had obtained the reversion of the office of keeper of the signet in Scotland. As a Scotsman enjoying such appointments, he fell un der the satire of Wilkes, in the famous North Briton. But, so pure and so truly respectable was his character, that the satirist could find no topic of reproach to use against him, but that he was a Scotsman, in the administration, and received some emoluments for his services.

His son, now Lord Minto, was born April 23, 1751. His early education was domestic. And as the connections and views of his family created, even then, a probability that he might, in manhood, be engaged in public life, chiefly on the great theatre of affairs in England; he was, therefore, put to follow out the higher courses of instruction at an English free school, and an English university. It is desireable, that every British gentleman should, as was anciently usual for every eminent citizen of Rome, join to the advantages of a civil and literary, those also of a military education. Mr. Elliot, probably in con sideration of this, was at an early age enrolled in the army, and even promoted to the rank of captain, before he was much more than ten years old. To complete his education, as he was advancing to mature manhood

N 4

manhood, he visited those parts of the continent, over which it is commonly thought fit, that our young men of fortune should travel before they engage in business or settle in the world, in order that they may acquire a due personal knowledge of the general state of European life and policy.

In the year 1774, he was elected into the British House of Commons. The era was important, critical, big with great events.

The colonies of Great Britain in North America, had, for their founders, men, whose ambition of uncontrouled adventure preferred all difficulties and dangers, to the humility of living at home in quiet submission to the laws, and in the common forms of English life. Persons, who, making religion the supreme rule both of civil and political life, and owning in religion, no earthly, no visible, superior guides, were therefore, republican and democratical in their notions of government, became the second class of colonists that went to occupy those regions. They were followed by Roman Catholics, escaping from persecution that provoked their minds almost to a puritan's spirit of freedom, even in spite of the religious principles to which they cherished an attachment. To these were added, from time to time, numbers of the guilty and the miserable, driven into exile by the criminal justice of their country, by poverty, or by a restlessness the fruit of disappointment and sorrow. Intermingled with the colonists of British and Irish descent, were many foreigners, aliens to the British name, and, though taking refuge

under

« VorigeDoorgaan »