“ In 1821 he was a member of the committee appointed to inquire into the causes of the agricultural distress then prevailing, and the proposed relaxation of the corn laws embodied in the report was understood to have been chiefly due to his strenuous advocacy. In 1823 he was appointed president of the board of trade and treasurer of the navy, and shortly afterwards he received a seat in the cabinet. In the same year he was returned for Liverpool as successor to Canning, and as the only man who could reconcile the Tory merchants to a free trade policy. ”

“ Having been placed in his fourteenth year under the charge of his maternal great-uncle Dr Gem, physician to the English embassy at Paris, in 1783 he passed his early years amidst a political fermentation which led him to take a deep interest in politics. ”