Edward John Payne

“ The scrupulous uprightness of Grey’s political and private character completed the ascendancy which he gained; and no politician could be named who, without being a statesman of the highest class, has left a name more enviably placed in English history. ”

“ The duke of Wellington undertook the hopeless task of constructing a ministry which should pass a restricted or sham Reform Bill. The only man who could have made the success of such a ministry even probable was Peel, and Peel’s conscience and good sense forbade the attempt. He refused, and after a week of the profoundest agitation throughout the country, the king, beaten and mortified, was forced to send for Grey and Brougham. On being told that his consent to the creation of peers was the only condition on which they could undertake the government, he angrily and reluctantly yielded. ”

“ The Society of the Friends of the People was originally an after-dinner folly, extemporized at the house of a man who afterwards gained an earldom by denouncing it as seditious. Fox discountenanced it, though he did not directly condemn it; but Grey was overborne by the fierce Jacobinism of Lauderdale, and avowed himself the parliamentary mouthpiece of this dangerous agitation. But Pitt, strong in his position, cut the ground from under Grey’s feet by suppressing the agitation with a strong hand. ”

“ The confidence which the bold action of the ministry had won was soon plainly proved, for the second reading was carried in the new parliament by a majority of 136. When the bill had at length passed the Commons after months of debate, it was Grey’s task to introduce it to the Lords. It was rejected by a majority of 41. The safety of the country now depended on the prudence and courage of the ministry. The resignation of Grey and his colleagues was dreaded even by the opposition, and they remained in office with the intention of introducing a third Reform Bill in the next session. ”

“ Both were equally devoid of political originality, shunned the severer labours of the politician, and instinctively feared any deviation from the traditions of their party. Such men cannot save a party in its decadence, and the history of Fox and Grey has been aptly termed the history of the decline and fall of Whiggism. ”

“ Such would have been the result if they had lacked the determination to carry out their programme to the end. The influence of every statesman in the country would then have been extinguished, and the United Kingdom would have been absolutely in the hands of O’Connell and Orator Hunt. ”