Charles James Fox

“ Henry, the younger, who married Georgina, daughter of the Duke of Richmond, and was himself created, in 1763, Baron Holland of Farley. Of the children of that marriage Charles James Fox was the third son, born on the 24th of January, 1749. The second son had died in infancy.
Henry Fox inherited Tory opinions. He was regarded by George II. as a good man of business, and was made Secretary of War in 1754, when Charles James, whose cleverness made him a favoured child, was five years old. In the next year Henry Fox was Secretary of State for the Southern Department. ”

“ Very different from the "Fox" of Kinderhook was Charles James Fox of England who died a hundred years ago. Strangely enough he was a great Whig, though Whig in England was not the same as Whig in the United States. He was a fine scholar and high statesman; some say, "the greatest debater the world ever saw."
Different still was George Fox of England who died two hundred years ago—one of the purest, best men that ever lived. The Quakers or Friends started from him. He went everywhere preaching the simple teaching of the Bible and against trusting to forms and ceremonies. ”

“ His fortune was made when he secured, through the kindness of Miss Bellamy, who pitied him for his ill-success in play-writing and recommended him to Fox, the post of private chaplain to Lady Caroline Fox, and became domesticated in her family, where he taught Lady Sarah Lennox to declaim and Charles James Fox to read. At the end of 1757 Fox was sent to Eton, and Francis accompanied him to assist the boy in his studies. The father, Henry Fox, best known as Lord Holland, found the Irish tutor a useful ally. ”

“ After carrying his motion for the abolition of the slave trade on the 10th of June, he was forced to give up attendance in parliament, and he died in the house of the duke of Devonshire, at Chiswick, on the 13th of September 1806. His wife survived him till the 8th of July 1842. No children were born of the marriage. Fox is buried in Westminster Abbey by the side of Pitt. ”

“ He had considerable practice on the northern circuit. On 8 March 1807 he received the appointment of chief justice of the Carmarthen circuit. He was a personal friend and warm defender of Charles James Fox. He was seized with paralysis while on circuit at Haverfordwest on 27 Aug. 1828, and died at Tenby on 11 Sept., and was buried at Bristol. He married Susan, daughter of John Cornwall, by whom he had several children. ”

“ In 1776, when he was leading the resistance to Lord North’s colonial policy, he “neither abandoned gaming nor his rakish life. He was seldom in bed before five in the morning nor out of it before two at noon.” At the most important crisis of his life in 1783, he almost made an ostentation of disorder and of indifference not only to appearances, but even to decency. Horace Walpole has drawn a picture of him at that time which Lord Holland, Fox’s beloved and admiring nephew, speaking from his early recollections of his uncle, confesses has “some justification.” ”

“ Fox made many mistakes, due in some cases to vehemence of temperament, and in others only to be ascribed to want of sagacity. That he fought unpopular causes is a very insufficient explanation of his failure as a practical statesman. He could have profited by the reaction which followed popular excitement but for his bad reputation and his want of discretion.
During the eight years between his expulsion from office in 1774 and the fall of Lord North’s ministry in March 1782 he may indeed be said to have done one very great thing in politics. ”

“ He was the last man in the world to act on the worldly-wise maxim that an enemy should always be treated as if he may one day be a friend, and a friend as if he might become an enemy. On the 29th of November 1779 Fox was wounded in a duel with Mr William Adam, a supporter of Lord North’s whom he had savagely denounced. ”

“ James, Duke of Monmouth, was the eldest of the late king’s natural children. In the early parts of his life he held the first place in his father’s affections; and even in the height of Charles’s displeasure at his political conduct, attentive observers thought they could discern that the traces of paternal tenderness were by no means effaced. Appearing at court in the bloom of youth, with a beautiful figure and engaging manners, known to be the darling of the monarch, it is no wonder that he was early assailed by the arts of flattery ”

“ During the violent conflict over the Middlesex election (see Wilkes, John) he took the unpopular side, and vehemently asserted the right of the House of Commons to exclude Wilkes. In 1772 during the proceedings against Crosby and Oliver—a part of the “Wilkes and liberty” agitation—he and Lord North were attacked by a mob and rolled in the mud. But Fox’s character was incompatible with ministerial service under King George III. The king, himself a man of orderly life, detested him as a gambler and a rake. And Fox was too independent to please a master who expected obedience. ”

“ A statesman whose words have to be interpreted by an esoteric meaning cannot fairly complain if he is often misunderstood. In 1788 he travelled in Italy, but returned in haste on hearing of the illness of the king. Fox supported the claim of the prince of Wales to the regency as a right, a doctrine which provoked Pitt into declaring that he would “unwhig the gentleman for the rest of his life.” ”

“ The carnage became every day more general and more indiscriminate, and the murder of peasants in their houses, or while employed at their usual work in the fields, by the soldiers, was not only not reproved or punished, but deemed a meritorious service by their superiors. The demise of King Charles, which happened about this time, caused no suspension or relaxation in these proceedings, which seemed to have been the crowning measure, as it were, or finishing stroke of that system, for the steady perseverance in which James so much admired the resolution of his brother. ”

“ No measure was ever attended with more complete success. The most flattering addresses poured in from all parts of the kingdom; divine right, and indiscriminate obedience, were everywhere the favourite doctrines; and men seemed to vie with each other who should have the honour of the greatest share in the glorious work of slavery, by securing to the king, for the present, and after him to the duke, absolute and uncontrollable power. ”

“ The truth is that the guilt of the action—that is to say, the taking away of the life of the king, is what most men in the place of Cromwell and his associates would have incurred; what there is of splendour and of magnanimity in it, I mean the publicity and solemnity of the act, is what few would be capable of displaying. It is a degrading fact to human nature, that even the sending away of the Duke of Gloucester was an instance of generosity almost unexampled in the history of transactions of this nature. ”

“ Fox, in his History of James II, "must always be considered as an indelible disgrace upon the English nation, in which king, parliament, judges, juries, witnesses, prosecutors, have all their respective, though certainly not equal shares. ”

“ At any rate it must be admitted that to cling to life is a strong instinct in human nature, and Monmouth might reasonably enough satisfy himself, that when his death could not by any possibility benefit either the public or his friends, to follow such instinct, even in a manner that might tarnish the splendour of heroism, was no impeachment of the moral virtue of a man. ”

“ The subsequent measures, therefore, the execution of the king, as well as others, are not to be considered as acts of the Parliament, but of Cromwell; and great and respectable as are the names of some who sat in the high court, they must be regarded, in this instance, rather as ministers of that usurper than as acting from themselves.
The execution of the king, though a far less violent measure than that of Lord Strafford, is an event of so singular a nature that we cannot wonder that it should have excited more sensation than any other in the annals of England. ”

“ He had hopes of gaining time, not only to increase his own army, but to avail himself of the Duke of Monmouth’s intended invasion of England, an event which must obviously have great influence upon his affairs, and which, if he could but maintain himself in a situation to profit by it, might be productive of advantages of an importance and extent of which no man could presume to calculate the limits. ”

“ The old division of duties by which the southern secretary had the correspondence with the colonies and the western powers of Europe, and the northern secretary with the others, had been abolished on the formation of the Rockingham cabinet. All foreign affairs were entrusted to Fox. Lord Shelburne meddled in the negotiations for the peace at Paris. He also persuaded his colleagues to grant some rather scandalous pensions, and Fox’s acquiescence in this abuse after his recent agitation against Lord North’s waste did him injury. ”

“ This last pretension came very ill from a statesman who in 1780 had advocated yearly elections. He lost ground daily before the steady good judgment and unblemished character of Pitt. When parliament was dissolved at the end of the session of 1784, the country showed its sentiments by unseating 180 of the followers of Fox and North. Immense harm was done to both by the publication of a book called The Beauties of Fox, North and Burke, a compilation of their abuse of one another in recent years. ”

“ If the duke, in declaring his sorrow for what had passed, used the word invasion, “Give it the true name,” said they, “and call it rebellion.” “What name you please,” replied the mild-tempered Monmouth. He was sure he was going to everlasting happiness, and considered the serenity of his mind in his present circumstances as a certain earnest of the favour of his Creator. His repentance, he said, must be true, for he had no fear of dying; he should die like a lamb. “Much may come from natural courage,” was the unfeeling and stupid reply of one of the assistants. ”

“ The fact itself, that Rumbold did, in his last hours, solemnly deny the having been concerned in any project for assassinating the king or duke, has not, I believe, been questioned. It is not invalidated by the silence of some historians: it is confirmed by the misrepresentation of others. The first question that naturally presents itself must be, was this declaration true? The asseverations of dying men have always had, and will always have, great influence upon the minds of those who do not push their ill opinion of mankind to the most outrageous and unwarrantable length ”

“ The Tories, of course, are unfavourable to him; and even among the Whigs, there seems, in many, a strong inclination to disparage him; some to excuse themselves for not having joined him, others to make a display of their exclusive attachment to their more successful leader, King William. Burnet says of Monmouth, that he was gentle, brave, and sincere: to these praises, from the united testimony of all who knew him, we may add that of generosity; and surely those qualities go a great way in making up the catalogue of all that is amiable and estimable in human nature. ”

“ This circumstance, perhaps, as much, or more than the king’s personal kindness to a brother-in-law, had contributed to his advancement to the first office in the State. As long, therefore, as James stood in need of the support of the party, as long as he meant to make them the instruments of his power, and the channels of his favour, Rochester was, in every respect, the fittest person in whom to confide; and accordingly, as that nobleman related to Burnet, his majesty honoured him with daily confidential communications upon all his most secret schemes and projects. ”

“ Monmouth had suffered this flexibility, so laudable in many cases, to degenerate into a habit which made him often follow the advice, or yield to the entreaties, of persons whose characters by no means entitled them to such deference. The sagacity of Shaftesbury, the honour of Russell, the genius of Sydney, might, in the opinion of a modest man, be safe and eligible guides. The partiality of friendship, and the conviction of his firm attachment, might be some excuse for his listening so much to Grey; but he never could, at any period of his life, have mistaken Ferguson for an honest man. ”

“ It is too plain that, in the instance of this declaration, Monmouth, with a facility highly criminal, consented to set his name to whatever Ferguson recommended as advantageous to the cause. Among the many dreadful circumstances attending civil wars, perhaps there are few more revolting to a good mind than the wicked calumnies with which, in the heat of contention, men, otherwise men of honour, have in all ages and countries permitted themselves to load their adversaries. ”

“ No human being, he adds, was ever more free from every trace of malignity, vanity, or falsehood. The combination of so many admirable qualities of public and private character, sufficiently accounts for the fact that no English statesman, during so long a period of adverse fortune, retained so many attached friends and zealous adherents, as Charles Fox. ”

“ Men zealous for monarchy might not choose to embark without some certain pledge that their favourite form should be preserved. They would also expect to be satisfied with respect to the person whom their arms, if successful, were to place upon the throne. To promise, therefore, the continuance of a monarchical establishment, and to designate the future monarch, seemed to be necessary for the purpose of acquiring aristocratical support. Whatever might be the intrinsic weight of this argument, it easily made its way with Monmouth in his present situation. ”