liberty, the entire compatibility of the utmost freedom, and honest difference of political opinions, with unity and energy of action, on any serious occasion of peril and alarm.

THE EARL OF LIVERPOOL.

December 4, 1829. At Combe Wood, near Kingston, aged 58, Robert Banks Jenkinson, second Earl of Liverpool, and Baron Hawkesbury, and late First Lord of the Treasury of Great Britain. This distinguished statesman was born June 7, 1770, the only issue of the first marriage of Charles, first Earl of Liverpool, with Amelia, daughter of William Watts, Esq. governor of Fort William, in Bengal.

His first school was one on Parsons Green, Fulham. At the age of thirteen, he was removed to the Charter-house; and thence he became an inmate of Christ-church, Oxford, where he was created M. A. May 19, 1790, and where he formed an intimacy with the late Mr. Canning, of an unusually permanent character.

In the mean time, his father availed himself of the opportunity to sow the seeds of that attach ment to state affairs, and that ac. quaintance with those models and means of political government, which have since sprung up into a harvest of utility to his country, during a season of the most pressing importance. A catalogue of the best writers on the different branches of public economy was put into his hands, and a selection from their purest and most perfect works was prepared for him, to blend with his other college exercises. Commerce and finance were especially attended to; and while

the more abstract departments knowledge were not neglected, chief attention was paid, by both father and son, to the more practi. cal and popular.

Mr. Jenkinson paid a visit to the metropolis of France, about the period of the breaking out of the revolution. He was at Paris when the Bastile was demolished by the mob, and, it is said, was an eye. witness to many of the worst excesses which the streets of the city exhibited at that time. Nor was he an idle spectator of what was then going forward. Intimately acquainted with Mr. Pitt, and, in all probability, requested by him to watch the progress of the revolu tion, and communicate every fresh form which it assumed, Mr. Jenkinson's residence at Paris was, at that time, of essential service to the British government.

At the general election of 1790, Mr. Jenkinson was returned mem. ber both for Appleby and Rye. He made his election for the latter, for which Cinque Port he was also returned at the three subsequent elections of 1796, 1801, and 1802; that is, until summoned to the House of Peers. His election took place full twelve months before his age allowed him to sit in the House, and he returned to pass the intervening time in ac. quiring fresh continental information. At the commencement of the session at the close of 1791, having reached his 21st year, he took his seat under the avowed patronage of the minister, and ear. ly in the following year, made his first speech, in opposition to the resolutions of Mr. Whitbread, on the question of the Empress Catha. rine persisting in her claim to Ochzakow and the adjoining district.

His address manifested a profound knowledge, not only of the subject in dispute between Russia and Turkey at that juncture, but also of the general affairs and prospects of Europe, and the duty of England with reference to the continental nations.

When, on the 15th of December following, 1792, Mr. Fox moved an address to the king, praying "that his majesty would be graciously pleased to give directions that a minister might be sent to Paris, to treat with those persons who exercised provisionally the functions of the executive government of France, touching such points as might be in discussion between his majesty and his allies, and the French nation," Mr. Jenkinson, in the temporary absence of Mr. Pitt, (who had vacated his seat in the house of commons, by accepting the Wardenship of the Cinque Ports,) replied to Mr. Fox, in a speech of great animation and power.

Mr. Fox's motion was rejected without a division. The talents and efforts of Mr. Jenkinson, on this occasion, were warmly complimented by Mr. Burke. From that time, he rapidly rose in the conside. ration of all parties; and began to take a prominent part in combat. ing the arguments of the whig opposition. In April, 1793, he was appointed one of the commissioners of the India Board, the duties of which situation he performed until 1806.

When Mr. Grey, on the 6th of May, 1793, brought forward his memorable petition on the subject of parliamentary reform, Mr. Jenkinson stood foremost in the rank of its opposers, asserting that the house of commons, constituted

as it was, had answered the end for which it was designed.

Upon commercial subjects, Mr. Jenkinson might be expected, in the language of Mr. Sheridan, to have some claims to "hereditary knowledge." He always entered upon them with confidence; and, on Mr. Grey's motion in the house of commons, March 10, 1796, for an inquiry into the state of the nation, he took an able view of the effect of the war upon British commerce, from its commencement, and contended that, notwithstanding the weight of so great a war, the commercial situation of Great Britain was more prosperous than at any antecedent period.

On the 28th of May, 1796, Mr. Jenkinson participated in the honours of his family, so far as to exchange that appellation, for his father's second title, Lord Hawkes. bury; his father being, at that time, created Earl of Liverpool. In 1799, Lord Hawkesbury was ap pointed master worker of the mint, which he held until his higher pre ferment in March, 1801.

After the temporary retirement of Mr. Pitt from power, in 1801, the new ministry, at the head of which was Mr. Addington, was announced on the 14th of March, Lord Hawkesbury was appointed to the important office of secretary of state for the foreign department, and actively engaged in the de bates which ensued.

The great business of the succeeding summer and autumn, was the adjustment of preliminaries of peace with France; and Lord Hawkesbury, as foreign secretary, was intrusted with the interests of Great Britain in the negotiation.

On Lord Hawkesbury devolved, at this period, much of what is

called the management of the house of commons, and of course he spoke on every topic involving the character of the administration; but, at the opening of the next session, in December, 1803, in order to strengthen the ministry in the house of lords, he was summoned by writ to that house, to sit in his father's barony.

Lord Hawkesbury was not unfriendly to the United States, and shortly before Mr. King's return to this country, a convention was signed by him, definitively adjust. ing the northern and eastern boun. dary lines of the United States, in a manner advantageous to us. He also assented to an article, renouncing all pretensions, on the part of Great Britain, to impress any person of whatever country, out of a vessel under the American flag. The convention, however, was rejected by Mr. Jefferson, from a mistaken idea of its effect on the boundary of Louisiana, and the article relative to impressment was not executed, through the opposition of Lord Stowel.

On the 12th of May, 1804, it was announced that Mr. Addington had resigned. Mr. Pitt returned to the head of administration; and Lord Hawkesbury received the seals of the home department.

On the death of Mr. Pitt, in Jan. 1806, his late majesty honoured him, in the first instance, with his confidence and commands, with respect to the formation of a new ministry; but Lord Hawkesbury, well knowing the situation and relative strength of public parties, declined the offer.

On the return of Mr. Pitt's friends to power in the following year, Lord Hawkesbury resumed his situ

ation in the cabinet as secretary of state for the home department; still declining any higher, and especially avoiding the highest office. In the defence of all the great measures of government,-particularly the expedition to Copenhagen, and the celebrated orders in council,he took a prominent part.

By the death of his father, in 1808, he became the head of his family, as second Earl of Liverpool.

When the quarrel and subsequent duel between Lord Castlereagh and Mr. Canning induced them to resign their situations in the government, and the Duke of Portland to withdraw from being its nominal head, Mr. Percival, still finding the Earl of Liverpool averse to the premiership, united in name, as he had already done in effect, the two offices of first Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer. Earl of Liverpool, however, consented, in this new arrangement, to become secretary of state for the war department.

The

At length, an event as unexpected as it was calamitous, the assas sination of Mr. Percival, on the 11th of May, 1812, left the minis. try in so disjointed a state, that the Earl of Liverpool yielded to the request of the Prince Regent, to place himself at its head. So reluctant, however, was he, to the last, to become the chief minister of the realm, that he did not consent until Marquis Wellesley, and Lords Grey and Grenville, had decidedly declined the offer.

No man ever rose to an exalted station by more gradual or more natural steps, than those by which the Earl of Liverpool attained the

premiership. He had now been in parliament twenty years, taking in each house successively a leading part in every debate of national importance; and he had been, during more than half that period, in the confidential service of the

crown.

On the 8th of June, 1812, he was appointed first commissioner of the treasury. The only additions to the ministry, on the occasion, were LordSidmouth, and Mr. Van sittart, now Lord Bexley.

On the 9th of June, 1814, the Earl of Liverpool was elected a knight of the most noble order of the Garter.

After the animated debates on the subject of the second regency, the premier had glided, by an easy transition from the councils of the father to those of the son; and when the reign of the former was closed by death, the changes frequently consequent on such occurrences, were neither expected nor witnessed. When the premier and the other ministers resigned their seals, pro formá, on the morning after the king's demise, they were severally reinstated in their respective offices.

The Earl of Liverpool's last appearance in public was in February, 1827. The two last motions he made in the house of peers, were personally connected with the royal family-those of moving an address of condolence to his majesty, on the death of the Duke of York, and for a further provision for the duke and duchess of Cla rence. The latter duty was performed on the 16th of February. He retired to rest at Fife House at his usual hour, and apparently in good health. On the

following morning, Saturday, the 17th of February, he took his breakfast alone, in his library, at ten o'clock. At about that hour also, he received the post letters. Some time after, his servant, not hav. ing, as usual, heard his bell, entered the apartment, and found him stretched on the floor, motionless and speechless. From his position, it was evident that he had fallen in the act of opening a letter. It appeared that he had been seized by a fit, both of an apopletic and a paralytic nature, which affected the whole of his right side. As soon as his situation would admit, he was removed to his seat in Combe Wood. There he remained for the nearly two remaining years of his life, with various fluctuations of his disease, although at no time with the slightest prospect of convalescence.

He had been for some days in his ordinary state, and no symp. toms calculated to excite immediate apprehension had occurred, when, on Thursday, the 4th of December, 1828, he was attacked with convulsions and spasms soon after breakfast, and before Mr. Sandford, a medical friend in the neighbourhood, could arrive, hist lordship had breathed his last. The countess, his brother, and Mr. Child, his steward, were present in the apartment.

If the Earl of Liverpool was not a man of brilliant genius, or lively fancy, he was possessed of powerful talents, sound principles, and unimpeachable integrity. From his youth, he abstained from mix. ing in the common-place business of the world; he had no relish for those amusements and occupations which other men pursue with such