WARD, Hon. John William (1781-1833), of Himley Hall, Staffs.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1790-1820, ed. R. Thorne, 1986
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

1802 - July 1803
18 July 1803 - 1806
1806 - 1807
1807 - 1812
1812 - 1818
8 Apr. 1819 - 15 Apr. 1823

Family and Education

b. 9 Aug. 1781, o.s. of William Ward, 3rd Visct. Dudley and Ward, by Julia, da. of Godfrey Bosvile of Gunthwaite, Yorks. educ. privately at Paddington, Edinburgh Univ. 1797-8; Oriel, Oxf. 1799 (BA, Corpus 1802). unm. suc. fa. as 4th Visct. as Apr. 1823; cr. Earl of Dudley 5 Oct. 1827.

Offices Held

Sec. of state for Foreign affairs Apr. 1827-May 1828; PC 30 Apr. 1827.

Capt. Dudley vols. 1803, lt.-col. 1803.

Biography

Ward’s inheritance in Worcestershire and Staffordshire, with its extensive coal mines, was estimated at £120,000 a year. But he presented himself to the world as the embittered only child of unfeeling parents who demanded ‘entire subservience’ from him, while neglecting his education, and posed as an intellectual frondeur, come to grief in politics. He consoled himself with the sensual exploitation of ‘a terrible set of battered old harridans’, pornographically detailed in his journals, burnt by his executors together with his correspondence (which he directed to be destroyed unread). Thomas Creevey supplied a laconic epitaph:

Poor Ward, with all his acquirements and talents, made little of it, went mad and died.

Yet his aim was ‘conspicuous station in mixed political, literary and fashionable society’. ‘Chirping and affected’ and ‘piquant’ as he was, he exhausted everybody’s patience. Thus Mary Berry:

his observations are always acute, often droll. But there is nil grande in that man; and with a keen and too accurate observation of the littlenesses and vanities of others, he is, if I am not much mistaken, overcharged with both himself.

She added, ‘But his manners are bad, and with a sort of affectation of worldism, smell most strongly of never having been in any other world than that of London’. Madame de Staël’s ambition was ‘to make him poli envers les femmes et pieux envers Dieu’.1

Ward’s early parliamentary career was financed by his father, who purchased a seat for a ‘snug little borough’ on Lord Radnor’s interest for £4,500 for him, just before he came of age. His father, too, insisted on his contesting the Worcestershire by-election of 1803: he would have preferred to have ‘no constituents to shake by the hand’ and could not recover any of his father’s outlay at Downton, though he could seek re-election there if he failed for Worcestershire. As it was, he came in unopposed for the county, but faced a certain contest at the next election. His father had no objection to spending £20,000 to secure him, but he had no intention of persevering there.2

In the House he was at first influenced by his father’s support for Pitt and later alleged, ‘I admired his astonishing talents almost to enthusiasm and I was glad to follow him when I entertained hopes that he was likely to form political connections more worthy of him and to adopt more salutary views’. He first spoke in vindication of the constitutional propriety of the naval commission of inquiry, 18 Dec. 1802, but voted against Addington’s ministry on the Prince of Wales’s finances, 4 Mar. 1803, and on 3 June supported Pitt’s question for the orders of the day. On 2 Aug. he voted for Fox’s motion for a council of generals. In March 1804 he was listed Pitt, supporting his motion for naval inquiry on 15 Mar.: but there were already further symptoms of his wish to embrace the Foxite and Grenvillite opposition. On 28 Feb. 1804 he had dined with the Pittites and Grenvillites, Canning claiming that his friend Lord Granville Leveson Gower gave Ward over to him ‘to make him violent if I could’. He was in the minorities on the conduct of the Irish government and the war in Ceylon, 7 and 14 Mar., and again on Irish questions, 10, 12, 16 Apr., before joining the combined onslaught on Addington on 23 and 25 Apr. On 8 May 1804 he joined Brooks’s Club. Pitt had disappointed his hopes, preferring ‘office to real glory, and an individual power acquired in the least creditable way, and along with the least creditable associates, to a more limited sway, founded upon better principles, and shared with more suitable companions’.3 On 11 June he joined opposition to his additional force bill. He was listed ‘in opposition not quite certain’ and then ‘Fox and Grenville’ in September 1804. He further opposed on war with Spain, 12 Feb., the duration of Irish habeas corpus suspension, 15 Feb., and on defence, 21 Feb., 6 Mar. 1805. On 8 Apr. he exulted to be in the majority censuring Melville and he was listed ‘Opposition’ in July.

On Pitt’s death, Ward was disgusted at ‘the savage exultation of some part of the Grenville family at an event which no difference in politics ought to have prevented them from deploring’. Nor, while they were in office, was he an effective supporter of the Grenville ministry in its first session, being kept ‘a close prisoner’ by illness. Returned at his father’s expense as a paying guest for Petersfield at the election of 1806, he was a staunch supporter of the abolition of the slave trade, despite his being heir to West Indian property. He also stood by the Grenville ministry on its dismissal, lamenting the triumph of ‘bigotry and Toryism’. He seconded Henry Martin’s motion to prevent Perceval’s obtaining the duchy of Lancaster for life, 25 Mar. 1807, supported Brand’s motion, 9 Apr., and on 15 Apr. made, in support of Lyttelton’s motion, ‘quite the speech of a debater—powerful, animated, and full of the most pointed sarcasm and attack’.4 Although he had no confidence in Grenville and Howick as opposition leaders, he sacrificed his father’s assistance to join them. His father supporting the Portland ministry, he was found a Whig seat on John Calcraft’s interest for Wareham.

While voting almost steadily with opposition in the sessions of 1807 and 1808, Ward revealed ‘schismatic’ tendencies. On 27 July 1807, convinced as he admitted by Grattan’s plea in favour of it, he went away rather than oppose the Irish insurrection bill. Creevey assured Whitbread, 8 Jan. 1808, that Ward was ‘as decidedly for activity as to Ireland and all other subjects of importance’ as he was ‘decidedly against the Copenhagen business’. Indeed, he voted with the minorities of 28 Jan., 3 and 8 Feb. 1808 in censure of that expedition. On 4 Feb. he wrote to Whitbread recounting his disillusionment with Pitt and added:

He has bequeathed to us a tremendous legacy—the war, and the war principle, which have been to us the source of evils which it is now past the power of human wisdom to redress. Of that principle you have been the able and uniform opponent, and are on that account fairly entitled to the respect and support of all who look to a total change in our absurd system of irritation and insult towards other nations, and the consequent restoration of peace, as the only means by which the country can be saved from that total ruin, which is not the less near, because some persons choose to treat those as criminal, who foresee, and endeavour to warn the rest of its approach.

This was a prelude to an able speech in defence of Whitbread’s resolution in favour of peace negotiations, 29 Feb. 1808, and in defiance of the opposition leadership. On 28 Mar. he championed the offices in reversion bill as a measure of public economy against the hostility of the Lords, who, as he had already complained on the previous 10 Aug., were thereby bringing Parliament into discredit. On 4 Apr. 1808 he was proposed for a vacancy on the finance committee, but rejected by 70 votes to 21. According to Nicholas Vansittart, he was the young Member most likely to rise to eminence, though ‘too much entangled with the opposition to adopt a discreet and independent course of his own’.5

He next planned his first foreign visit, to Spain with Lord and Lady Holland. He was at the meeting to endorse Ponsonby’s leadership of the opposition, 18 Jan. 1809, but wry about their prospects. He disliked the conjunction of Whitbread with the radicals on the Duke of York’s case, to which he contributed only a few questions, 20 Feb. 1809, and a vote against Perceval’s face-saving resolution, 17 Mar. He had been in the minority against the convention of Cintra, 21 Feb. He could not concur in the attack on Castlereagh, 25 Apr. 1809. He then proceeded to Spain and became sceptical of the resistance to Buonaparte. He complained, 6 Sept. 1809, of the ‘sad, disjointed state’ of opposition, but the remodelling of the ministry under Perceval and the Walcheren fiasco revived his hopes. Perceval, whom he personally admired, had thoughts of making him an offer, but was assured that he was not to be had. He looked forward to Canning’s junction with opposition, refusing to condemn his treatment of Castlereagh. Canning returned the compliment, thinking Ward and Milnes by far the most promising young Members, but disappointing his hopes of an alliance. He was chosen to second the amendment next session, ‘a person agreeable to our schismatics’, according to Francis Homer; Ward’s jokes at the expense of the Whig leaders were by then notorious and he insisted on Whitbread’s being consulted on the question.6

Ward’s speech of 23 Jan. 1810, after some absence from the House, restored his credit and reinforced his claim to have delivered, as Brougham recalled, ‘some of the most splendid orations which have been heard in Parliament, whether we regard the closeness of the reasoning, the force of their sarcasm, or the inimitable beauty of their composition’. Yet Brougham himself was assured in January 1810 on the authority of ‘a very good judge of parliamentary speaking’

that he thought Ward capable of making himself one of the best speakers in the House of Commons, but that the fastidiousness of his taste and his fear of damaging his reputation would probably confine him to 2 or 3 annual declamations for life.

Ward took no further part in the Walcheren debates, but opposed ministers steadily, voting even with the extremist minority of 29 Jan. Perceval had proposed him in vain for the finance committee on 31 Jan. On 12 Feb., speaking in defence of Bankes’s campaign against sinecures, he urged him to join opposition. But in April he was disillusioned: opposition had made ‘a sad job of Walcheren at last’ and he had developed a real dislike of ‘a mere transitory cry’ for reform, fanned by the Palace Yard radicals and the conduct of Burdett, from whom he was anxious for the Whigs to dissociate themselves. He voted for the discharge of Gale Jones, 16 Apr.; but next day opposed the Westminster petition for Burdett’s release and did not clear himself of inconsistency when he declined to oppose the Middlesex petition of 3 May. On 10 May he admitted that the question of reform must be an open one, not confined to the present electors, and on 18 May he opposed the expunging from the journals of the House’s proceedings against Castlereagh the year before. But he was in the majority against Brand’s motion for parliamentary reform, 21 May, approving Canning’s speech against it. He voted with the minority on the droits of Admiralty, 30 May. Next day he was chosen chairman of the committee on sinecures, on which he served for the remainder of the Parliament. He deserted his leaders a week later, detached by William Lamb, on the question of privilege. In July he was described as ‘more and more connected with Canning personally, and is one of those who are most desirous that a political junction should take place between him and the opposition’.7

Canning’s exclusion was one of the reasons given by Ward for his refusal to accept office when the Whigs were cabinet-making at the commencement of the Regency. He had two options, preferably the joint paymastership of the forces or, if he insisted, an under-secretaryship at the Foreign Office under Lord Grey.8 Advised by William Lamb and Canning, he declined both:

I had various reasons ... In the first place I had great doubts whether I could contribute enough to the support of a government to make it worth their while to bestow upon me so high and lucrative a situation—and I had rather they should owe me a little than that I should owe them a great deal. In the next, I have for a long time past sat very loosely to the party, and have not hesitated to blame them openly in conversation for many of their proceedings, both in and out of office, though I have always supported them by my vote. Now I doubt whether it would have been quite consistent with high notions of honour to draw my connection with them closer, just at the moment when they were coming into power, and to cement it by taking a valuable place, and one for which there must have been so many competitors.

On 22 Feb. 1811, simultaneously with Lansdowne in the Lords, Ward moved for explanation of the Irish secretary Wellesley Pole’s ban on the Catholic convention meeting. His motion was defeated by 80 votes to 43. Wellesley Pole chose to believe that Ward did not even vote for his own motion, but he was teller. He took no further part that session: with William Lamb, he went away rather than support Folkestone’s motion of 28 Mar.; of the opposition to the reinstatement of the Duke of York as c.-in-c., he commented, ‘The whole question fairly belongs to the Jacobins’. He was interested only in ‘the gentlemanlike part of the opposition’. He spoke only on 1 Apr. 1811 to complain of the inadequate support given by the Spanish junto to General Graham in the battle of Barrosa. In September he declined an opening for a seat in the next Parliament offered by Lord Holland—but two months later accepted one procured him by James Abercromby.9

While Ward speculated avidly about the political outcome of the expiry of the Regency restrictions, he did not commit himself in the House. He went away on the division of 21 Jan. 1812 and also (unless he paired) on Morpeth’s Irish motion, 4 Feb. His votes with the minorities of 24, 27 Feb. and 3 Mar. were crypto-Canningite. On 16 Mar., against his own side, he supported the subsidy to Portugal, indicating that, although he had always been critical of the Peninsular campaign, he thought it too late to withdraw. This was an assurance he had made to Canning when the latter hinted that it was a stumbling block to his union with the Whig opposition. On 24 Mar. he was instructed by the House to help Bankes prepare the bill to abolish sinecures. He voted with opposition on the constitutionality of McMahon’s Regency appointment, 14 Apr., and for Catholic relief on 24 Apr.: but his ‘somewhat extravagant’ attack on parliamentary reform on 8 May, in which he assailed democracy, was a greater shock to some (including Brougham) than Perceval’s death.10 He had found nothing to object to in Perceval except his opinions, but he did not now retract his view of three months before:

I don’t think the Prince is inclined to take opposition as a body, and to the exclusion of everybody else. If they make that a condition it will be very foolish. They will have the country against them, and enable him to get rid of them for ever. They ought to take almost anybody he proposes, provided he consents to Catholic emancipation. Indeed, they will want some support beyond what they can have from their own troops, particularly in the House of Commons, where they have no man that is at all a match for little Perceval.

On 21 May he supported Stuart Wortley’s motion for a stronger administration. He took it for granted that Wellesley and Canning (who appear to have had him in mind as secretary at war) would come into office, ‘but whether they will have ministry or opposition for their associates seems quite uncertain’.

When the Whigs refused to take office in June over the control of the Regent’s household, it was for Ward the last straw: he enlisted ‘under the banners of Canning’. To his surrogate mother, Mrs Dugald Stewart, he justified himself:

It is always disagreeable to quit those with whom one has long acted, and I only did it when I found that I could act with them no longer. No man is more willing than myself to submit to the judgment of his commanding officers upon subordinate questions, but when the difference becomes fundamental, it is better to quit the service. And I am able to say with perfect confidence and with truth, that in leaving the Lords G[renville and Grey] I have abandoned no principle, and violated no tie either of gratitude or friendship. I had contracted with them no intimacy, I had incurred to them no obligation. On all material points on which I agree with them, I agree with Canning.

On some very material ones, I agree with him and disagree with them: and as the only true foundation of political union (between independent people) is political agreement, I consider myself at full liberty to join the person whose opinions are most in unison with my own. I quit the Whigs in perfect good humour with them. Indeed, if I felt any personal resentment rankling in my breast, I should distrust my own judgment and pause.

His desertion of them, which he refused to disclose to the Whig leaders himself, transpired at a moment when Canning was involved in an abortive negotiation with Lord Liverpool, which inspired the accusation that Ward was a place-seeker. This was denied by those who knew him best, and by himself:

Canning was in negotiation with the ministry but he is off entirely, which I am glad of, as I had rather support him or any other leader out of power than in. By the bye I daresay I shall be suspected of having made a good bargain for myself. It is so far from being true, that if he had come in the other day I should have had no office whatever. Nay more, I am not even sure of a seat, which under the Whig dispensation I should have been.

In fact, he had attempted to retain his option on the seat procured him by the Whigs in November 1811 but, on reflection, ceded it; as it was, he was exposed to much ridicule on the supposition that he had mistimed his conversion in the hope of office. That he was ‘too flighty and unsettled in his politics to be useful’ was the Whig consolation. Nor was he likely to carry others with him. Francis Horner was sure he would soon repent:

I am much vexed at Ward’s conduct, not that I was greatly surprised at it, for he has long hankered after Canning, but this fresh instance of change sets upon him an indelible character for political inconstancy, which the very honesty and excellence of his intentions in politics will be sure to keep up by some further change hereafter; for though he has no well settled opinions, he is sure to be thrown off from Canning’s course some day or other by the duplicity and trick which are so favourite a practice with that political leader.11

Nevertheless, Ward’s reasons for his volte face as conveyed by James Abercromby to Lords Grey and Grenville were sufficiently embarrassing to the Whig leadership. They were

the principle on which the negotiation with Lord Moira broke off, which he says leads to an interminable and unnecessary war with the Court and of course operates as an insuperable bar to the admission to office of those who consider the principle as indispensable in the formation of an administration. Ward also urges the unsatisfactory state of the party in the House of Commons owing to the want of concert, the want of authority on the part of the leaders, and the growing influence of the more popular portion of the opposition.12

Rendered peevish by his relegation from Whig society (he had already quarrelled with Lord and Lady Holland) to the motley assemblies of the pariah Princess of Wales (Canning’s friend) and his own hospitality, he had also to suffer ‘the pride and reserve of Lady Grey’. But it was to Brougham that he justified himself most cogently (before announcing his conversion) and Brougham who presented the best balanced account of his motives (to Lord Grey). Ward expressed to him his disgust of ‘the pitiful, sneaking conduct of Snouch and Mother Cole’ (Ponsonby and Tierney) and his regret that he could no longer subscribe to Whitbread’s views or to his mania for popularity. Brougham assured Grey that Ward was ‘quite free from any tinge even the slightest of corruption, or place hunting’: he did not seek office under any set of men; his criticisms of the Whig leaders were not without foundation; he was alarmed at the progress of ‘popular principles’ and, above all, he would feel ‘more comfortable’ with Canning. ‘He greatly admires, somewhat likes and in no little degree fears Canning for his classical attainments and his jokes and flings.’ Not being able to beat him or ally him with the Whigs, he must needs join him. Brougham, like Horner, was sure ‘he can’t follow Canning long—and his quitting him again may expose him’.13

Ward was ‘pretty much on the pavé’ as regards a seat at the election of 1812. In May he had declined all thought of offering for the vacant Staffordshire seat, from his aversion to his paternal home. He was also mentioned for Warwickshire, but ‘the Birmingham people in consequence of his late change in his political connections would not give him their support as a candidate’. Brougham would have been content to see him as his colleague on a compromise at Liverpool. Ward did not rule out the possibility that Calcraft might offer to retain him for Wareham (which he did—but too late). In the event he was allowed to retain his option on the ‘Whig seat’ (on Sir William Manners’s interest at Ilchester) which Abercromby had insisted on his giving up: accordingly a Whig agent fumed to Lord Grey, ‘I can prove that Tierney and Abercromby were the cause of our losing the seat Ward now sits for’. Canning had recommended him to his friend Jolliffe for an unexpected opening on his interest at Petersfield, but his securing Ilchester made this superfluous: Ward concluded that Whig men of talent fared worse than he at the election. He saw no prospect of Canning’s taking office and resolved to see him Member for Oxford University, which would give him a better opinion of it.14

On 1 Mar. 1813 Ward delivered a set speech—his only one of the session—in favour of Catholic relief: he claimed Pitt’s blessing for a measure of ‘religious liberty and political wisdom’. Apart from opposing the vice-chancellor bill with the other Canningites, 11 Feb. 1813, his votes were also confined to the Catholic question. He saw his conviction that the Whig opposition was hopelessly divided confirmed, and collaboration between them and Canning reduced to a laughable shambles on the question of the Spanish treaty, on which he claimed ‘the government gained its greatest victory upon its worst case, and, for all I see, may last as long as Liverpool and Castlereagh live’. The laugh was on him when Canning disbanded his party in July 1813. The opposition wits suggested that he must have recourse to the Doctor (Lord Sidmouth). In Byron’s pun, he ‘must first, before he was re-Whigged, be re-Warded’. He himself cut ‘good and bad jokes’ but was ‘evidently much annoyed’, describing his case thus:

Did you never see upon the turnpike road an unfortunate devil in a tandem who can’t make the first horse lead at all: instead of going straight forward he turns short round, looks you full in the face and no persuasion can make him go the right way; the driver at last gets out of his Tilbury in despair and places himself upon the milestone, waiting till the first heavy coach comes by to carry him to London.

Convinced of their folly, he could not revert to the Whigs, preferring ‘a state of complete political insulation’, as befitted one who never had ‘a beneficial interest in any party connection’. The failure of new men of talent in the House (Robert Percy Smith in 1813 and James Mackintosh in 1814) consoled him: he went to hear the latter, but otherwise shunned the session of 1813-14, proceeding to Paris in April and, on his return in June, planning a more extended continental tour which occupied the next session. When in July 1814 Canning came to terms with Lord Liverpool, he was put down for a privy councillorship and an unsalaried place at the Board of Control, but declined the prospect, to Canning’s disappointment. A month later he declined ‘another temptation’, to offer for Staffordshire on an expected vacancy with the Marquess of Stafford’s support: it was in any case withdrawn.15

Deploring Canning’s banishment to Lisbon, Ward remained critical of the government that had failed to take him in and welcomed Lord Grenville’s schism with the Whigs in favour of the renewal of war against Buonaparte in 1815. He returned home briefly in November 1815, but had apparently ‘given up all politics’ and, before Parliament met, went off to Paris again. There he admitted he would have voted in the government minority on the property tax, 18 Mar. 1816, if present, but was glad the ministry had been beaten, as they might now summon Canning to their aid. When he resumed his seat in May 1816, he was taken to be Canning’s herald. He claimed ‘that he should have voted with government upon every great question, had he been at home’, Canning’s acceptance of office at home sealing his approval of them.16 He voted for Catholic relief as always, 21 May, and opposed the aliens bill, 31 May, but sided with ministers in the critical divisions of 24 May, 14, 17 and 20 June, explaining on the last occasion that he could not approve a reduction of the officers of the crown in the House. He favoured the acquisition of the Elgin marbles for the nation, 7 June 1816.

Ward returned from a further continental tour to witness Canning’s rehabilitation in the House in February 1817. According to Whig gossip:

Canning spoke so miserably that Ward quitted the ministerial benches and went over for an instant among his old friends to lament his master’s failure and complain of the bad company into which he had got.17

It was at that time that he became a member of Grillion’s Club, which was non-partisan. But his faith in Canning’s eloquence was soon restored. Meanwhile he resumed his vendetta against parliamentary reform in debate, 17 Feb., 4, 20 Mar. 1817, and on 20 May attacked Burdett’s motion in its favour at length, ridiculing not only the doctrinaire but also the moderate reformers and asserting that Old Sarum was as entitled to send Members to Parliament as Yorkshire. He stood by ministers on the composition of the finance committee, 7 Feb. 1817, and assailed opposition over their wish to reduce the Admiralty board, 25 Feb. He reminded critics of the state lottery that they had failed to suggest an alternative source of revenue, 18 Mar., 19 May. He waxed sarcastic on the reward of a peerage for the services of a Speaker of the House of Commons, 9 June. He supported the suspension of habeas corpus by speech on 28 Mar. and by vote on 23 June 1817.

He then went on an extended continental tour and played no part in the session of 1818, seeing no call to do so. He wrote on 5 May from Salzburg; ‘With respect to most other countries in Europe I am almost a Jacobin ... But in England I really believe that we enjoy nearly as much freedom as we are capable of.’18 Nor did he learn of the dissolution in time to secure his seat: at Ilchester he was put up again on the Manners interest, which was so unpopular that he was defeated. He arrived home in August 1818 but was disappointed in his quest for a seat and was glad of a pretext to go abroad again. In April 1819 he was returned for Bossiney on the interest of Canning’s friend Stuart Wortley and regretted that he could not take his seat in time to vote for Catholic relief.19 He still regarded himself as attached to Canning. He deprecated the debates on the currency as ‘too scientific’ for the House to do justice to. On 10 June he voted for the foreign enlistment bill and on 14 June inveighed against the licentiousness of the press. He returned from Paris and remained in town to support government measures against sedition until 23 Dec. 1819.

Ward declined an opening for Worcestershire in 1820, retaining his seat for Bossiney. Canning could not induce him to take office in 1822 when his health was broken, though he did so five years later. He died insane, 6 Mar. 1833.

Ref Volumes: 1790-1820

Author: R. G. Thorne

Notes

Based on Ward’s Letters to ‘Ivy’, except where otherwise stated.

  • 1. Creevey Pprs. ed. Maxwell, ii. 205, 255; Letters of Countess Granville, i. 28; Staffs. RO, Hatherton Diary, 27 June 1838; Letters of Lady Harriet Cavendish, 148; Moore, Byron Letters (1875), 339; Corresp. of Miss Berry, ii. 442, 485, 545; cf. Lady C. Bury, Diary of a Lady in Waiting . i. 13, 24, 27.
  • 2. Wilts. RO, Radnor mss 490/1373, Bouverie to Radnor, 1 July 1802, 1, 3 July, replies 2, 6 July, Ward to Bouverie, 1, 3 July 1803; Fortescue mss, Somers to Grenville, 1 Dec. 1806.
  • 3. Whitbread mss W1/2440; Harewood mss, Canning to his wife, 29 Feb. [1804].
  • 4. Lord Melbourne’s Pprs. 39.
  • 5. Romilly, Mems. ii. 220; Whitbread mss, W1/373/7; W1/2440; NLS mss 11147, f. 157.
  • 6. Lansdowne mss, Vernon to Lansdowne, 18 Nov. 1809; Brougham, Life and Times, i. 453; Phipps, Plumer Ward Mems. i. 281; Perceval (Holland) mss 5, f. 6; Lonsdale mss, Ward to Lonsdale, 2 Nov. 1809; Canning and his Friends, i. 336; Harewood mss, Canning to his wife, 23 Oct.; Add. 41857, f. 271; 51658, Whishaw to Lady Holland, 22 Dec. [1809]; 52180, Horner to Allen, Mon., n.d.; NLW, Coedymaen mss 1/17, 19; Creevey Pprs. i. 111, 112.
  • 7. Jnl. of Lady Holland, ii. 253; Edinburgh Review (1838), lxvii. 78; Brougham mss 10784; NLI, Richmond mss 62/525; Colchester, ii. 277; Add. 51658, Whishaw to Lady Holland, 25 July [1810].
  • 8. Grey mss, Grey to Grenville, 14 Jan. 1811; Add. 38738, f. 58.
  • 9. Richmond mss 65/747; Creevey mss, Brougham to Creevey, Sunday [?7 Apr.]; Add. 51826, Ward to Holland, Tues. 3 [Sept. 1811].
  • 10. Creevey mss, Whishaw to Creevey, 22 Jan.; Harewood mss, Canning to his wife, 20, 22 Feb.; Horner mss 5, f. 170; Fortescue mss, Williams Wynn to Grenville, Fri. [9 May]; Add. 52178, Brougham to Allen, Tues. [12 May 1812].
  • 11. Grey mss, Rosslyn to Grey, 29 July, Abercromby to Grey, 30 July, Grey to Brougham, 1 Aug.; Horner mss 5, ff. 205, 208; Add. 34460, f. 314; 51574, Abercromby to Holland [30 July 1812]; HMC Fortescue, x. 290; Lansdowne mss, Lady Horner to Lansdowne, Tues. night, Horner to same, 3 Aug. 1812 (cf. Horner mss 5, f. 212).
  • 12. Grey mss, Abercoromby to Grey, 30 July 1812; Fortescue mss, Abercromby to Grenville, n.d.
  • 13. Brougham mss 20466, 39072-3; Add. 51549, Lady Holland to Grey, Sat. [1 Aug.]; Brougham, Life and Times, ii. 23; Creevey mss, Brougham to Creevey, 18 July; Brougham mss, Brougham to Grey, 9 Sept., Sat. night [24 Oct.], Rosslyn to Grey, 18 Dec. 1812.
  • 14. Grey mss, Brougham to Grey, Fri. [18 Sept.], Goodwin to Grey, 24 Dec.; Hatherton mss, Ward to Coplestone (copy), 25 May; Add. 38739, ff. 3, 37, 68; 51585, Tierney to Lady Holland, 24 Aug.; Creevey mss, Brougham to Creevey, Fri. [?18 Sept. 1812]; Brougham mss 39528.
  • 15. Moore, Byron Letters (1875), 347; Fortescue mss, Holland to Grenville, 26 July; Lansdowne mss, Lady Holland to Lansdowne, 30 July; Lonsdale mss, Long to Lonsdale, 7 Aug. 1813, 27 July; Harewood mss, Canning to Sturges Bourne, 19 July 1814; Ward, Letters to Bishop of Llandaff, 53; Leveson Gower, ii. 501.
  • 16. Brougham mss, Brougham to Grey, Fri. [10 Nov. 1815]; Add. 51658, Whishaw to Lady Holland, 9 Jan.; Harewood mss, Huskisson to Canning, 18 May 1816.
  • 17. Horner mss 7, f. 199.
  • 18. Northumb. RO, Blackett Ord (Whitfield) mss A33, Ward to Ord, 5 May 1818.
  • 19. Letters to Bishop of Llandaff, 205, 216.