for Wendover.
He was also appointed receiver-general of the alienation office, a
sinecure post which brought him L700 a year. His position as
under-secretary brought him into close relations with Pitt and the
foreign secretary, Lord Grenville (q.v.). During the negotiations for
peace at Lille (1797), Canning was actively concerned in the devices
which were employed by Pitt and Grenville to keep the real character of
the discussion secret from other members of the cabinet. Canning had a
taste for mystery and disguises, which he had shown at Oxford, and which
did much to gain him his unfortunate reputation for trickery. From the
20th of November 1797, till the 9th of July 1798, he was one of the most
active, and was certainly the most witty of the contributors to the
_Anti-Jacobin_, a weekly paper started to ridicule the frothy
philanthropic and eleutheromaniac rant of the French republicans, and to
denounce their brutal rapacity and cruelty. But Canning's position as
under-secretary was not wholly pleasant to him. He disliked his
immediate chief Grenville, one of the Whigs who joined Pitt, and a man
of thoroughly Whiggish aristocratic insolence. In 1799 he left the
foreign office and was named one of the twelve commissioners for India,
and in 1800 joint paymaster of the forces, a post which he held till the
retirement of Pitt in 1801.

During these years of subordinate activity Canning had established his
position as an orator and a wit. His oratory cannot be estimated with
absolute confidence. Speeches were then badly reported. The text of his
own, published by Therry (6 volumes, London, 1828), were revised by
himself, and not for the better. Though his favourite author was Dryden,
whose prose is uniformly manly and simple, and though he had a keen eye
for faults of taste in the style of others, Canning had himself a
leaning to preciosity and tinsel. His wit was, and remains, above all
question. In public life it did him some harm in the opinion of serious
people, who could not believe that so jocose a politician had solid
capacity. It exasperated opponents, some of whom, notably Peter Pindar
(see WOLCOT, JOHN), retaliated by brutal personalities. Canning was
constantly reminded that his mother was a strolling actress, and was
accused of foisting his pauper family on the public funds. The
accusation was perfectly untrue, but this style of political controversy
was common, and was adopted by Canning. He put himself on a