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rippled for want of supplies; it is forgotten that it was he who selected Wellington, and that he loyally strained every nerve to keep him supplied with troops, provisions, and specie, when few but himself believed in the policy of the Peninsular war, and Sir John Moore had assured him that if the French dominated Spain, they could not be resisted in Portugal. It is remembered--or rather it is assumed--that he was the eager promoter of coercive and reactionary legislation at home; it is forgotten, or ignored, that he was among the earliest and staunchest advocates of catholic emancipation, and that a despotic temper is belied by the whole tone of his speeches. Above all, he is unjustly credited, in the face of direct evidence to the contrary, with being the champion of absolutism in the councils of Europe, the fact being not only that his voice was always on the side of moderation and conciliation, but that Canning himself, on succeeding him, dissociated Great Britain from the holy alliance by taking his stand upon an admirable despatch of Castlereagh and adopting it as his own. When he met with his tragical end, the brutal shouts of exultation raised by a portion of the crowd at his funeral were the expression of sheer ignorance and not of intelligent public opinion. He was a tory, in days when most patriots were tories, but he was a tory of the best type; and we of a later generation can see that few statesmen of George III.'s reign have left a purer reputation or rendered greater services to their country. [Pageheading: _CANNING AND PEEL._] George Canning, his successor, has been far more favourably judged by posterity, and not without reason, if intellectual brilliancy is a supreme test of political merit. A firm adherent of Pitt, and a somewhat unscrupulous critic of Addington, he was probably the first parliamentary orator of the nineteenth century, with the possible exception of Sheridan. Pitt's eloquence was of a loftier and simpler type, Fox's was more impetuous and spontaneous; Peel's range of political knowledge was far wider; Gladstone excelled all, not only in length of experience but in readiness and dialectical resource. Canning's rhetoric was of a finer quality and was combined with great debating power, but he was a man to inspire admiration rather than confidence, and had not held one of the higher political offices since his resignation in 1809, after his quarrel with Castlereagh. He accepted a m
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