tigate, and sagacity to develope, the interests of Great Britain. He strenuously advocated the maintenance of the navigation act, and the extension of the carrying trade of this country; and when Mr. Pitt, "in his youthful ardour (to use his Lordship's own words) for grasping the advantages of the American commerce, brought in a bill for the provisional establishment and regulation of trade and intercourse between the subjects of Great Britain and those of the United States of America;" Lord S. saw the dangerous tendency of the measure, and opposed it with becoming firmness. "Had it passed into a law," adds he, "it would have affected our most essential interests in every branch of commerce, and in every part of the world, it would have deprived of their efficacy our navigation laws, and undermined the naval power of Britain."

His Lordship's speeches and writings on this subject attracted a good deal of attention; and the city of Glasgow expressed its gratitude and esteem by presenting him with its civic honors, having unanimously chosen him a member of their corporation "in testimony of the just sense entertained of his zeal for, and attention to, the interests of the commerce of Great Britain, as well as for the public spirited and well-timed exertions manifested by his Lordship; by which the navigation laws and ' the carrying trade, so essential to the prosperity and power of Britain, have been preserved at a moment when they were in the most imminent danger of being lost to the country."

From Gibbon's correspondence, we learn that on November 1. 1781, Lord Sheffield was ordered to Canterbury and Deal to suppress some disturbances in these places. From this circumstance it would appear that government availed itself of the services of his Lordship whenever an occasion offered. He seems to have acted both in his civil and military capacity with equal promptness, zeal, and ability.

The account of the visit of Lord Sheffield and his family to Gibbon, at Lausanne, we shall quote in his Lordship's own words:

"A visit from myself and my family to Mr. Gibbon, at Lausanne, had been for some time in agitation. This long

promised excursion took place in the month of June, 1791, and occasioned a considerable cessation of our correspondence. I landed at Dieppe immediately after the unfortunate Louis XVI. was brought captive to Paris. During my stay in that capital, I had an opportunity of seeing the extraordinary ferment of men's minds, both in the National Assembly and in private societies, and also in my passage through France to Lausanne, where I recalled to my memory the interesting scenes I had witnessed by frequent conversations with my deceased friend. I might have wished to record his opinions on the subject of the French revolution, if he had not expressed them so well in his letters. He seemed to suppose, as some of his letters hint, that I had a tendency to the new French opinions: never was suspicion more unfounded; nor could it have been admitted into Mr. Gibbon's mind, but that his extreme friendship for me, and his utter abhorrence of these notions, made him anxious and jealous, even to an excess, that I should not entertain them. He was, however, soon undeceived; he found that I was as fully averse to them as himself. I had from the first expressed an opinion, that such a change as was aimed at in France, would derange all the regular governments in Europe, hazard the internal quiet and dearest interests of this country, and probably end in bringing on mankind a much greater portion of misery than the most sanguine reformer had ever promised to himself or others to produce of benefit, by the visionary schemes of liberty and equality with which the ignorant and vulgar were misled and abused.

"Mr. Gibbon, at first, like many others, seemed pleased with the prospect of the reform of inveterate abuses; but he very soon discovered the mischief which was intended, the imbecility with which concessions were made, and the ruin which must arise from the want of resolution or conduct in the administration of France. He lived to reprobate, in the strongest terms possible, the folly of the first reformers, and the something worse than extravagance and ferocity of their successors. He saw the wild and mischievous tendency of these pretended

reformers, who, while they professed nothing but amendment, really meant destruction to all social order; and so strongly. was his opinion fixed as to the danger of hasty innovation, that he became a warm and zealous advocate of every sort of old establishment, which he marked in various ways, sometimes rather ludicrously; and I recollect in a circle where French affairs were the topic, and some Portuguese present, he, seemingly with seriousness, argued in favour of the inquisition at Lisbon, and said he would not, at the present moment, give up even that old establishment.

"It may not be quite uninteresting to the reader to know that I found Mr. Gibbon at Lausanne, in possession of an excellent house; the view from which, and from the terrace, was so uncommonly beautiful, that even his own pen could with difficulty have described the scene which it commanded. This prospect comprehended every thing vast and magnificent which could be furnished by the finest mountains among the Alps; the most extensive view of the Lake of Geneva, with a beautifully varied and cultivated country, adorned by numerous villas and picturesque buildings, intermixed with beautiful masses of stately trees. Here Here my friend received us with an hospitality and kindness which I can never forget.

The best apartments of the house were appropriated to our use: the choicest society of the place was sought for, to enliven our visit, and render every day of it cheerful and agreeable. It was impossible for any man to be more esteemed and admired than Mr. Gibbon was at Lausanne. The preference

he had given to that place, in adopting it for a residence, rather than his own country, was felt and acknowledged by all the inhabitants; and he may have been said almost to have given the law to a set of as willing subjects as ever man presided over. In return for the deference shown to him, he mixed, without affectation, in all the society - I mean all the best society that Lausanne afforded; he could, indeed, command it, and was, perhaps, for that reason, more partial to it; for he often declared that he liked society, more as a relaxation from study than as expecting to derive from it

amusement or instruction; that to books he looked for im

But this I considered

provement, not to living persons. partly as an answer to my expressions of wonder, that a man who might choose the most various, and most generally improved society in the world, namely, in England, should prefer the very limited circle of Lausanne, which he never deserted but for an occasional visit to M. and Madame Necker. It must not, however, be understood that in choosing Lausanne for his home, he was insensible to the value of a residence in England: he was not in possession of an income which corresponded with his notions of ease and comfort in his own country.

During the stay I made with him, he renewed his intercourse with the principal French' who were at Lausanne; of whom there happened to be a considerable number distinguished for rank or talents; many, indeed, respectable for both. I was not absent from my friend's house, except during a short excursion that we made together to M. Necker's, at Copet, and a tour to Geneva, Chamouni, over the Col de Balme to Martigny, St. Maurice, and round the lake by Vevay to Lausanne. In the social and singularly pleasant months that I passed with Mr. Gibbon, he enjoyed his usual cheerfulness, with good health. After he left England in 1788, he had had a severe attack of an erisipelas, which, at last, settled in one of his legs, and left something of a dropsical tendency; for, at this time, I first perceived a considerable degree of swelling about the ancle.

"In the beginning of October I quitted this delightful residence, and some time after my return to England, our correspondence recommenced.”*

We have had less hesitation in quoting thus at length Lord Sheffield's account of the opinions of Gibbon, because, whilst discussing the sentiments, he frequently admits us to an insight of his own.

* Gibbon's Miscellaneous Works, v. i. p. 331.

Lord Sheffield always expressed a marked disapprobation of Mr. Fox's measures. The first time his Lordship spoke in the House of Commons, he animadverted, with some severity, upon‘the turbulent ambition,' and popular declamatory eloquence' of that great statesman; and after listening with attention to one of his speeches, which extorted admiration from both sides of the House, he censured 'the excessive praises' that were generally bestowed on Mr. Fox's oratory, and declared that, from the specimen he then heard, he was "astonished that the House could be so fascinated with it."*

As he had met with so much disagreeable, and, in fact, unjust opposition, in the city of Coventry, Lord Sheffield directed his attention towards another part of the kingdom. Having so ably discussed the subject of trade, he aspired to represent in Parliament the third commercial city of the empire, and accordingly canvassed Bristol. Besides the sup

port of several of the most respectable merchants of that city, he procured the co-operation and zealous interference in his behalf, of Dean Tucker, who was, like himself, a commercial politician. It was almost entirely to the indefatigable exertions of this valuable ally that he was indebted for his election, as the Dean possessed a powerful interest, arising out of his station, fortune, and talents, in the city of Bristol. Indeed he is reported to have been so exceedingly popular among his new constituents, that they defrayed the whole of the expenses of his election. If this were actually the case, his indefatigable opposition to the abolition of the slave trade was, in all probability, the cause of the important civilities he received at their hands. It is much to be deplored that a nobleman of Lord Sheffield's high worth and talents should have been induced to give his unequivocal support to the

* An allusion to Lord Sheffield's manifest disapprobation of Fox and his measures occurs in a letter from the historian to his Lordship, dated Lausanne, January 6. 1793: "We all admire the generous spirit with which you damned the (parliamentary) assassins. I hope your objection of all future connexion with Fox, was not quite so peremptory as it is stated in the French papers. Let him do what he will, I must love the dog." Gibbon's Miscellaneous Works, 1. 392.