Ellis, whose father was lost at sea in 1782, was ‘brought up for many years absolutely together’ with his fellow Jamaican Elizabeth Vassall, who married Sir Godfrey Webster in 1786 and, after her divorce, the 3rd Lord Holland in 1797. At Christ Church, where he was ‘a great favourite’ of Dean Jackson, he fell under the spell of George Canning, whose lifelong friend and confidant he became. In 1792 he was in Europe with the Websters. He returned to England towards the end of the year, when he came of age and took possession of his share of the family fortune, which included a Jamaican plantation reputedly worth £20,000 a year and a handsome ‘independency’. He acquired a London house, a residence at Wootton, near Bedford, and a hunting establishment in Leicestershire, much frequented in his younger years. In acts of typical generosity, the ‘good and artless’ Ellis gave his cousin George Ellis £10,000 as compensation for the patrimony of which his own father had deprived him, and settled £5,000 on the family of his former private tutor.
On 12 Feb. 1793 Sir Gilbert Elliot told his wife, whose sister was married to Lord Malmesbury, a close friend of George Ellis:
I like Charles Ellis extremely. His manners are modest and gentle, notwithstanding the many pretensions he might have to opposite qualities. There is some little risk of his getting spoilt, partly by the favour which such advantages of fortune, youth and good figure obtain in the world, and partly by the great admiration of George Ellis.
A month later, Sir Gilbert complained:
As to general conversation or amusement, it is not to be found with the Ellises. They are both good sort of men ... Charles Ellis seems to have less cleverness, and is from the same habits and indeed from [George’s] constant example as entirely nothing too.
Shortly afterwards Ellis paid William Pierce Ashe A’Court £3,500 to sit for Heytesbury ‘for the remainder of the Parliament’. Elliot commented: ‘As he is rich it is worth the money that he should have this chance of getting out of the high lounge he is now engaged in ... I do not think ... he has the sort of character or views that will attach him to business’.
Unlike Canning, who joined him in the House three months later, Ellis had neither need nor desire to carve out a political career and was content to give unobtrusive support to Pitt’s ministry. He was in the House for Canning’s maiden speech, 31 Jan. 1794, voted, in opposition to his friend, against abolition of the slave trade, 7 Feb., and left town the following day after giving Canning, as he was frequently to do in future, ‘absolute power’ to summon his attendance. He was present for the debate on Fox’s peace motion, 30 May, and the following day, in response to a teasing suggestion by Canning that as he was neither a ministerialist proper nor in opposition he should sit for Hickel’s picture of the Commons as an ‘alarmist’, he bound himself hand and foot to Canning:
I am not ... a ministerial man in the sense in which you or [Robert Banks] Jenkinson are ... I do not now, nor do I mean ever to take an active part in the politics of any party. But I give my whole support to ministry ... not only from conviction at the present juncture of affairs, but from party attachment also—attachment not indeed to ministers, but to people whom I love, and whose interests are connected with ministry. I would not indeed be introduced to Pitt, as Jenkinson thought of persuading me at one time, because I want nothing, would never take anything, and do not see any particular reason for pledging myself, and in some measure giving up my independence ... Though I do not like politics particularly, I like Parliament, because it is an occupation, because it gives one a sort of situation and countenance, but for nothing so much as because it may enable me to be of service and support to those that I love. For these reasons I think it likely that I shall always wish, and I suppose I shall always be able, to procure a seat in Parliament, and I think I can venture to say that, so long as I have one, there are few circumstances under which it could possibly happen that you should vote with one party, and I with another.
Ellis’s personal and political attachment to Canning, thus pledged, and reaffirmed in December 1794 when there was ‘the most perfect coincidence of sentiment’ between them on the necessity for unremitting prosecution of the war, never wavered.
At the general election of 1796 Ellis, who appeared on a ministerial list of ‘persons wanting seats’, bought seats for himself and George Ellis at Wareham and Westbury respectively. In the latter transaction he was ‘most flagitiously cheated’ by the agent and both he and George opted to sit for Seaford, Webster’s former seat, where they had also been returned after a contest. Ellis, it seems, had agreed to become paymaster of the Seaford interest of his and Lady Webster’s friend Thomas Pelham. The surplus Wareham seat went to Webster.
On 6 Apr. 1797 Ellis proposed to the House, as an alternative to the immediate abolition of the abhorrent but currently indispensable slave trade, a programme to be carried out by the colonial assemblies for the moral improvement of the negroes, intended to halt and reverse the decline in their numbers and thus eventually to make the traffic in slaves unnecessary. His address was carried by 99 votes to 63, but little came of it. He spoke against Wilberforce’s abolition motions, 15 May 1797 and 3 Apr. 1798, but on the second occasion, following Canning’s lead, conceded that the import of slaves should be confined to land already under cultivation. As one of the ‘moderate and most respectable West Indians’, he supported the exemption of Sierra Leone from the trade, and regulation of the middle passage, and would have accepted further restrictive measures, short of abolition, had government produced them.
he is a very singularly captivating man, and a decided favourite of the first societies in London. I know no man who has such thorough good taste in everything he does ... his friends quite idolise him, and ... are the very cream of the rising generation.
Leveson Gower, i. 183; Jnl. of Lady Holland, i. 218; W. Suff. RO, Hervey mss.
When Canning resigned with Pitt, and his kinsmen Jenkinson and Hervey took office under Addington, Ellis announced his intention of opposing the new ministry and went about ‘reviling and laughing’ at it. Nothing came of this bluster in 1801, when he settled at Claremont in Surrey, purchased from Lord Tyrconnel.
Charles I knew had a strong inclination to give such a vote, but ... I did not feel sure that his heart might not fail him. His stoutness I believe was much corroborated by finding himself reckoned upon so confidently the other way—Hervey praying him to come up, and his other uncle Jenk, sitting by him during the debate and looking grateful for his attention ... He felt that if he had not voted, he should have been considered as having intended to vote the other way. You may conceive the astonishment and indignation that his vote produced. It is of course referred to me ... Charles does not mind this.
He assisted Canning in his scheme to detach Pitt from Addington by his Trinidad motion of 27 May 1802, designed to prevent the employment of slave labour in newly acquired West Indian islands. Had Addington not met it with an unexpected concession, he would have spoken in favour of the motion. The following day he was a steward at the Pitt birthday dinner promoted by Canning.
Shortly after the general election of 1802, when he successfully contested Seaford, Ellis went abroad with his ailing wife, who died at Nice in January 1803 and he did not return to England until July. In September Canning reported that he was taking an interest in politics again and soon afterwards he completed a joint purchase with Pelham of houses in Seaford, which was supposed to make the borough secure.
Ellis joined in Canning’s opposition to the ‘Talents’, voting against Ellenborough’s seat in the cabinet, 3 Mar., and the repeal of Pitt’s Additional Force Act, 30 Apr. 1806, and dining with Canning’s squad in March. His cousin’s illness took him out of town in June, but he returned for the debates on the training bill in early July.
At the general election of 1807, when Canning had become Foreign secretary in the Portland ministry, Ellis was unsuccessful at Seaford but was returned after a contest for East Grinstead, where Lady Whitworth sold seats to supporters of administration. On 10 Aug. 1807 he moved for early consideration next session of West Indian distress. He seconded the address, 21 Jan. 1808 and, wearing his West Indian cap, supported the ban on grain distillation, 13 Apr. and 19 May 1808, and its extension to Ireland, 23 Feb. 1809, and opposed the import of foreign spirits, 24 June 1808. On 4 Apr. 1810 he was made ‘perpetual chairman of the West Indian body’.
Ellis was in Canning’s confidence during the crisis in his relations with his cabinet colleagues in the summer of 1809 and was his second in the duel with Castlereagh. Although Malmesbury reported in September that he ‘loudly’ disapproved Canning’s conduct, he was in fact at pains to vindicate it, and after Canning’s resignation, blamed the break-up of the ministry on Perceval and Castlereagh.
Ellis had considered standing for Surrey at the next general election, but in the event stood for Seaford, where he had reached an accommodation with Leach. The Liverpool ministry’s attempts to keep him out were unsuccessful and he retained control of one seat at Seaford (which Canning was to occupy during his brief premiership in 1827) until 1830.
In a series of pen portraits of the Christ Church set composed in 1809, Boringdon wrote of Ellis:
If it is possible to conceive a mind pre-eminently defended against the entrance of any mean, sordid or selfish feeling, it is the mind of this excellent person. His first act upon attaining his majority was one of the highest generosity, and his subsequent conduct has ever been consistent with it ... His friendship for Canning is the ruling passion of his mind, his first consideration in every important occurrence is how it may bear upon the interests or renown of his friend ... I do not know there is any particular point of conduct on which I would pledge myself to adopt his recommendation, but there is no difficult or delicate case on which I should not be desirous of possessing his opinion.
Add. 48244, f. 134.
Ellis, who owed his peerage in 1826 to Canning’s personal recommendation to Liverpool, died 1 July 1845.