PLANTA, Joseph (1787-1847), of Fairlight Place, nr. Hastings, Suss.

Planta’s family originated in the Grisons region of Switzerland. His grandfather Andrea Guisseppe Planta was pastor of a reformed church at Castegna before he came to London as minister of the German reformed church in 1752. From 1758 until his death in 1773 he was an assistant librarian at the British Museum, in which post he was succeeded by his son Joseph (b. 1744). Gent. Mag. (1773), 155. In 1776 he, who had been educated at Utrecht and Göttingen, was promoted to the keepership of manuscripts, and in 1799 he became principal librarian. As such he was a reformer, who granted new facilities to the public and compiled part of the catalogue of printed books. An urbane and scholarly man, he published An Account of the Romansch Language (1776) and histories of the Helvetic Confederacy (1800 and 1821). He was paymaster of exchequer bills from 1788 to 1811, when he retired with a pension of £266 a year. Oxford DNB; E. Edwards, Founders of British Museum, 516-26; Gent. Mag. (1827), ii. 564-5. His father had been Italian tutor to Queen Charlotte, and his sister Margaret, who lived until 1834, was for many years the English teacher and personal attendant of the Princesses Augusta, Charlotte and Elizabeth. Horace Walpole Corresp. (Yale edn.), xliii. 445-6; Prince of Wales Corresp. i. 437.

It was supposedly to the queen that the young Joseph Planta, an only child whose education was ‘anxiously superintended’ by his father, owed his appointment to a foreign office clerkship in 1802. Four years later Princess Augusta tried to ‘procure his name to be set down for a second survivorship of clerk to the signet office’, but the home secretary Lord Spencer would not oblige. Gent. Mag. (1827), ii. 565; Geo. III Corresp. iv. 3194. Planta developed a close friendship with his schoolfellow Stratford Canning*, cousin of the foreign secretary George Canning*, and succeeded him as précis writer in 1809. They toured the Lake District together in the summer of 1813. Planta accompanied Canning’s successor Lord Castlereagh* to the peace congresses of 1813-15 and personally brought the Treaty of Paris to London on 23 Nov. 1815. S. Lane Poole, Stratford Canning, i. 72, 196; Farington Diary, xiii. 4460, 4707; Add. 38257, ff. 259, 261; Geo. IV Letters, ii. 619. William Wilberforce* had met him earlier that year and thought him ‘a highly pleasing man’. Life of Wilberforce, iv. 259. He was promoted to the under-secretaryship in 1817 and attended the conference of Aix-la-Chapelle the following year. Bagot, Canning and Friends, ii. 57, 59; Add. 38273, f. 307. In his letters to Stratford Canning, Planta, a supporter of Catholic relief, revealed his Tory ministerial bias: the Whigs were ‘almost broken up as a party’ in the Commons (15 Mar. 1821) and Queen Caroline’s behaviour at the coronation had ‘ruined herself and her cause for ever’ (8 Aug. 1821); but ‘the Grenvilles have been bought very dear’ (14 Jan. 1822). TNA FO352/8/4. At that time he told his friend Charles Bagot that the recent ‘reduction of our poor clerks, of which only a few years ago I was one, while we political gentlemen keep the whole of our emoluments, has been a bitter pill to me’. On 1 Aug. that year he wrote:

Our Parliament is at length drawing to a close, and a more wearying, troublesome and disagreeable session they never had: Lord Londonderry [Castlereagh] is more tired in mind than I have seen him yet with parliamentary labour ... Economy is the stalking horse; everybody mounts it; every loose fish has something to say upon it, and both friends and foes are in a very ungovernable and unsatisfactory state. Whether this looseness of connection be the prevailing taste of the times, or whether it arise from the fault of the government, I am hardly prepared to say; but I am sure of this, that (to use my master’s expression) it is the worst feature of the present times, and will make the country more difficult to govern by any means whatever ten or fifteen years hence, if some remedy be not found for it. Lord Londonderry is however in health better than for some years.

Less than a fortnight later Londonderry killed himself. The ‘awful’ and ‘thoroughly unexpected’ news met Planta on his way back to London from a brief holiday at his house near Hastings. He was ‘absolutely overwhelmed and wretched’, and feared that he would ‘not be for a long time, the man I was’. Bagot, ii. 123, 131; Bagot mss (History of Parliament Aspinall transcripts), Planta to Bagot, 1 Aug. 1822.

Yet he had no difficulty in transferring his devoted loyalty to Londonderry’s successor Canning. As he told Mrs. Arbuthnot early in 1823, when the office was ‘working as hard as, or a little harder, than we possibly can’, he was ‘so happy to be again where he could talk à coeur ouvert: it put him in mind of old times’. Arbuthnot Jnl. i. 209; Bagot, ii. 156. Later in the year Stratford Canning found him ‘quite as grey and quite as fat as under the preceding dynasty - a fit type of the prosperity of his country and its venerable institutions’. Bagot, ii. 200. In November 1824 the duke of Wellington’s confidante Mrs. Arbuthnot noted that her husband had

heard in London that Mr. Planta had been talking to Mr. Herries* about the duke’s hatred of Canning and lamenting it; but Mr. P. is become the ame damnée of Canning and appears totally to have forgotten the policy he learnt under poor Lord Londonderry. It shows how indiscreet Mr. C. is when his under-secretaries go about talking in this manner. Arbuthnot Jnl. i. 355.

Earlier that year Canning had tried to seize an opportunity to install Planta as patronage secretary to the treasury. The incumbent, Stephen Rumbold Lushington*, coveted the governorship of Madras, which was expected to fall vacant. Canning acquiesced in the premier Lord Liverpool’s support of his pretensions in order to replace him with Planta, as he confided to his wife, 4 Apr. 1823:

It is nearly as important to me to have a person upon whom I can rely in that office, as in my own department. Lushington has behaved perfectly well, but his connections are ultra and he is no way mine. Planta will be wholly so and will make the House of Commons much easier and pleasanter to me than it is. Harewood mss.

According to some ministerialists Liverpool, to whom Planta was said to be ‘personally disagreeable’ (though he denied this to Canning), objected to the arrangement, which ‘would have caused great jealousy among the anti-Canningites, who would have felt that, in the event of an election, all the influence of the government would have been directed by Mr. C.’ Arbuthnot Jnl. i. 360; Buckingham, Mems. Geo. IV, ii. 103; Add. 38411, f. 240. The king, too, was reported in September to be ‘very much alarmed about Planta becoming secretary of the treasury’; and he certainly tried to ensure that Lushington stayed where he was. Aberdeen Univ. Lib. Arbuthnot mss, Wellington to Mrs. Arbuthnot, 1 Sept. 1824. Four weeks later it was said that Planta seemed ‘not a little sick’ of Canning’s suspected intrigues against his colleagues, which provided ‘an additional reason for his sighing for the settlement of Lushington’s question, and getting a snug berth at the treasury’. Buckingham, ii. 133. Yet Charles Arbuthnot*, who had held that office for almost 14 years, could not

think that Planta will either like the treasury or that he will be well suited for the office. I have long had a very sincere liking for him; but should we again come into trying times he will fail physically if not otherwise. I think the House of Commons would drive him wild. I am sure it drove me out of my senses, and I had had more intercourse with all sorts of mankind than he has. The office he is to fill requires great activity of body, and this he has not. Add. 38746, f. 32.

Although Canning overcame Liverpool’s objections to Planta, his transfer was blocked for months by the refusal of the directors of the East India Company to accept Lushington’s appointment. In mid-October 1824 Canning, hearing that Sir Charles Stuart, angry at being recalled from the Paris embassy, would be pacified by the governorship of Madras, advised Liverpool to offer it to him in preference to Lushington:

Could Madras be better disposed of? For you and me, it certainly could not, for it would save you all trouble about the peerage; and it would not only save the necessity of finding an employment for Stuart, but preserve to me my Planta, whom I know not how to replace, especially now that the change has been suffered to run on till within prospect of the meeting of Parliament. I verily believe too that Planta himself, though if the vacancy should occur he would feel it a point of honour not to forego it, would nevertheless be not ill-satisfied that the whole of the projected change should fall to the ground. Arbuthnot Corresp. 60; Canning Official Corresp. i. 174-5, 176, 182-8, 200-2; C.H. Philips, E. I. Co. 251-3.

Lushington was persuaded to withdraw his pretensions, so depriving Planta of his promotion. According to Mrs. Arbuthnot, he admitted to her ‘his disappointment in not becoming secretary of treasury’. She thought he had been hoodwinked by Canning, who had convinced him that ‘he had had nothing to do’ with the abandonment of Lushington for Stuart. (In the event, Stuart declined to go to Madras because government refused his exorbitant personal demands, and no change took place in the governorship.) Arbuthnot Jnl. i. 360-1. Planta kept Stratford Canning informed of developments in the campaign for Catholic emancipation and Canning’s ‘increasing’ influence in the cabinet. After the 1826 general election he reported that the new Parliament would have ‘a greater majority on the part of ministers generally’, but ‘a small loss (some state it much greater than others) of supporters of the Catholic question’. FO352/10A/3, Planta to S. Canning, 11 Mar. 1825; 13A/1, same to same, 14 Feb., 26 Apr., 4 Aug. 1826. On 22 Nov. 1826 he told Canning that it had been

settled that if all things remain as they are amongst the higher powers I am to walk over to the treasury in July next, Lushington then proceeding to govern Madras. The time of this change will suit me exactly ... With [my under-secretary’s] pension under my arm I can walk where I please without fear and trembling ... But if these youths in the House of Commons are so boisterous, what a deal of whipping they will take, and what a job I shall have! Ibid. 362/13A/1.

Liverpool’s stroke created uncertainty in the political world, as Planta, who had recently recovered from a ‘very bad’ cough, told Stratford Canning, 23 Feb. 1827: ‘My earnest hope is that I shall have in my next letter, to announce to you, that your cousin is, as he ought to be, at the head of affairs. How I shall rejoice to see the country governed by him for many years’. W. Yorks. AS, Leeds, Stapleton mss 47; Canning’s Ministry, 30. When Canning formed his ministry in April Planta, who received a foreign office retirement pension of £1,000, duly succeeded Lushington as patronage secretary and Lushington’s brother as Member for the treasury borough of Hastings. Canning’s Ministry, 107A; Geo. IV Letters, iii. 1368. His initiation into parliamentary and political life was less than happy. Arbuthnot reported in July that he was ‘in despair’ at the divisions between Canning and his Whig partners, who made difficulties about obeying summonses for attendance from Planta and the much more experienced chief whip William Holmes*. Observing, too, that Canning had ‘not a grain of common judgement’, he went on:

Planta is more impressed with this than anyone. I had occasion to see him yesterday, and in the course of conversation he burst forth and exclaimed, ‘My dear Mr. Arbuthnot, who will ever be able to give judgement to Mr. Canning? He will take the advice of one person today, of another tomorrow, and on the next day of a third’. Canning’s Ministry, 340, 343; Parker, Peel, i. 492.

Planta himself confessed to Stratford Canning, 11 July:

Our difficulties will be very great indeed next session, more particularly in the House of Lords ... In the Commons we are strong - by the means of those that have joined us - but then how will they act, and will they not give us constant trouble? In short, to say that our prospects are clear and satisfactory is impossible; but if your cousin does but keep his health (of which there is every chance, for he is delightfully well now) I think he will in the end triumph over all opposition. Canning’s Ministry, 360.

Less than a month later he was attending Canning on his death bed at Chiswick; and, ‘struck down to the dust by this dreadful and most unexpected blow’, he lamented the loss of ‘the best friend and most worthy chief that ever directed and presided over the exertions of a set of men, for the attainment of great and noble and good objects’. Bagot, ii. 417-19; FO352/17A/3, Planta to S. Canning, 7, 10 Aug. 1827. He urged William Huskisson* to take office under Lord Goderich in order to ensure the perpetuation of Canning’s principles. Add. 38750, ff. 9, 19, 30, 145, 270; FO352/17A/3, Planta to S. Canning, 23 Aug. 1827. Holmes told Arbuthnot, 22 Aug. 1827, that in the difficult negotiations for the formation of the ministry Planta had behaved with ‘great candour and I may add manliness’, even though he was ‘quite sick of what is going on, and is very sick of the Whigs and I think ashamed of his new master’. Add. 40340, f. 192. Planta lost his father, whose effects were sworn under £5,000, on 3 Dec. 1827. PROB 6/203/294. Soon afterwards he became embroiled in the turmoil which led the wretched Goderich first to offer and then to withdraw his resignation, a step which Planta ‘went down on his knees to implore’ him not to take. After Goderich’s final resignation in January 1828 Planta, at Huskisson’s request, sounded him as to his disposition towards the Wellington ministry and reported back his desire to ‘make himself useful’ in the Lords. Add. 38752, ff. 212-15; 38754, f. 95.

It was reported that Planta was to lose his job, but in fact Huskisson’s terms for taking office with Wellington included his retention at the treasury, which was conceded. Cent. Kent. Stud. Camden mss U840 C351/1, Gore to Camden, 12 Jan. 1828; Add. 38754, f. 215; 40395, f. 85. Sir Henry Hardinge* thought it ‘un peu fort’ and likely to infuriate Lord Londonderry, who had been prejudiced against Planta by stories that he had spoken slightingly of his benefactor, Castlereagh, after his death. Hardinge discounted these allegations and was sure that Planta would be ‘faithful to the duke’. Arbuthnot Corresp. 101, 103 He started badly, for his failure to send out notes for attendance until the evening before the division on repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, 26 Feb. 1828 (though he had warned the home secretary Robert Peel* three days earlier of the need to secure a good attendance), contributed to ‘a general idea it was not to be made a government question’ and so to the ministerial defeat. Wellington was ‘much annoyed’. Ellenborough Diary, i. 42; Add. 40395, f. 277; 40397, f. 1. A month later Mrs. Arbuthnot recorded Holmes’s complaints that Peel’s attitude deterred backbenchers from attending, and described Planta’s receipt of ‘an impudent letter’ from four well-connected Members

calling him the shepherd who was continually crying wolf. Holmes wanted Planta to send the note back with a list of the sums pocketed by the families of these four gentlemen ... However, Planta is a good natured man and would not take any notice of it. Arbuthnot Jnl. ii. 176.

Planta voted for Catholic relief, 12 May. After the debate on provision for Canning’s family the following day Lord George Cavendish Bentinck* complained to Mrs. Canning that ‘that wretch Planta, who was pro tempore in the chair, never contrived to see’ the Whig Mackintosh, who had attempted to speak in its favour. Harewood mss, Bentinck to Mrs. Canning, 14 May 1828. On 14 May, when he brought up the report, Planta echoed Huskisson’s sentiments :

It was a very great relief to his mind ... that the provision ... was not to be considered as commensurate with his high public character, or as a reward for his eminent public services. If it had been to be so considered, he confessed he should have thought the provision very inadequate indeed.

He then delivered a eulogy of Canning, which he subsequently published, to the aggravation of Wellington who, according to Lord Ellenborough, was ‘very much dissatisfied’ with Planta’s ‘mutiny’ on this occasion. Ellenborough Diary, i. 106-7. He was reckoned to have precipitated, perhaps inadvertently, Huskisson’s rash resignation from the ministry after his wayward vote on the East Retford disfranchisement bill, 19 May 1828. He walked home from the House with Huskisson and allegedly ‘held very strong language’ and ‘told him the only thing he had left to do was to resign’. Planta might have been expected to follow suit, but he balked at the prospect of losing his £3,500 salary, as Lord Seaford commented:

The pecuniary sacrifice (without a provision on retirement, of which there would have been little chance, from the duke of Wellington, in case of a hostile resignation) would have been very inconvenient. And one must not expect and certainly ought not to recommend, such sacrifices. So Huskisson felt when Planta consulted him, and he told him frankly, and I am satisfied sincerely, that he did not wish anybody to make any sacrifice for his sake.

He feared, nevertheless, that Planta would ‘find his situation very uncomfortable’; and Lord Binning* thought that he did ‘not seem very happy’. Add. 40397, f. 1; Ellenborough Diary, i. 114; TNA 30/29/9/5/71; Bagot mss, Binning to Bagot, 2 June 1828. Certainly Planta, who defended the grant for South American missions, 30 May 1828, seems never to have been quite at ease at the treasury, especially after the Huskissonites’ resignation. He was probably aware that Wellington did not rate him very highly and was particularly dissatisfied with his management of the press. He had had some experience of this work at the foreign office and, according to Arbuthnot, had once boasted that he had then succeeded ‘in gaining over The Times’. Yet in February 1828 he shrugged off Huskisson’s reproaches over attacks on him in the ministerial press: ‘the newspapers I do from my heart despise (a fine quality you will say in your secretary of the treasury) and never, while I live, shall anything they say go between me and my rest’. In September 1828 Wellington complained to John Croker* that Planta did ‘not attend’ properly to the press, ‘nor does he meddle with that degree of intelligence which might be expected from him’. Planta continued to lack confidence in this sphere of his business and was perpetually exasperated by the intransigence of supposedly friendly editors. A. Aspinall, Politics and the Press, 200, 212, 239-33; Add. 38755, ff. 28, 41, 43; 40399, f. 290; Wellington Despatches, v. 54-55; vi. 329; Croker Pprs. ii. 21-23.

In September 1828 he told Huskisson that his treasury colleague George Dawson*, Peel’s brother-in-law, had ‘astonished us all’ with his Londonderry speech in favour of Catholic relief, and he anticipated a speedy settlement of the question. Add. 38757, ff. 68, 87; FO352/22/2, Planta to S. Canning, 26 Oct., 18 Nov. 1828. When ministers took it up he supplied Peel with miscellaneous information and various analyses of the Commons, by which he calculated that only about 119 Members would vote against it, with 33 others ‘doubtful’. Add. 40333, f. 88; 40340, f. 222; 40398, ff. 1, 3, 33-35. 83, 85. In the event, minorities of 160 and 173 opposed the introduction and second reading of the relief bill, 6, 18 Mar. 1829. He was alleged to have ‘miscalculated twenty or thirty’: in fact, the first minority included no fewer than 49 Members whom he had expected to side with government. Ellenborough Diary, i. 363, 382, 384; G.I.T. Machin, Catholic Question in English Politics, 162, 172. He dealt with some routine treasury business in the House, 6 May. At the end of August 1829 Sir Richard Vyvyan* told his fellow Ultra Sir Edward Knatchbull* that Planta was ‘with us in spirit’; but he was deluding himself, for a few days later Planta acted as Wellington’s emissary on a visit to Knatchbull at Mersham. He found the baronet susceptible to flattery and propitiation, if only because of his rooted fear of a Whig government, which Planta exploited. Cornw. RO, Vyvyan mss DD/V/BO/48, Vyvyan to Knatchbull, 31 Aug. 1829; Wellington mss WP1/1044/4; H. Knatchbull Hugessen, Kentish Fam. 188-9. On the eve of the 1830 session, when he was ‘confined ... with a severe cold and cough’, he told Thomas Frankland Lewis* that ministers wanted ‘as much support [as] we can get together’ and that he expected to ‘hear very much indeed of the distress of the agriculturists’, but thought that the ‘pretty good account’ they could give of Ireland was ‘a great point’ in their favour. NLW, Harpton Court mss, Planta to Lewis, 16 Jan. 1830. The government’s success in the debate on supply, 12 Feb., was said to have cheered him and Holmes, who ‘say the temper of the country gentlemen is much improved’ and were ‘quite in spirits again’. He was rightly confident of an easy government win on the same issue, 15 Feb. Ellenborough Diary, ii. 195; Grey mss, Ellice to Grey [15 Feb. 1830]. Yet the session turned out to be another troublesome one for Planta, with the government short of debating talent and sometimes struggling to retain control of a fragmented and mutinous Commons. He was embarrassed by their defeat on the Jewish emancipation bill, 5 Apr., though others were held largely to blame for the poor attendance; and he was said to be ‘bemoaning himself’ after the failure to make a House on 19 July for consideration of the Lords’ amendments to the forgery punishment mitigation bill, which had Peel ‘in a pet’. Add. 40333, f. 88; 40340, f. 222; 40400, f. 170; Lonsdale mss, Beckett to Lowther, 19 July 1830. On 24 May 1830 he took the government line of denying the existence of an interdict laid down by Canning against any attack by Mexico and Colombia on Cuba, which might have obliged them to protect the former against current Spanish aggression.

During the general election of 1830, when he came in again for Hastings in defiance of an attempt to open the borough, Planta wrote to Peel lamenting ministerial failures in Cambridgeshire, Devon and Suffolk and seeking to ward off criticism of his management: ‘I must repeat that these matters are utterly unmanageable by anything that can be done from hence. In such things as we can influence and in some degree control, we have not been unsuccessful’. Add. 40401, f. 130; Chatsworth mss, Brougham to Devonshire, 8 Sept. 1830. With most of the returns in he reckoned on a ministerial gain of 20 or 21 Members, making the composition of the House 368 government and 234 opposition; but these estimates were optimistic, for the ministry was patently weaker than it had been in July. Add. 40401, f. 125; R. Stewart, Foundation of Conservative Party, 54-55; N. Gash, Secretary Peel, 641-2. On 21 Sept. 1830 he wrote to Peel from Fairlight:

Being aware that this is about the time when the duke of Wellington will visit you, I have been working hard at our new House of Commons, and Charles Ross* has very kindly and efficiently assisted me. I now send you the results of his labours, with my remarks upon them. I am anxious that you shall receive these calculations when the duke is with you; and as Holmes is also in your neighbourhood, he may run through the lists, and, with his approval or alteration, they will no doubt be very tolerably correct. Add. 40401, f. 179.

His analysis was as follows: 311 ‘friends’; 37 ‘moderate Ultras’; 37 ‘good doubtfuls’; 24 ‘doubtful doubtfuls’; 188 ‘foes’; 25 ‘violent Ultras’; 23 ‘bad doubtfuls’, and 11 ‘Huskisson party’. This was ominous, with government in a minority of the House, though Planta’s further refinements indicated that even if all the disaffected groups acted together, ministers would still command a paper majority of about 30. Ibid. ff. 182-95. Meanwhile Huskisson’s untimely death, following those of Castlereagh and Canning, might have made any politician hesitate before accepting Planta’s personal loyalty. He wrote to a friend:

It has been my peculiar lot to go through a succession of painful shocks, in the sudden withdrawal of those with whom I have been politically connected (or rather under whom I have served) as well as by the intimacy of private friendship, and Mr. Huskisson was the survivor, who, with respect to me, united these two qualities. Add. 37048, f. 67.

He was the conduit through whom Lord Clive* transmitted to Wellington and Peel his views, which Planta endorsed, on the urgent need for the government to recruit the Huskissonites; and in mid-October 1830 he was summoned to London to discuss what was to be done about the Courier newspaper, ‘which goes on from bad to worse’. Powis mss (History of Parliament Aspinall transcripts), memo. 10 Oct., Planta to Clive, 21 Oct. 1830; Add. 40401, f. 232.">[footnote] The defeat of the ministry by 233-204 on the civil list, 15 Nov. 1830, exposed some of the flaws in Planta’s earlier calculations of their strength. Of those designated ‘friends’, 17 opposed them, as did 20 of the ‘moderate Ultras’, including six of the nine additionally marked by Planta as ‘friends’. Fourteen of the ‘doubtful favourables’ were hostile, among them five of the 18 he considered to be ‘generally friends’. Above all, new Members voted decisively against the government and only 15 English county Members rallied to them. Three Diaries, pp. xxi-xxiii; A. Mitchell, Whigs in Opposition, 245. Planta resigned with his colleagues, but managed to secure an addition of £500 his 1827 pension. He was one of the fallen ministers who immediately formed a small committee to organize and direct the opposition to the Grey ministry, and he placed his London house at 10 Charles Street, St. James’s Square at their disposal when required. Add. 40405, f. 272; Stewart, 55, 68; Three Diaries, 32, 35, 46, 47, 52, 57. On 3 Mar. 1831, according to Ellenborough, he, Francis Bonham* and Holmes were predicting a comfortable majority against the ministerial reform bill, but they were wide of the mark. Planta, who was ‘low’ and ‘timid’ at this juncture, duly voted against the second reading, 22 Mar., and for Gascoyne’s wrecking amendment, 19 Apr. 1831. Three Diaries, 62, 63, 76, 85; Add. 40403, f. 276.

At the ensuing general election he had to abandon Hastings, where the reforming tide was too strong for him, but he continued to be involved in attempts to organize the parliamentary opposition. In June 1831 the Charles Street house, which he had now vacated, was formally adopted as an office and meeting place for the party. This establishment, which earned its frequenters the name of ‘the Charles Street Gang’, was the progenitor of the Carlton Club, formed the following year. Stewart, 72-73; Gash, Politics in Age of Peel, 395-7; Three Diaries, 93, 190; Aspinall, 329-30, 336, 459, 467. Planta was evidently not a member of the committee formed by the Conservatives in May 1832 to manage the forthcoming elections, and he seems to have stepped back from politics for a time after his marriage to the widow Charlotte Oom, who brought him a stepson, Adolphus. On 21 Sept. 1832 he wrote to Stratford Canning:

I entirely agree in what you say of the happiness of being out of the way of politics. They have become wicked and discouraging things since, in the person of your cousin, a great mind, high feelings and most exalted views were defeated by selfishness and through narrowness of mind, when a short-sighted obstinacy took the name of consistency, and private dislike that of public principle, and thus one of the best hearts and the greatest of minds was broken, and driven from this world long before its time. Lane Poole, ii. 17.

He nevertheless obsequiously pressed his claims on Peel for a place in any future Conservative government. He enjoyed this in Peel’s short-lived first ministry, but it was not until 1837 (after a surprise defeat two years earlier) that he regained the Hastings seat. Henry Goulburn* discounted him as a candidate for the post of chief whip for the Conservative opposition, admitting his ‘integrity and honour’, but doubtful ‘as to his possessing [at the age of 50] the activity and energy necessary’. He was passed over for office in 1841. Add. 40309, f. 372; 40333, f. 372; 40403, f. 274; 40405, f. 272. Planta, who was described by Captain William Dyott in 1835 as ‘a very agreeable man’, died in April 1847. Dyott’s Diary, ii. 207; Gent. Mag. (1847), ii. 86-87. He had left all his property to his wife and given instructions, which appear to have been carried out, for the destruction of most of his papers. PROB 11/2034/350.