‘Tall, slouching and ignoble-looking’ but arguably the ablest practical financier of his generation, Canning’s ‘profound coadjutor’ Huskisson was a plain, clumsy man with hair ‘cropped as close as a ploughman’.
By 1820 he had languished for more than five years as the Liverpool government’s first commissioner of woods and forests, a brief he had long mastered and that bored him. Excluded from the cabinet he hankered for, he was an unpaid member of the board of trade yet a key member of the premier’s policy committee. Adhering broadly to principles he had set out with Francis Horner† in the 1810 bullion committee’s report and The Question Concerning the Depreciation of Our Currency, he advocated a gradual retreat from wartime depreciation and inflation, served on every major finance committee, rallied support for the 1815 corn law and 1819 Bank Act and condoned the repressive legislation after Peterloo. He also warned against reliance on government intervention to heal economic distress.
This dissolution has deprived us of nearly all our best and steadiest props ... and has substituted in their stead men of very different character ... We must not shut our eyes to the spirit which is spreading through the country even in the agricultural districts ... It is a soreness on every subject connected with expense, a clamour for economy, a feeling growing out of the present straitened circumstances of the yeomanry contrasted with the ease which they enjoyed during the war ... The infection of radicalism, which is prevalent in the town is gradually making its way into the villages ... Government ... must not only forbear from provocation ... In my opinion the period may not be remote in which we may find it necessary to do something to secure the affection and more cordial goodwill of some great class in the state. To bid for the lower classes or the manufacturing population is out of the question. Duty and policy would equally forbid it, but the yeomanry are still within your reach and to them in my opinion we must look.
Arbuthnot Corresp. 14; Add. 38742, f. 6.
Intervening regularly to support colleagues, he helped the chancellor of the exchequer Vansittart to counter attacks on the civil list, 27 Apr.-8 May. That day, he carried the division against further inquiry (by 256-157), praised the 1816 civil list report and dismissed opposition demands for reductions in diplomatic expenditure on the ground that ambassadors were accountable to the king, not Parliament.
His perspective on Queen Caroline’s case was determined by his commitment to protecting and representing Canning, whose early liaison with her was common knowledge and an embarrassment to the cabinet, as George IV sought a divorce. When finance for the secret service was voted, 16 June, he was hard pressed to counter criticism of the undisclosed cost of proceeding against the queen by means of a bill of pains and penalties prosecuted by publicly funded government lawyers, using evidence acquired by the secret service, but he would not be drawn. He was a government teller for persisting with her prosecution, 26 June, and a key spokesman on 17 July against her counsel Lushington’s motion for papers on the plate presented to her in 1808. (His decision, as treasury under-secretary that year, to remodel King William III’s plate for her use, now enabled the foreign secretary and leader of the House Lord Castlereagh to designate it public not personal property.) He faced awkward questions on the prosecution’s deployment of contingency and secret service funds to influence newspaper coverage of the queen’s case, 18 Sept. He knew, through his early patron the 2nd marquess of Stafford’s half-brother Lord Granville, that their friends opposed the bill in the Lords, and initially favoured forcing it through there and conceding defeat in the Commons, or carrying a resolution confined to its principle. However, Canning wrote from Paris scotching the proposal. As directed by him, on 22 Oct. he advised Liverpool to ‘take the earliest opportunity of getting rid of the proceeding altogether’, and retreated to Eartham to distance himself from further intrigue.
We may possibly struggle through the liturgy and the palace, but we shall be left weak and lingering to meet other questions and impressions and prepossessions, such ... as those growing out of the Milan Commission ... the final yielding to the king upon the divorce ... the £100,000 at least to be voted for the ... commission.
The Times, 13, 20 Nov.; Harewood mss 26, Canning to wife, 24 Nov. 1820; Add. 38742, ff. 156, 171.
Defending government’s handling of the affair, 6 Feb. 1821, he attributed the recent industrial revival to the Six Acts, warned that the radicals’ crusade for the queen threatened that recovery and rehashed and elaborated on the litany of misdemeanours she had been accused of in 1806 and 1813. It was his first major speech on a general question, and according to the radical Whig Henry Grey Bennet
the dullest and most stupid speech I ever heard. It was in fact, an entire failure, and he had better confine himself to finance and trade. He was repeatedly groaned at by his own friends and, when I, in my reply, sneeringly complimented him on the enlivening nature of his speech, the benches behind him cheered me.
HLRO, Hist. Coll. 379, Grey Bennet diary, 14a.
He justified the queen’s £50,000 civil list pension, 12 Feb. He supported Londonderry (formerly Castlereagh) on the alleged libels against the judge William Draper Best†, 23 Feb., 19 Apr., and by the Morning Chronicle, 26 Feb. Quoting from official papers, he refuted William Smith’s claim that the duke of Clarence could live on his inheritance, 8 June, and defended the inclusion of arrears in his award, 8, 18, 29 June.
Sparring frequently with John Maberly and the political economist Ricardo, whose works he had recently read, Huskisson defended the estimates in several speeches and interventions, 9 Feb.-18 May 1821.
When ministerial negotiations resumed in April 1821 preparatory to Canning’s return, Huskisson was suggested for the navy treasurership, the mint and the Irish secretaryship but, rejecting all three, he informed Liverpool on the 25th that he would risk an election at Chichester ‘only for the India board’.
In February 1822 he vainly hoped that Londonderry could expedite repayment of the Austrian loan, so that borrowing through exchequer bills or a ‘further inroad upon the feeble remnant of our sinking fund’ could be avoided and ‘our country gentlemen [put] in good humour before Parliament met’.
Directly Parliament was prorogued that month he renewed to Liverpool his threat to resign unless promoted, giving as reasons Canning’s forthcoming departure for Bengal and his own long tenure of woods and forests ‘less from a desire to hold it, than in the expectation of being removed to some other’. He emphasized also the loyalty he had shown by staying on after the Grenvillite accession. With Londonderry as intermediary, negotiations to find ‘ways and means’ of promoting him commenced on 30 July, but no agreement had been reached when Londonderry committed suicide, 12 Aug.
All that Huskisson can do for the government he can do best in his present rank ... He is au fait in all official and financial details, and has a great love of what the French call administrative experience. But the defects of his manner and voice prevent his being a useful speaker, for no one is useful whom the House merely tolerates.
Add. 40319, f. 57; Croker Pprs. i. 227-32.
Hurt to be offered the presidency of the board of trade ‘without cabinet’, 3 Oct., he vented his spleen on the Grenvillites and the ‘via inertia which has been so long Liverpool’s principle of government’. He urged Canning as intermediary not to press his claim ‘further than you feel to be conducive to some arrangement satisfactory to yourself, for improving gradually your position in the House’ and took solace, as Canning knew he would, from Buckingham’s exclusion from the cabinet.
The commercial component of Canning’s liberal Tory policies, executed by Huskisson and by Robinson as chancellor of the exchequer, was considered remarkable for the facility with which excise duties were reduced, antiquated trading restrictions abolished and protection perpetuated only where subsidized foreign competition threatened trade, or it was considered necessary to invoke colonial preference. Initially assisted by Wallace, whom Charles Grant replaced as vice-president in April 1823, Huskisson also relied heavily on his clerks (George Chalmers, Thomas Lack and the economist and codifier of the Customs Acts James Deacon Hume) and a staff of about 36, to whom he added his private secretary and biographer Edward Leeves (Leeves’s brother William was his Chichester agent).
Drawn by Edmond Wodehouse’s criticism of the 1821 report to comment on Whitmore’s proposal for a corn bill based on a gradual reduction to 60s. in the pivot price, 26 Feb. 1823, Huskisson dismissed his case for separating the corn and currency questions as ‘superficial’, disputed Curwen’s account of the benefits accruing from lowering taxes on household goods and cottages and, denying that the agriculturists had a right to protection because other taxes were high, hinted that he might support free trade ‘at the right time’. Two days later, supporting Robinson in a prepared speech, he ridiculed Maberly’s attempt to raid the entire £7,000,000 sinking fund to finance tax cuts and defended the policy of allowing it to accumulate at compound interest under the national debt reduction bill. Presenting a Liverpool petition for repeal of the window tax, 7 Mar., he conceded that he could not support its prayer
After three months of intrigue and in-fighting, on 6 Nov. 1823 the king authorized his admission to the cabinet when it met to discuss West Indian business on the 18th, but cautioned: ‘Mr. Huskisson may be and no doubt is a very clever man, but he is not always a prudent one’.
He mistrusted private bills and joint-stock companies and became increasingly critical of the protective measures sought by speculators and of their toll on Parliament’s resources. This became evident in his interventions on the Irish Royal Mining Company, 6 May 1824, the Birmingham gas light bill, 6 May 1824, and the Manchester and Salford Loan Company, 10 May 1824, 28 Feb. 1825. Predicting ‘many losses and disappointments’, he agreed with lord chancellor Eldon that acquiring chartered status and appeals to law not Parliament should be used to check the ‘wild and unreasonable speculation’ in joint-stock companies ‘which vanish into thin air and leave those who entertained them nothing but regret and disappointment’, 18 Mar. 1825, and resisted Moore’s assault on the 1720 Bubble Act, 29 Mar., but he had to concede it, 2 June 1825.
Huskisson played a part in the passage of most of the public bills enacted in 1825 and although his health held out, he found the session long and taxing.
He rightly interpreted Maberly’s motion to repeal the assessed taxes, 3 Mar. 1825, as a tactical one, ‘calculated to win over those who would not meddle with the sinking fund per se’. He did not rule out tax cuts but stipulated that the priority was to cut those affecting manufacturing, and amid fears of a shortfall in corn supplies, he strove to stifle discussion of the City petition, 28 Mar. Opposed in cabinet, 18 Apr., when he sought a pledge that government would consider revising the corn laws in 1826, he gave nothing away when baited by Gooch, 25 Apr. 1825, but bringing up a Liverpool petition next day, he hinted at concessions on warehousing.
During the recess he participated in negotiations in Paris and London with the French ministers Villèle and Polignac, which yielded another commercial treaty, and discussed the corn question at length with Liverpool.
For years I have been constantly labouring to prevail with the Bank of England to permit a modification of their charter. I have uniformly urged this concession on their part, in the double view of security to the country, and to themselves. To the country, by replacing the present system of individual bankers of little capital and often of less prudence or honesty, by joint- stock, or even locally chartered banks of ample capital, carrying on their business as bankers, and not making their credit the channel to feed, either in their own rash adventures, or those of their connections, every wild speculation. To the Bank, in preventing the periodical recourses of panics, with all their alarming consequences to their stability, such as that which is now, I hope, subsiding, but the traces of which will long remain. I have always urged too that the concession would, in fact, be no sacrifice, for that Parliament would secure to them the circulation of the metropolis and a certain district round it, which, together with the exclusive use of their paper in the receipt of the revenues and the payment of the dividends, would maintain it nearly, if not entirely at its accustomed level. Now I trust these considerations will have their weight; that the Bank, on the one hand, will no longer incur the odium of claiming the strict letter of its monopoly, and on the other, that the influence of the country bankers in Parliament will no longer be attended to, in opposition to so great and necessary an improvement.
Glynne-Gladstone mss 276.
He rightly predicted a session ‘less smooth and satisfactory than the last ... plagued with motions and inquiries’ and that government would be ‘called upon to devise means of relief where none can be afforded’ in 1826.
an admirable display of deep practical knowledge and of sound science proved by the test of experience. He took down Mr. Baring’s 24,000,000 to about 14,000,000 ... He attributed the distress to the combined action of speculation and overissue of paper. He laid it down as an absolute rule that gold and paper cannot circulate together, the paper will drive out the gold ... Next, that no currency can be safe, where the bullion bears a very small relative proportion to the paper. That the substitution of gold for one pound notes will relieve the Bank from part of the enormous responsibility of standing as security for the 800 country banks of England, and for the banks of Ireland and Scotland, because with this portion of bullion in circulation, each country bank will have the same interest as the Bank of England in observing the exchanges and in regulating their issues accordingly.
Wellington mss WP1/849/13; Stapleton, 229; Nottingham Univ. Lib. Denison diary, 10 Feb. 1826.
Agar Ellis thought his concluding speech on 13 Feb. ‘the best ... I ever heard from him - clear, firm, and sound - and with a better manner and delivery than usual’.
Though expected to yield, he successfully resisted the protectionists and the Coventry manufacturers’ demands for higher protective tariffs on silk, 9, 14, 23 Feb. 1826.
On 28 Apr. 1826, with full government backing, he defeated Whitmore’s motion to reduce agricultural protection (by 250-81). Gloomy statistics procured for the board of trade by William Jacob†, on which the motion was based, were hinted at and the discussion highlighted Huskisson’s failure to initiate the inquiry promised in 1825. His citations from the 1821 agriculture report and allusions to his commercial policies were stale. In consultations with Canning and Liverpool afterwards, he explained that Jacob’s figures indicated a likely shortfall in supply, coinciding with a depression in manufacturing. Legislation to open the ports could not therefore be held back until the next Parliament in November although he would be unable to carry it himself in the Commons.
His main pre-session concerns were the deplorable state of the revenue, the Catholic question and the state of Ireland.
The assault on Canning’s liberal economic policy and Huskisson’s ‘Reciprocity Acts’ was enshrined in a motion for a select committee on the distressed shipping industry, announced on 21 Feb. 1827. Entrusted to Gascoyne, with Canning’s office secretary Henry Thomas Liddell, representing the Tyne ship owners, as seconder, it was backed by favourable petitions from all the major ports and was moved on 7 May. Responding in a triumphant two-and-a-half-hour speech, after Charles Poulett Thomson had prepared the ground, Huskisson used statistics culled from different returns to Gascoyne’s to contradict his account of recent trading losses and decline. Highlighting the achievements of his liberal policies, he reviewed and assessed the petitions submitted and made comparisons with silk, timber and other trades. He did not shy from dealing with their Irish and colonial dimensions, including slavery. The Great Yarmouth, Newcastle, Bristol and London Members, the agriculturists Wodehouse and Curwen, and Baring, Bernal and Peel were among those (about 40) whom he won over during the debate and who openly withdrew their support from Gascoyne.
Our session is now over, and our difficulties postponed. They were formidable enough without the necessity of trying our strength again upon a new corn bill at the commencement of the next session. However, I shall not despair of getting people into better humour if Canning keeps his health, and the king remains firm.
TNA 30/29/9/3/18.
News of Canning’s death on 8 Aug. 1827 reached him in Switzerland on the 15th in letters from Granville and the treasury secretary Planta, who asked him to ‘give us your best assistance’.
We all know Huskisson well. Had he, upon coming home, found that the duke had refused the command, he would not I think have liked to embark with so feeble a government, but now I should not be at all surprised if he persuaded the Whigs to acquiesce in Herries’s appointment’.
Add. 40340, f. 195; 40394, f. 206.
The Whig James Abercromby*, for different reasons, agreed:
He is a man of resource. But all my reflections lead to the conclusion that he is hostile. Canning being gone, he sees that he has no real protection against the growing influence and power of the Whigs, whom he hates and fears and is determined at all hazards to keep them out.
Chatsworth mss, Abercromby to Devonshire [27 Aug. 1827].
He had decided by the 24th that retirement was no option. Accepting Goderich’s offer two days later he wrote:
I find myself upon the treasury bench almost the sole survivor not only of the generation under which I first entered it, but also of that which immediately succeeded Mr. Pitt’s ministry and of which I was the contemporary. In the short space of six months the country has been deprived of Lord Liverpool and Mr. Canning, both born in the same year as myself, and both, I firmly believe, in a great degree prematurely destroyed by the anxiety and toil of public life. My labours, it is true, in point of importance, have been as dust in the balance compared to theirs; but however insignificant, they have not been the less wearing or incessant. The result has been that the greater part of these last six months has been passed by me in a very serious state of illness, and the unavoidable neglect of the public duties of my situation.
Add. 38750, f. 104; Huskisson Pprs. 231-3.
He had met Tierney and the Whig peers Carlisle, Devonshire and Lansdowne by arrangement directly he returned, before going to Windsor.
I sincerely wish success to Huskisson and his ministry and pray that prudence will create another miracle in inspiring the king with truth, constancy and firmness to support them through all the struggles and difficulties before them.
Brougham mss, same to J. Brougham, 9 Sept.; Grey mss, Ellice to Grey, 19 Sept. 1827.
Others noted the Canningites’ lack of parliamentary influence, which Holland, who coveted the foreign secretaryship but was offered nothing, could have provided.
My hope, and confidence and comfort of every sort is in Huskisson. I consider him not only to entertain all poor Canning’s better opinions, but to be free from some of ... the ... prejudices of his friend and chief, and to want nothing but power to make him at least as efficient as a minister. But I tremble for his health’.
Hatherton mss, Fazakerley to Littleton, 29 Sept. 1827.
As leader of the House, he was consulted on the Lanarkshire by-election and corresponded frequently with Binning on Scotland, where support for the ministry declined.
the only purposeful cabinet member ... the mainstay of the government and without him they could not go on a week ... In fact he is the person who directs everything, and I think the only one who understands anything about foreign politics.
TNA 30/29/14, Howard de Walden to Granville, 16 Nov. [1826].
He took charge of the Canning pension and Kilbrahan peerage legislation, a potential problem as the revenue was in deficit and subject to finance committee scrutiny.
I can no longer conceal to myself that councils which ought to be, and which the king specially directs should be, held most strictly secret are not so kept. If on one occasion they are divulged to newspapers to secure any particular purpose, am I not justified in apprehending that in others they are betrayed to other quarters to serve some other purpose? Against such risks I cannot hope to be able to conduct the affairs of the government in the ... Commons. They open a door to intrigue against which no minister can contend, and no reputation can be safe. Neither can I venture to be one of the depositaries of confidence, which, however violated, must excite suspicion; and that suspicion may fall upon myself.
Add. 38752, f. 306.
With the ministry doomed, he wrote similarly, 29 Dec. 1827, 4 Jan. 1828, after seeing Palmerston and Wellington. Convinced that they could not go on, and of the king’s secretary Knighton’s intriguing, his official resignation letter (4 Jan.), which he knew would be fatal to the ministry, alluded directly to Herries, who had again agitated the finance committee, and made no mention of the Commons leadership.
There is a considerable difference of opinion amongst our best friends as to the admission of Huskisson. He will bring some votes, and contra. It is stated that his forming part of the government will indispose and make 90 country gentlemen as shy as hawks, and that the late cabinet intrigues only began when he was admitted into it. This is the theme of debate, but I don’t think his wings would be so clipped ... Upon the whole I think it would be better to have him.
Lonsdale mss.
The duke of Rutland and Sir Henry Hardinge* wrote similarly of the need to keep Huskisson in order: ‘in short he is the dry rot of any cabinet into which he enters, but then he leads about 30 votes and is really an able fellow, and Peel is so short of aid in the Lower House’.
The compromise between Herries and Huskisson is most curious. The objections urged against the former were pointed, it now seems, rather against the office than the man, for Mr. Herries appears to Huskisson a harmless cabinet minister when changed into the master of the mint.
Tierney mss 85a.
Carlisle’s exclusion and Huskisson’s failure to insist on leading the House caused a furore among their friends.
On 5 Feb. 1828 he went to Liverpool to be re-elected. The arrangements had been made when a resolution of support for Canning was carried the previous May, and he was asked to explain his changing political allegiance.
We had long speeches from some Whigs who had received their lessons from town; and in reply to which I was obliged to go into explanations much more at length than I could have wished. Lord Molyneux† was put in nomination, but no poll being demanded, everything was over by three o’clock, and without the least symptom of violence.
Add. 40395, f. 208.
However, his speech, as circulated in the press, greatly offended the Whigs, Tories and Lady Canning. In it he castigated Goderich, who reciprocated with a motion in the Lords, 11 Feb., inflated his status in Wellington’s ministry and projected himself as the true heir to Canning. To make matters worse, he spoke as if he was in charge of the corn bill and commercial policy. Having no notes of the speech, he found the newspaper allegations difficult to deny.
He defended the corporation-sponsored Liverpool dock bill, 25 Feb., reluctantly acquiesced in the cabinet’s decision to uphold the Test Acts as a government question and divided and apparently spoke against repeal, 26 Feb., but later complained that his ‘views were misrepresented out of doors’, 14 Mar. 1828. Agar Ellis and Lord George Cavendish Bentinck* thought his first speech ‘wretched’ and his argument that repeal would jeopardize Catholic relief ‘contemptible’.
He answered questions on the colonial assemblies and slavery, 27 Feb., 5, 6 Mar., and promised to support a bill ‘to improve the civil and moral conditions of slaves’, based on Canning’s 1823 resolutions, 6 Mar. 1828. In cabinet, 4 Apr., he suggested keeping manumission compulsory and permitting the privy council to authorize slave transfers.
He found fault with Russell’s proposal to transfer Penryn’s franchise to Manchester, 24 Mar., but supported the principle behind the exchange. He vainly urged the postponement of the freeholders registration bill, 25 Mar., and opposed the Liverpool franchise bill, for which Smith Stanley presented a petition, 2 Apr., stating, ‘it has never yet been held by this House desirable to give the franchise to a different class of voters, except for the purpose of punishing the former electors in cases of corruption’. He opposed it again, 9 June. On East Retford, 21 Mar., he maintained that the time had come to ‘establish some general principle’ for franchise transfer, and Lord Sandon duly claimed his vote for transferring the seats to Birmingham, 19 May. Backed by Dudley, Grant and Palmerston, he had stated in cabinet on the 17th that they ‘must vote for a town’, but on the morning of the 19th the cabinet agreed to follow Peel and support sluicing. In Grant’s absence, Huskisson and Palmerston called for an adjournment until Penryn’s fate was known. Peel refused, and by not leaving the chamber with him they were counted in the minority. Huskisson’s short speech argued that sluicing and a £20 ratepayer qualification would ‘annihilate’ the borough.
I now incline to think it was a hasty step, taken under feelings of excitement, and that it would have been more discreet to have waited till daylight. At the same time I do not believe that the most cautious and guarded letter would have produced a different result, because ... the duke has his answer to the explanation which he treats as offensive. Be that as it may, this hasty letter (marked however private and confidential) was sent off in a breathless hurry to the king, and without any previous communication with me, as a positive absolute resignation. It is a breach of all the relations of confidence between a minister and the head of the government to have made such a use of a letter so marked.
TNA 30/29/9/3/39.
He received letters of sympathy, and the consensus was that he had been hard done by.
Huskisson spoke against inquiry into small notes, warning that it might trigger a panic, 3, 5 June. He acquiesced in the continuance of the sugar duties for one year and, in view of his differences with Grant on their equalization, he deferred discussion of American involvement in the West Indian trade. He presented the Calcutta merchants’ petition for equalizing the duties on all East and West Indian imports but deemed further discussion premature, 16 June. He replayed the shipping debate with Gascoyne to his own advantage next day and defended his policies as a minister when the Hull shipping petition was presented, 24 June. He intervened on the New South Wales bill, 20 June, Buckingham House expenditure, 23 June, and steam packets, 25 June. He supported his successor Sir George Murray’s motion perpetuating the Slave Laws Consolidation Act, 1 July, and moved for a copy of his own letter of 22 Sept. 1827 to the governor of Jamaica. He divided with ministers on the ordnance estimates, 4 July, and defended his policies on Canada, 7, 14 July, and the silk trade, 14, 15 July, when opposition tried to exploit his humiliation. Citing from his correspondence with Gladstone, he ordered papers and accounts on American tariffs, 18 July 1828.
Huskisson returned from Switzerland in November 1828 in better health than at any time since 1826. He saw nothing extraordinary in Peel’s Liverpool visit and was encouraged by growing talk of Catholic emancipation.
Speculation persisted that Wellington wanted to strengthen his ministry, and of a fresh approach to Melbourne or Palmerston, but reports of an overture to Huskisson were groundless.
Huskissonian or liberal Tories ... unite the largest number of efficient public men. They embrace youth and talent in the House of Commons. They have a strong hold in the affection which the king displays for them; especially if they could join with them that portion of Whiggism connected with the House of Cavendish, which supported Canning’s government. ... If they had such a partisan as the duke of Cumberland near the king’s person and that ... [he] took as much pains for them as he is doing for his Tory adherents ... e’re long he would establish them, making the Ultra Tories also join their standard. But the duke of Cumberland dislikes the Huskisson tribe, and rallying what he calls the king’s friends, he makes his own party the sole consideration ... I believe the government the king would fancy, as most at his disposal, would be formed out of the liberal Tory party, and His Majesty has even looked (as I am told) to Lord Melbourne as leader in the Lords, and Lord Palmerston in the Commons. It is, however, the policy of this junta not to commit themselves in any violent opposition, because they think it might widen them from the sovereign, who, they flatter themselves, will call on them in the first crisis. Their game is to remain ‘en potence’. They are satisfied of the duke’s dislike. They see no hope of approximation, and they return the feelings the government displays towards them, with the most secret and cordial hate. Palmerston’s able speeches at the close of the session were warmly eulogized, in private, by Huskisson and Co., and this is, I presume, the sort of battery that will be opened next session from that quarter.
Londonderry mss C83 (25).
During the recess Huskisson visited Liverpool where he discussed politics with his merchant backers and free trade with Lord Harrowby.
there is so strong a prejudice among the country gentlemen that it would hardly be possible to bring them to join with him. ... I told them exactly the manner in which he and I had been thrown together; that we agreed generally in opinions and therefore were acting together, but that I looked upon him as entirely free to act for himself without reference to me, and held myself also equally free as to him.
Broadlands mss BR23AA/5/6.
Convinced that the economic downturn was systemic, not cyclical, Huskisson complained before the 1830 session that Wellington ‘does not allow that there is anything wrong in the state of the country’ and wrongly assumed that he would fob off the distressed farmers with inquiry, as in 1820-22: ‘This is always a convenient course for government. It gives them the chapter of accidents, and wears away the session without anything being done’.
Confirming his opposition in a ‘very bitter’ speech drawing on his experience of distress in Sussex, he supported the amendment regretting its omission from the address, 4 Feb. 1830. He did not expect Wellington to propose a remedy.
We cannot deal with the vast commerce of this country with its immense and complicated many concerns, with the varied interests connected with its civil government and foreign policy, by a system of meeting every temporary difficulty by some expedient just suited to the occasion. We cannot put forward laws, as you would an advance guard, with instructions to fall back, or go to the right or left, as the occasion may require. There must be something like a well-adjusted, organized plan, undertaken deliberately, pursued firmly.
His amendment was defeated by 182-144. He quibbled over details of the government’s and Chandos’s tariff scales, 30 June, and although taken to task by Peel, he persevered in his attempt to secure a reduction in the sugar duties, 1, 2 July. He supported Littleton’s bill to abolish truck payments, 23 June, 1, 5 July. He objected to deferring the regency question to the next Parliament and supported Robert Grant’s motion for its immediate consideration, 5 July.
Huskisson was ‘seized with a strangury’ and other distressing symptoms at the king’s funeral, was bled profusely and required surgery.
The great captain [will] be there with all his tail. Of course one object is to throw me into the background at this ceremony; another is by extending his visit to Manchester ... [to] bid for a little popularity before Parliament meet.
Parker, Graham, i. 86-87.
Wellington and members of all parties witnessed his fatal accident at Parkside, near Newton, struck down by the Rocket after panicking and ‘trying to fling himself out of its way’. He spent his last hours at Eccles vicarage, his left leg reduced to pulp, and died that evening.
The manner of Huskisson’s death made a great impression on his contemporaries. Tributes flowed, but within hours most acknowledged that his loss facilitated a political realignment.
What an awful event has been the death of Huskisson. In point of knowledge and of that kind of knowledge just now most wanting, knowledge of commercial matters and political economy, he has not left his match behind. The Bank question, the East India question would all have brought him greatly prominent. The set-off was the want of confidence of all parties in his straightforwardness and sincerity. To us on the breaking up of Goderich’s government he certainly did not act a chivalrous part. To Canning’s personal friends he did not attach himself with the zeal that might have been expected. I leave you to decide your own cause of quarrel. But with all these defects, he was a mighty master in all the questions I have referred to and he is a prodigious loss to the country. Not so I think on party principles to his immediate clique. To them his unpopularity was a greater disadvantage than his abilities were a gain. This seems a paradox but the event will prove my prediction correct. One vessel may be over ballasted with gold as another with lead.
NLI, Monteagle mss 13370 (8).
Hardinge, then Irish secretary, fairly typically observed:
He was a very agreeable, good natured man, and on all subjects very plausible and clever. If he had joined or not opposed the government, his views and measures would have been warped by the desire to please Liverpool at the expense of the state, but his death appears to me to be important as dissolving his party, and [as a means] of obtaining individuals [belonging to it] at less cost.
Arbuthnot Corresp. 139.
By late September 1830, the Huskissonite party in the Commons was estimated by the Wellington administration at only 11.
In society he was extremely agreeable, without much animation, generally cheerful, with a great deal of humour, information, and anecdote, gentlemanlike, unassuming, slow in speech, and with a downcast look, as if he avoided meeting anybody’s gaze ... It is probably true that there is no man in Parliament, or perhaps out of it, so well versed in finance, commerce, trade and colonial matters, and that he is therefore a very great and irreparable loss. It is nevertheless remarkable that it is only within the last five or six years that he acquired the great reputation which he latterly enjoyed. I do not think he was looked upon as more than a second-rate man till his speeches on the silk trade and the shipping interest; but when he became president of the board of trade he devoted himself with indefatigable application to the maturing and reducing to practice those commercial improvements with which his name is associated and to which he owes all his glory and most of his unpopularity.
Greville Mems. ii. 47-48.