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SHELBURNE, EARL OF. 



SHELBURNE, EARL OF. 



470 



the late Mr. Daniel O'Conncll to plead at the bar of the House of 

 Lords against the bill introduced for its suppression. The bill how- 

 ever passed ; but it only served to inflame his religious zeal and to 

 rouse his oratorical powers to such a pitch of vehement invective 

 against the government that a prosecution was commenced against 

 him for seditious language. The illness of Lord Liverpool however 

 transferred the premiership to the hands of Mr. Canning, who wisely 

 ordered the prosecution to be abandoned. In 1828 Mr. Sheil took an 

 active part in procuring the return of Mr. O'Connell to parliament aa 

 member for the county of Clare, and also addressed the great meeting 

 held at Penenden Heath for the purpose of resisting the Roman Catholic 

 Emancipation Bill. In 1829, soon after the passing of the Relief Act, 

 Mr. Sheil was returned to parliament for the since disfranchised 

 borough of Milborne Port, by the influence of the late Marquis of 

 Anglesea, 'who, while holding the lord lieutenancy of Ireland, had 

 noticed his career, and who thus turned the restless agitator into a 

 peaceful citizen and a useful legislator. Here his oratorical powers 

 were appreciated, and he soon became one of the most popular and 

 attractive speakers in St. Stephen's, though the matter of his speeches 

 never rose to a level with the brilliancy of illustration and flow of 

 impassioned declamation with which they were adorned. In 1830 he 

 was again returned for Milborne Port, and in 1831 for the county of 

 Louth. After the passing of the Reform Act, which gave much dis- 

 satisfaction in Ireland, Mr. O'Counell commenced agitating for repeal, 

 in which Mr. Sheil at first refused to join, but subsequently con- 

 sented, considering, as his biographer, Mr. T. M'Cullagh asserts, that it 

 "was in point of fact but short-hand for just and equal government 

 in Ireland." In December 1832 for the first reformed parliament he 

 was chosen to represent the county of Tipperary, where he had acquired 

 some extensive landed influence by his second marriage with the 

 widow of Mr. E. Power of Gurteen, on which occasion he adopted 

 that lady's maiden name of Lalor. In 1834 the Grey ministry intro- 

 duced an Irish Coercion Bill, which was strongly opposed by most of 

 the Irish members, among whom was Mr. Sheil, but a report became 

 current that several of them had expressed a wish that it should be 

 carried, " or there would be no living in Ireland." A great outcry 

 was raised of " Who is the traitor ? " and on Lord Althorp being 

 appealed to, he replied that he had no personal knowledge of any 

 such expression, but had heard it, and though he could not give up 

 the names, he would tell any member who asked whether he was one. 

 Ou Mr. Sheil making the inqxiiry, he replied he was one who had been 

 mentioned. Mr. Sheil denied it at once ; a parliamentary committee 

 was appointed, and Mr. E. Hill, who appeared before the committee 

 to support the allegation, confessed that he believed that he had been 

 misinformed. In the same year Mr. Sheil was a party to the Lich- 

 field House Compact," a term applied from a phrase of his own, in 

 which he hoped " that no minor differences would mar their compact 

 and cordial alliance." In 1838 he was offered office by the Melbourne 

 administration ; at first the clerkship of the ordnance was spoken of, 

 but ultimately he became one of the commissioners of Greenwich 

 Hospital, and never again advocated repeal. In 1839 he was made 

 vice-president of the Board of Trade ; and was also sworn a member 

 of the Privy Council, being, we believe, the first Roman Catholic on 

 whom that honour had been conferred since the reign of James II. 

 In June 1841 he was appointed judge-advocate-general, when he 

 resigned the seat for Tipperary for that of the borough of Dungarvan ; 

 but he held office only till the following September, when his party 

 were superseded in office by the late Sir Robert Peel. On the advent 

 of Lord John Russell to power in 1846, Mr. Sheil was appointed to 

 the mastership of the Mint, which he filled until November 1850, 

 when he accepted the post of British minister at the court of Tuscany. 

 His health however had been failing for some time, and he had rarely 

 spoken in the House of Commons for the two or three years imme- 

 diately preceeding his retirement from parliamentary life. Although 

 the appointment to Florence could be regarded by himself and his 

 friends as nothing lees than expatriation and an extinction of what 

 might have been a growing reputation, yet he submitted not so much 

 with a feeling of philosophic indifference as in a joyous spirit, as 

 though he felt that his diplomatic post would prove a great promotion 

 and a dignified retirement. The melancholy death of his stepson, by 

 his own hand, which happened in the following April, gave a shock 

 to his feeble constitution from which he never entirely recovered, and 

 an attack of gout in the stomach brought his life to a close at Florence 

 on the 23rd of May 1851, in the fifty-ninth year of his age. His 

 younger brother, Sir Justin Sheil, K.C.B., for.some time held the post 

 of envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary at the court 

 of Persia. (Memoirs of the Right Hon. Richard Lalor Sheil, by 

 W. T. M'Cullagh.) 



SHELBURNE, EARL OF. William Petty, Marquis of Lansdowne, 

 who as Earl of Shelburue occupied so conspicuous a place among 

 English politicians during a portion of the reign of George III., was born 

 May 2, 1737, and was the second son of the'Earl of Shelburne. Early in 

 life he entered the army, and served with the British troops under 

 Prince Ferdinand in Germany, giving signal proof of personal valour 

 at the battles of Kampen and Mindeu. At the acceesion of George 

 III., 1760, he was appointed aide-de-camp to the king with the rank of 

 colonel of infantry, and in 1765 he became major-general. 



His political career commenced with his election in 1761 as member 



for Wycombe ; but he only sat in the House of Commons for a few 

 weeks, aa on hia father's death, May 10, 1761, he succeeded to the 

 Earldom of Shelburne in the Irish, and the Barony of Wycombw in 

 the English peerage. A support-r of Lord Bute he strongly defended 

 the government in the debate on the preliminaries of peace, December 

 1762, and when Bute transferred the premier-hip to George Grenvilla, 

 April 1763, Lord Shelburue, whose close attention to business and 

 extensive knowledge of affairs had marked him out for office, was 

 appointed, though not yet twenty-six, to the head of the Board of 

 Trade, and sworn of the Privy Council. In this office he was called 

 to report upon the organisation of the governments in the newly 

 acquired Canadian territories, and the military forces requisite to be 

 maintained in the North American Colonies. Shelburne's suggestions 

 as to the boundaries of the respective governments ultimately prevailed 

 though strongly opposed by the Earl of Egretnont, the secretary of 

 state within whose department the colonies were included, who wished 

 to overawe the insubordinate colonists by forming a military colony 

 on the North and West : he also earnestly pointed out the danger 

 attending the plans proposed for taxing America. His opposition to 

 the favourite notion of coercing the Americans into submission appears 

 to have been the chief cause of the strong dislike with which he 

 was now regarded by the king. But he had become also estranged 

 from his chief, and he daily attached himself more to Pitt, of 

 whom he was an ardent admirer and in whose political opinions 

 he entirely coincided. On Grenville's modification of his cabinet 

 in the following September by the admission of certain members 

 of what was known as the Bedford party, Shelburne resigned his 

 office, and thenceforth remained intimately united with Pitt. In 

 1766, Pitt, now Earl of Chatham, formed his second administration, 

 and the Earl of Shelburne was made a member of the cabinet with the 

 office of secretary of state his being what was called the Southern 

 department, which included the colonies. At the time of his appoint- 

 ment to this, in the actual state of the country, most important post, 

 he had but just completed his twenty-ninth year. But the appoint- 

 ment was regarded by the country with satisfaction. Shelburne was 

 acknowledged to be one of the very best speakers in the House of 

 Lords Lord Camden himself declaring that Chatham alone excelled 

 him and his thorough knowledge of the subject on which he spoke 

 gave his opinions great weight. In this office in unison with his 

 known sentiments he at once set about endeavouring to regain the 

 goodwill of the American colonies, by putting himself in free com- 

 munication with their agents in England, whom he assured of the 

 intention of the government to adopt conciliatory measures and of his 

 own desire to remove any well founded complaints, as well as of the 

 scrupulous care he would exert in selecting governors of " generous 

 principles." To the governors of the colonies he wrote desiring them 

 to furnish him with full information on all the points in dispute, and 

 likewise to report on the actual condition of their respective govern- 

 ments. But from the first he was thwarted by his colleagues, and as 

 soon as Chatham's illness led him to withdraw himself from any 

 active share in the government, though still its nominal head, the 

 influence of Charles Townshend, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the 

 Duke of Grafton, became pai'amount, and Shelburue was doomed to 

 see all his conciliatory measures cast to the winds. Whilst declaring 

 himself opposed to sending a single additional soldier or a single ship 

 of war to menace the colonists, Shelburne proposed a series of 

 measures which by placing the management of their affairs more in 

 their own hands, and by deferring, in a great degree, to their views on 

 the subject of the episcopacy, of the army, &c., he thought would 

 remove much of the existing ill-feeling, but he had the mortification 

 not only to have them rejected by the cabinet, but to see the fatal 

 Import Duties Act which the heedless Charles Townshend had brought 

 forward apparently in a spirit of reckless defiance, adopted by Grafton 

 who was now virtually premier, and become the law of the land. 

 Shelburne would probably at once have resigned his office but that 

 he felt himself bound to Chatham, who was at the time unable to 

 converse with any one on business, and he determined to continue 

 till his chief should himself be able to decide on the proper course of 

 proceeding. The management of the colonies was transferred to Lord 

 Hillsborough the other secretary. Townshend died suddenly eoon 

 after the passing of his mischievous measure ; but Shelburne did not 

 regain h^s influence. On the contrary the differences between him 

 and Grafton went on increasing, until the duke, knowing that he 

 should have the support of the king, at length (October 1768) dis- 

 missed the earl from his post. Chatham who had now somewhat 

 recovered his health immediately sent in his resignation, and notwith- 

 standing the repeated entreaties of the king and Grafton refused to 

 withdraw it. 



Out of office Shelburne continued the zealous follower of Chatham, 

 with him steadily opposing Lord North's ministry on most leading 

 questions, and with especial earnestness his American measures, though 

 with Lord Chatham taking occasion (1778) to express his " strongest 

 disapprobation " of the idea of American independence, a declaration 

 that was made use of by his opponents when he himself as premier 

 proposed its adoption. He also took a prominent part in defending 

 Lord Camden on occasion of the proceedings connected with Wilkes. 

 W T hen at length the court attempted to induce Chatham to take office 

 (April 1778), the negociations had to be carried on entirely through 



