767 



WINDHAM, WILLIAM. 



WINDHAM, WILLIAM. 



753 



had been made of his name, three days before the poll commenced. 

 He then entered heartily into the contest, but he was not elected ; 

 though his position on the poll was, under all the circumstances, BO 

 satisfactory as to induce him to reserve himself for Norwich on a future 

 occasion. 



In 1782 he declined an offer to allow himself to be put in nomination 

 for Westminster whenever a vacancy should arise. After his return 

 from abroad, and his unsuccessful contest for Norwich, he lived prin- 

 cipally in London, mixing much in literary and political circles. He 

 was a member of the celebrated Literary Club, of which Johnson and 

 Burke were leading members. His political sympathies were with 

 Burke and Fox, and generally with that section of the then opposition 

 which owned Lord Rockingham for ite leader. On the formation of 

 the coalition-ministry in 1783, of which the Duke of Portland was the 

 nominal head, and Fox and Lord North were the most conspicuous 

 members, Mr. Windham received the appointment of chief secretary 

 to the Earl of Northington, who was appointed Lord-Lieutenant of 

 Ireland. Mr. Windham however resigned his office in August of the 

 Barne year. It is stated in Hardy's 'Memoirs of the Earl of Charle- 

 mont,' that the reason of his resignation was a distribution of patronage 

 by Lord Northington in favour of the old court party, and in oppo- 

 sition to the views of Lord Charlemont and the Whigs in Ireland. 

 The coalition-ministry was itself at an end before the close of the year 

 1783. In March of the succeeding year Mr. Pitt dissolved parliament, 

 and Mr. Windham again contested Norwich, and this time with 

 success. 



Mr. Windham made his first speech in parliament on the subject of 

 the Westminster scrutiny, on the 9th of February 1785. The particu- 

 lar motion was, to order the high bailiff to make an immediate return : 

 it was opposed by Mr. Pitt, to whom Mr. Windham replied, and he 

 was followed by Mr. Fox, who congratulated the House on "the 

 accession of the abilities they had witnessed." Mr. Windham was 

 appointed one of the managers of the impeachment of Warren Hastings, 

 the particular charge intrusted to him being the breach of a treaty 

 made with the Nabob Fyzoola Khan in 1774, after an invasion of his 

 territories by the Company's troops, and the payment by the Nabob 

 of the sum of 150,000. on ratifying the treaty. On the Regency 

 questions which arose in 1788 out of the king's illness, Mr. Windham 

 took a decided and zealous part in favour of the hereditary right of 

 the Prince of Wales to the Regency, and against any restrictions on 

 his power. When this parliament (Mr. Windham's first parliament) 

 was dissolved in June 1790, he had already acquired a ripe political 

 reputation. 



Mr. Windham was again elected for Norwich in the new parliament. 

 In the division of the Whig party, which was shortly after caused by 

 the events of the French Revolution, he took part with Mr. Burke, 

 Lords Fitzwilliam and Spencer, and the Duke of Portland, and zealously 

 supported the war with France. In 1794, the Duke of Portland, Lords 

 Spencer and Fitzwilliam, and Mr. Windham joined Mr. Pitt's cabinet, 

 Mr. Windham receiving the appointment of secretary-at-war. He held 

 this office until February 1801, when he resigned, together with Mr. 

 Pitt, Lord Loughborough, Lord Grenville, Lord Spencer, and Mr. 

 Dundas, because the king would not consent to the measures for the 

 relief of the Roman Catholics in Ireland, which they considered indis- 

 pensable to the success of the legislative union. During the seven 

 years that Mr. Windham had been in office, he had introduced many 

 useful reforms into the administration of the army. On the 10th of 

 July 1798 he had married Cecilia, a daughter of Admiral Forrest, a 

 very gallant and distinguished officer ; and thia marriage added much 

 to the happiness of his life. 



Mr. Addington was placed at the head of the new administration, 

 which immediately applied itself to bringing the war to a termina- 

 tion, and in the autumn of 1801, during the prorogation of parlia- 

 ment, arranged the preliminaries of the peace of Amiens. Mr. Wind- 

 ham took a very prominent part in opposing this peace. On the 13th 

 of May 1802, he moved an address to his majesty, deploring the sacri- 

 fices which had been made by the treaty, and the increase of territory 

 and power which it had confirmed to France ; a similar address was 

 moved in the House of Lords by Lord Grenville. The address was 

 rejected in both Houses by overpowering majorities. Mr. Windham's 

 course with reference to this peace caused the loss of bis re-election 

 for Norwich, on the dissolution of parliament in the summer of 1802. 

 An attempt was made, on his being defeated at Norwich, to bring him 

 forward as a candidate for the county of Norfolk, and a subscription 

 was immediately set on foot by his friends to effect this object; but 

 Mr. Windham declined the offer, and, through the interest of the 

 Grenville family, he was elected for the borough of St. Mawes. 



The peace of Amiens was not long-lived : after the renewal of the war 

 in 1803, Mr. Addington's administration, which had begun with general 

 support in parliament and with the confidence of the country, was 

 suddenly shaken materially. Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox had both advo- 

 cated the peace of Amiens, and the former especially had given Mr. 

 Addington effective support at the outset of his administration. But 

 when the war broke out again, a general opinion prevailed that the 

 ministry was incompetent to carry it on : and both Mr. Pitt and 

 Mr. Fox joined, and by their influence largely increased., an opposition 

 that had been before confined to the small party led by Mr. Windham 

 in the House of Commons and by Lord Greville in the House of Lords. 



A series of divisions, on questions all more or lesa relating to the 

 conduct of the war, in which the minister's majority gradually 

 dwindled down to an exceedingly small one, caused Mr. Addington's 

 resignation in April 1J304. Mr. Pitt was commissioned by the king to 

 form a new ministry, and endeavoured to form one which should 

 comprise Mr. Fox as well as Lord Grenville and Mr. Windham. But 

 the king would not hear of Mr. Fox's name : and on Mr. Pitt yielding 

 to the royal objection to that statesman, Mr. Windham and Lord 

 Grenville refused to join his ministry. 



Mr. Windham was now again united in opposition with his old poli- 

 tical friend and the friend of his schoolboy days, Mr. Fox, against a 

 ministry formed exclusively out of Mr. Pitt's old connection. The 

 death of Mr. Pitt in 1806 brought him into office, in Lord Grenville's 

 administration of the Talents, when Mr. Fox was made foreign secre- 

 tary, and Mr. Windham secretary for the war and colonial depart- 

 ments. He applied himself diligently, on entering office, to the con- 

 sideration of the best means of increasing the military force of the 

 country : and on the 3rd of April 1806, he opened his views on thia 

 question at great length to the House of Commons, in moving for 

 leave to bring in a bill to repeal the Additional Force Act. His chief 

 object was to better the condition of the soldier, and make the army a 

 more inviting profession. The object of repealing the Additional 

 Force Act was to remove the obstacles created by its high bounties to 

 the ordinary recruiting service. Mr. Windham's various particular 

 proposals for increasing the pay and pensions of officers and soldiers, 

 and for shortening the time of service, were carried into effect by 

 large majorities. Mr. Windham's period of office ended on the 25th 

 of March 1807, when the administration of the Talents came to an 

 end, owing to a disagreement with the king on the subject of a pro- 

 posal to give the Roman Catholics privileges in the army. Mr. Wind- 

 ham had shortly before declined an offer of a peerage, and at the 

 general election in the preceding autumn had been returned for the 

 county of Norfolk, but having been petitioned against, and having lost 

 his seat for that county on petition, had taken his seat for the borough 

 of New Romney, for which place he had also been elected. 



The new ministry again dissolved parliament ; and, by the interest 

 of Lord Fitzwilliam, Mr. Windham was now chosen for Higham- 

 Ferrars. In the session of 1808 Mr. Windham strongly denounced the 

 expedition against Copenhagen, and, in the subsequent session, the 

 ill-fated Walcheren expedition. On the resignation of Lord Castlereagb. 

 and Mr. Canning, after the failure of the Walcheren expedition, and 

 on the consequent offer of Mr. Perceval to Lords Grey and Grenville, 

 which they ultimately declined, there was a prospect of Mr. Wind- 

 ham's return to office, which he contemplated with no pleasure. He 

 thought his health scarcely equal to the labour, and he feared that he 

 should not be allowed to carry out the measures which he thought 

 the state of the army absolutely required. He wrote, " I feel but 

 little stomach to return to office, unless I can have carte-Uanche as to 

 my military plans ; and even then the whole is so 'be-devilled, that 

 there is no restoring things to their original state." His health had 

 much to do with this disinclination for official life. He had been for 

 some time past a constant sufferer from rheumatic complaints. In 

 May 1810, he found himself afflicted with a large tumour in the hip, 

 which, having been neglected till then, caused him much alarm, and 

 ultimately brought on his death. In July of the preceding year he 

 had, on his return home one evening, seen a house on fire in Conduit- 

 street, dangerously near to that of his friend Mr. Frederick North, who 

 was at the time abroad, and whose valuable library was thus threatened 

 with immediate destruction, and had given most zealous assistance in 

 carrying away Mr. North's books, succeeding in saving about four- 

 fifths of them before the house was consumed. During his exertions 

 he fell and hurt himself in the hip ; and this was the origin of the 

 tumour. In May 1810, it was found necessary that he should undergo 

 an operation for the extraction of the tumour. The operation was 

 performed on the 17th of that month ; at first everything went on 

 well, but symptomatic fever afterwards came on, and he then grew 

 daily worse, until the 3rd of June, on which day he died. 



Mr. Windham has left behind him a reputation not so brilliant as 

 those of his contemporaries, Pitt, Fox, and Burke, yet one which is 

 generally associated with theirs, and not unworthy of the association. 

 His was a refined and highly cultivated mind, and if his eloquence had 

 not the power or force to make it, as Mr. Canning justly said, "the 

 most commanding " they had ever heard in the house, it was " the 

 most insinuating." His political life was marked throughout by a high 

 sense of honour ; and if his opinions may in some respects have erred, 

 on the side of moderation, as for instance on the subject of Parlia- 

 mentary Reform, which, first and last, he opposed, he had always the 

 courage to avow opinions which placed him in opposition to those 

 with whom he usually acted, and exposed him to popular disappro- 

 bation. He was an accomplished scholar and mathematician. Dr. 

 Johnson, writing of a visit which Windham paid him, says, "Such 

 conversation I shall not have again till I come back to the regions of 

 literature, and there Windham is ' inter Stellas luna minores.' " In a 

 word, Mr. Windham has been described, and the description has been 

 generally adopted as appropriate, as a model of the true English 

 gentleman. 



His speeches have been collected and published in 3 vols. 8vo, with 

 a Life prefixed, by Mr. Thomas Amyot, who was for some years his 



