JET. 30.] THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL. 5 



by a Tory Government, which about the end of that 

 year issued other Orders in Council, every whit as ob- 

 jectionable as the Whig Order of January. Unques- 

 tionably the Americans considered the Whig Order 

 identical in principle with Mr Perceval's. When, in 

 1808, I appeared at the bar of the House of Commons 

 as counsel for the manufacturers and traders of Eng- 

 land against these Orders, I made no distinction be- 

 tween the Whig and the Tory Order. I condemned 

 both as being identical in principle, equally impolitic, 

 and equally destructive of English commerce. 



I am bound to say that when, four years after, I 

 fought the great battle in Parliament, I was greatly 

 assisted by the Whig party, who had by that time be- 

 come abundantly hostile to that system of injustice and 

 impolicy which, founded by themselves, had been, as I 

 have already said, greatly extended by their Tory rivals. 



I have called the Orders which followed the Whig 

 Order of January 1807, Perceval's, but in truth James 

 Stephen was their author. 



He was a man of very considerable powers, com- 

 bined with great firmness of purpose and unquenchable 

 ardour. Strong in body as well as mind, he was 

 capable of undergoing any amount of labour; and, 

 wedded to his own opinion, he resisted all attacks with 

 a firmness that amounted to obstinacy. 



The best part of his life had been passed in the 

 West Indies, where he practised at the bar ; on his 

 return to England, he came into Parliament under the 

 auspices of his great friend Perceval ; for Stephen was 

 a member of the Evangelical party, to which Perceval 

 had a strong leaning, although he did not actually 

 belong to it. As a speaker he certainly had consider- 



