6 EARLY YEARS. 



eleven years Lord George remained a steady sup- 

 porter of Sir Robert Peel. 



As a frequenter of Newmarket, Lord George 

 was constantly at work " whipping " up the sport- 

 ing members ; and once, on the approach of a close 

 division, he showed his zeal by bringing up in his 

 private carriage a country gentleman of very 

 eccentric habits and manners, who, absurdly 

 enough, repaid Lord George's kindness in sub- 

 mitting to his tedious companionship during a 

 journey of sixty miles, by voting against the party 

 to which Lord George belonged. 



During the first four years of Sir Robert Peel's 

 Administration Lord George Bentinck was never 

 absent from his post. Awake or asleep, there he 

 invariably sat, from the meeting of the House 

 until its rising, generally occupying the same seat 

 on the back benches on the Ministerial side. 



At this time Lord George was very eager in his 

 pursuit of the chase, and kept a stud of hunters 

 in the neighbourhood of Andover for the purpose 

 of hunting with Mr Assheton Smith's celebrated 

 pack of fox-hounds. His Lordship was a very 

 hard rider, and his custom was, after a prolonged 

 debate in the House, to rise at six next morning, 

 to start off from the London terminus of the South- 

 Western Railway by the seven o'clock train, have 

 a long day's hunting, and return by the same 

 route to take his seat once more in the House of 

 Commons. He was in the habit of wearing a 



