The Third Earl Spencer. 
155 
God. ... I retire from political life from my own inclination, 
but it is satisfactory to me firmly to believe and to be convinced 
that by so doing I give myself greater facilities to become a 
religious man than I should have possessed had I continued in 
the new situation where I was placed." Mr. Grey of Dilston 
writes : " Above all, Lord Spencer's opinions upon questions, 
both speculative and practical, were guided by a humble re- 
liance on the goodness of God, and that he was bound in what- 
ever he might think or do, whether in following or resisting his 
own inclination, to obey the law of Christ." Jeffrey calls him 
" Lord Althorp, that most frank, true, and stout-heai-ted of 
God's creatures." Such testimony will be read with satisfac- 
tion by those who think that Lord Althorp's religious convic- 
tions gave to his principles that which nothing else could 
impart. The successful statesman, the eminent agriculturist, 
is more trustworthy if his duties are carried out in the world 
with the consciousness that he does them under the eye of God. 
The absolute trust in him felt by the House was very touching. 
I was present when a matter was suddenly brought before the 
House which was to have been debated several nights before. 
There was a long and brilliant speech by Croker, when Lord 
Althorp got up and said he had gone into the subject fully in 
preparation for the previous debate, and that, although he had 
now forgotten the arguments which convinced him, he hoped the 
House would trust him when he said that he was quite certain 
of the rightfulness of the course which he asked them to take ; 
and the proposal was carried through at once ! I do not recol- 
lect ever to have heard of such confidence shown to any other 
Minister ; it was the union of his robust common-sense and the 
perfect fairness of the way in which he treated the other side of 
the question which could alone have given him such power. 
'• He was the straightest man in England," as was once said of 
Forster. 
On one night alone did I hear anything approaching a fervid 
burst of speech from him, and that was in a debate on slavery. 
I had just before returned from the Brazils, where I had seen it 
in all its horrors — in the slave ship, where the dead were lying 
side by side with the living, till they could be thrown overboard 
secretly at night in the harbour of Rio; and up country, where 
the slave-driver might, and did, practise any amount of cruelty. 
Lord Althorp spoke as one who felt strongly with Wilberforce, 
Clarkson, and the anti-slavery party, who were working the cause 
of humanity at that time under great obloquy. 
It must never be forgotten that his public career as Leader of 
the House, and Chancellor of the Exchequer, only lasted from 
