PUBLIC CHARACTERS,

OF 1801-2.

THE RIGHT HON. HENRY ADDINGTON,

A

CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER,

&c.

SUDDEN and unexpected elevation naturally attracts the notice and even the wonder of mankind. We are eager to ask what are the merits, the talents, and the qualifications that lead to unexampled success? We are desirous of being acquainted with the road that conducts her favourite votary to the shrine of Fortune; and we pant with expectation to become acquainted with the life, the education, the friendships, and the pursuits of such a man, hoping from these to deduce the motives by which his conduct has been actuated, and the secret by which he has been enabled to attain the summit of ambition.

Mr. Addington is the son of a physician of some eminence, who died about cleven years since *, after

Dr. Addington died March 21, 1790. He was educated at Trinity College, Oxford, where he took the degrees of M. A. May 13, 1740, B. M. February 5, 1740-41, and D. M. January 24, 1744. He was admitted of the College of Physicians in London 1756, wrote a pamphlet on the Scurvy, and another concerning a negotiation with Lord Bute.

1801-2..

B

having

having practised with equal celebrity and success. That gentleman, during the whole of his life, appears to have been a great politician*, and to have studied, with equal attention, the constitution of a patient, and the constitution of the state.

Dr. Addington started originally at Reading, where he kept a private madhouse, and married a Miss Hiley, the daughter of an eminent schoolmaster of that place, with whom he obtained a fortune of 15,000l. On this he came to London, set up an equipage, and suddenly attained great practice, he and the late Dr. Heberden being then the two physicians most in vogue in the capital. Having obtained a considerable addition to his wealth, Dr. A. retired to Berkshire, and spent the remainder of his life there.

Henry Addington, the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, was born in or about the year 1756.

* Dr. Addington was sent for by a gentleman whose son was supposed to be at the point of death. While the Doctor was in the sick room, the family assembled below in anxious expectation, and, after a long and painful pause, a near relation of the patient hurried out of the room, to inquire the reason of his delay. On the stairs he found the Physician and Apothecary, who was a Foxite, involved in a dispute about the India bill. "Dear Sir," said the young man, labouring with fraternal affection, and angry with the physician, "there is no one in this house denies the transcendent merits of the beroes of Burton-Pynsent (alluding to Lord Chatham's family), but my poor brother will, I fear, be dead before you get through the India bill." The medical practitioner felt the hint, went in, and prescribed.-Anecd. and Biog. p. 5. The Rev. Haviland John Hiley, M. A. of Baliol College,

Oxford.

He is said to have retired with 100,0001.

He

He and his brother*, John Hiley, were sent together, at a proper age, to Cheam school, where they remained for some time, under the Rev. Mr. Gilpin; and it is not a little remarkable, that in all their future pursuits, whether in search of knowledge, in the mazes of politics, or in the career of preferment, they have never been once separated. The two brothers afterwards went to Winchester school, over which Dr. Wharton at that period presided; thence they repaired to Dr. Goodenough's at Ealing; and finally they removed to Oxford, where their father himself had been bred.

In the mean time, the political tenets of Dr. A. had led to a connexion with the family of the late Earl of Chatham, whose friend and physician he was, which in the end produced the aggrandisement of his

own.

The Doctor entertained a high opinion of the abilities and integrity of the first Mr. Pitt, who, to an eloquence far more resplendent than that of his younger son, added great practical talents, a scorn of oppression, and a noble pride, which made him spurn at every thing that bore the semblance of corruption.

During the latter part of Lord Chatham's life he lived in great intimacy with that nobleman, and such was the confidence subsisting between them, that,

This gentleman, so called after his maternal grandfather, was left a considerable fortune by a relation while an infant in the cradle.

† Mr. Gilpin entertained a high notion of Mr. Henry Addington's abilities, in consequence of which he very candidly advised his father to finish his education at some great public school.

when a negotiation was opened with the late Earl of Bute respecting his return to power, he acted as the plenipotentiary of the ex-minister *.

It

"In the very week of this transaction (a negotiation concerning France) an extraordinary affair happened relative to our hero, which afterwards furnished a subject of much disquisition. It was a transaction between the Earl of Bute and Lord Chatham. As the affair is involved in considerable obscurity, I will first simply state the facts, as they appear upon the face of the evidence.

"Sir James Wright, an intimate friend of Lord Bute, and Dr. Addington, an eminent physician, who attended the Earl of Chatham, had repeatedly entertained each other with political. conversation, in which the names of their respective patrons were introduced. The frequent recurrency of this theme was, it seems, first animadverted upon by Sir James, or one of his friends; and it was thought proper in consequence to communicate the purport of these conversations to Lord Bute. Thus the circumstance is related in one part of the account, published in Sir James's own name; though elsewhere he seems to say, that the communica tion was made at the immediate request of Dr. Addington. Lord Bute, in answer, wished the Doctor to be requested to assure Lord Chatham, that "if he should think proper to take an active part in administration, he should have his most hearty concurrence and sincere good wishes." He said, "For his own part, nothing but the most imminent danger to this country should induce him to take a part in the government of it, in conjunction with an able and upright administration." In the mean time, Dr. Addington did not choose to engage in so extraordinary an affair, without having his commission in writing. Sir James accordingly sent him a letter next morning, containing the above sentiments. Dr. Addington says, in his narrative, that Sir James added verbally, that "Lord Bute was willing to engage in such an administration as Secretary of State, and that no objection could be made to Lord Camden, or more than one of Lord Chatham's friends." This addition is peremptorily denied

by

It may be naturally supposed that this of course led to an intimacy between their families, and we ac cordingly find that the young Pitts and the young Addingtons early in life cultivated a friendship with each other, which received a fresh increase when Mr. William Pitt became a member of the Society of Lincoln's Inn, and Mr. Henry Addington entered his name as a student, and eat commons at the same hall.

by Sir James, who ascribes it to Dr. Addington's confounding the hypothetical conversation that preceded the negotiation with the negotiation itself.

"The answer Lord Chatham dictated to Sir James's letter, which is very full and explicit, I shall beg leave to add. "Lord Chatham heard, with particular satisfaction, the favourable sentiments, on this subject, of the noble Lord with whom you have talked with regard to the impending ruin of the kingdom. He fears all hope is precluded: but adds, that zeal, duty, and obedience, may outlive hope; that, if any thing can prevent the consummation of public ruin, it can only be new counsels and new counsellors, without further loss of time; a real change, from a sincere conviction of past errors, and not a mere palliation, which must prove fruitless." In answer to Dr. Addington's verbal communication, which was not made till after writing the above note, Lord Chatham affirmed, that it was impossible for him to serve the King and country with either Lord Bute or Lord North;" and he desired Dr. Addington, if any one asked about it," to bear witness that he said so.

The expression," real change," in the note, struck, it seems, both Sir James and his patron, as pointing at that nobleman. An answer was accordingly immediately returned, in which Lord Bute disclaimed having seen the King for many years, or known any thing of public affairs but from common conversation or the newspapers. At the same time Sir James informed Dr. Addington, that his stay in town could be of no service. The History of the Life of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, p. 263. B 3

Mr.