Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 23.djvu/124

Grenville on 12 June determined to rid himself of the ministry at all hazards. After another ineffectual negotiation with Pitt, the Marquis of Rockingham was appointed first lord of the treasury, and Grenville was dismissed on 10 July 1765.

When parliament met in December following, Grenville at once attacked the ministerial policy with regard to America (Chatham Papers, ii. 350-2), and in January 1766, after an able defence of the Stamp Act, boldly declared that ‘the seditious spirit of the colonies owes its birth to the factions in this house’ (Parl. Hist. xvi. 101-3). When Conway brought forward his bill for the repeal of the Stamp Act, Grenville opposed it with all his might. In the session of 1767 Grenville and Dowdeswell defeated the ministry on the budget, by carrying an amendment reducing the land tax from 4s. to 3s. in the pound—the first instance, it is said, since the revolution of the defeat of a money bill (ib. p. 364). In 1768 appeared ‘The Present State of the Nation ; particularly with respect to its Trade, Finances, &c. &c. Addressed to the King and both Houses of Parliament,’ Dublin, 8vo. This pamphlet, the authorship of which was attributed to Grenville, was written by William Knox with Grenville's assistance (Grenville Papers, iv. 395). It contained many dreary prognostications, and accused the Rockingham party of ruining the country, but is chiefly remarkable for having elicited from Burke in reply his ‘Observations on a late publication intituled the Present State of the Nation’ (Works, 1815, ii. 9-214). Though Grenville had taken a prominent part in the early measures against Wilkes, he opposed his expulsion from the House of Commons on 3 Feb. 1769, in probably the ablest speech that he ever made (Parl. Hist. xvi. 546-75). In spite of the fact that his health was already failing him, Grenville obtained leave on 7 March 1770 to bring in his bill to regulate the trial of controverted elections (ib. pp. 902-24). This excellent measure of reform, which transferred the trial of election petitions from the house at large to a select committee empowered to examine witnesses upon oath, received the royal assent on 12 April (10 Geo. III, c. xvi.) Grenville continued to attend to his parliamentary duties to the end of the session, and made his last speech in the House of Commons on 9 May 1770 in the debate on Burke's motion for an inquiry into the causes of the disturbances in America (, Debates, ii. 33-7). He died at his house in Bolton Street, Piccadilly, on 13 Nov. 1770, in his fifty-ninth year, and was buried at Wotton.

Grenville was an able but narrow-minded man, of considerable financial ability, unflagging industry, and inflexible integrity, both in private and public life. Burke, in his speech on American taxation, in April 1774, paid a remarkable tribute to Grenville's devotion to parliamentary work. ‘He took public business, not as a duty which he was to fulfil, but as a pleasure he was to enjoy ; and he seemed to have no delight out of this house, except in such things as some way related to the business that was to be done within it. If he was ambitious, I will say this for him, his ambition was of a noble and generous strain. It was to raise himself, not by the low pimping politics of a court, but to win his way to power, through the laborious gradations of public service ; and to secure himself a well-earned rank in parliament, by a thorough knowledge of its constitution, and a perfect practice in all its business’ (Speeches, 1816, i. 205). Stern, formal, and exact, with a temper which could not brook opposition, and an ambition which knew no bounds, Grenville neither courted nor obtained popularity. Utterly destitute of tact, obstinate to a degree, and without any generous sympathies, he possessed few of the qualities of a successful statesman. His administration was a series of blunders. The prosecution of Wilkes led to the discredit of the executive and the legislature alike. His ill-considered attempts to enforce the trade laws, to establish a permanent force of some ten thousand English soldiers in America, and to raise money by parliamentary taxation of the colonies, in order to defray the expense of protecting them, produced the American revolution; while the incapacity which he showed in the management of the Regency Bill damaged his reputation in the commons, and angered the king beyond measure. The king never forgave the treatment he received from Grenville while prime minister, and is said to have declared to Colonel Fitzroy, ‘I would rather see the devil in my closet than Mr. Grenville’ (, Memoirs of the Marquis of Rockingham, ii. 50). As a speaker, Grenville was fluent and verbose, and though at times his speeches were impressive, they were seldom or never eloquent.

Grenville married, in May 1749, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir William Wyndham, bart., and sister of Charles, second earl of Egremont, by whom he had, besides five daughters, four sons, viz. Richard Percy, who died an infant in July 1759; George, who succeeded his uncle Richard as second Earl Temple, and was created Marquis of Buckingham ; Thomas, the owner of the famous Grenville Library ; and William Wyndham, who was created Baron Grenville ; the last three are separately