Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 23.djvu/182

Grey made in opposition to an address of thanks to the crown for Pitt's commercial treaty with France on 21 Feb. 1787, and it at once placed him in the first rank of parliamentary debaters. Addington says that he `went through his first performance with an éclat which has not been equalled within my recollection.' Dissenting from the opinions of his family he attached himself early and indissolubly to the opposition, and became one of Fox's most trusted lieutenants. Shortly after his first speech he was named one of the managers of the impeachment of Warren Hastings, and undertook in particular that portion of the case which related to the treatment of Cheyt Singh. He took part in the debates on the Prince of Wales's debts in 1787, and on the question of the regency in 1788. (For his refusal to assist the Prince of Wales in denying the marriage with Mrs. Fitzherbert see, Memorials of Fox, ii. 289; ,Memoirs of the Whig Party, ii. 139; , Sheridan, i. 447-8, and Quarterly Review, xciv, 420). From this time until 1801 he continued, especially upon his war policy, a steady opponent of Pitt; at the same time he strenuously denounced the course taken by the leaders of the French revolution, and discountenanced the extreme democrats whom the example of France stirred into activity in England. He was a member of the Whig Club, and having joined the 'Society of the Friends of the People,' for furthering constitutional reform, was chosen to present its parliamentary petition, and took principal charge of the question of parliamentary reform, which remained under his guidance for forty years. On 30 April 1792 he gave notice that he would introduce the question in the following session, and accordingly in 1793 moved to refer the petition of the `Friends of the People' to a committee; but in this and succeeding sessions he failed in this endeavour, and a specific plan of reform, which he proposed in 1797, was defeated by 256 to 91 votes. (For his later criticism upon the `Friends of the People,' and his own share in the society, see, Life of Earl Grey, pp. 10-11; , Memoirs of the Whig Party, i. 15; , Memorials of Fox, iii. 22.)

When not occupied in parliament he lived principally in Northumberland or with his father, then general in command of the south of England. In 1794, on 18 Nov., he married Mary Elizabeth, daughter of William Brabazon Ponsonby, afterwards first Lord Ponsonby, of Imokilly and Bishop's Court, Kildare. He lived during the sessions of 1795 to 1798 in Hertford Street, Mayfair, and in 1799 took a house on Ham Common for two years; the recess he principally spent at Howick, or with Lord Frederick Cavendish at Holker in Lancashire. His marriage brought him into intimate relations with the principal members of the liberal party in Ireland, and gave him new interest and knowledge of Irish affairs. In 1798 he was a witness to character on behalf of Arthur O'Connor, who was tried at Maidstone for complicity in the Irish rebellion, and he was strongly opposed to the existing system of government in Ireland. He constantly resisted any attempt on the part of ministers to evade responsibility by sheltering themselves under the royal prerogative, and demanded that full information should be laid before parliament in regard to military operations. Thus, he moved for papers relative to the convention with Spain on 13 Dec. 1790; he moved resolutions respecting the preparations for a Russian war on 12 April 1791; he moved for information respecting the cause of the fresh armament on 2 June in the same year, and opposed strongly what he considered the unnecessary war with the French republic in an address to the crown on 21 Feb. 1792, which was negatived without a division. He also opposed the treaties with Sardinia in 1794. But when war had once begun he was strongly in favour of its vigorous prosecution. In accordance with his general opposition to Pitt he spoke against the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act in 1794, the Traitorous Correspondence and Seditious Meetings Bills in 1795), and the Alien Bill in 1799, and moved that the existence of a republic in France ought not to be an obstacle to peace. He also moved the reduction of the grant to the Prince of Wales from 65,000l. to 40,000l. in which he was defeated by 169 votes.  After the rejection of his motion for reform in 1797 be joined in the general whig secession from parliamentary attendance, a course which he afterwards regretted; but, unlike Fox and the party in general, he appeared in his place in 1800 to resist step by step the progress of the Act of Union, being prompted in this by his acqaintance with the Irish liberal leaders.  One of his grounds of opposition was the belief that the addition of a hundred Irish members to the House of Commons in its unreformed state would only increase the parliamentary predominance of ministers, and he wished to provide seats for the Irish members by purchasing and extinguishing an equal number of English rotten boroughs.

In 1801 a great change in his mode of life took place by his establishment at Howick in Northumberland, between Berwick and Newcastle, then the property of his uncle,