Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 27.djvu/376

 graduated duties, contending that it was only by ‘artificial prices that the poor were prevented from living without being burdensome on the community’ (ib. xxvi. 669). In the following year he again took part in the discussions on the corn trade, and on 28 June moved for the production of papers to show how far the ministers had endeavoured, in their negotiations for peace, to obtain the abolition of the African slave trade on the part of France (ib. xxviii. 384–90). On 21 Feb. 1815 he supported Lambton's motion on the Genoa question in an animated speech (ib. xxix. 950–2), and two days afterwards opposed Robinson's corn law resolutions in a speech of considerable length.

Horner had now fairly established himself in the front rank of the parliamentary speakers of the day, and Mackintosh, while referring to these last-mentioned speeches, declared that ‘two such speeches had never been made in the House of Commons by the same person in one week, or at least not for a great many years.’ On 20 March a vote of thanks to Horner and Alexander Baring was passed by the common council of the city of London ‘for their able and indefatigable exertions in opposing the Corn Bill in the honourable House of Commons.’ In the same month Horner took part in the discussion of the Bank Restriction Bill, and insisted that the bank should resume cash payments as soon as possible. Siding with Lord Grey in his opinion that it was the duty of the allies to make use of every opportunity for maintaining the peace, Horner voted for Whitbread's amendment to the address on 7 April (ib. xxx. 463), and in a letter to the Marquis of Buckingham handsomely offered to resign his seat for St. Mawes, an offer which, to the credit of the marquis, was not accepted. On 13 Feb. 1816 Horner strenuously urged the reduction of the peace establishment (ib. xxxii. 439–40), and on the following day obtained leave to bring in a bill ‘to regulate proceedings of grand juries in Ireland upon bills of indictment’ (ib. pp. 547–50), which, in spite of the opposition of the Irish judges, was eventually passed into law (56 Geo. III, c. 87). On 26 Feb. he condemned the terms of the treaties in a speech (Parl. Debates, xxxii. 770–82) which Lord Colchester is said to have declared was ‘most powerful, argumentative, and profound, and altogether one of the most able speeches he had ever heard in that house.’ Horner denounced the Alien Bill as unconstitutional, and on 1 May moved for a select committee to inquire into the expediency of restoring the cash payments of the Bank of England, and the safest and most advantageous means of effecting it’ (ib. xxxiv. 139–48, 165–6), which was rejected by a majority of 73. On 25 June he spoke for the last time in the House of Commons, and expressed his hope of a speedy settlement of the catholic claims (ib. xxxiv. 1259–60).

In the summer of this year (1816) Horner's health failed, and under the advice of his doctors he left England in October. He arrived towards the end of the following month at Pisa. There he died on 8 Feb. 1817, aged 38, and was buried in the protestant cemetery at Leghorn, where a monument was erected to his memory, at one end of which a likeness of Horner was executed in relief by Sir Francis Chantrey. On moving for a new writ for St. Mawes on 3 March 1817, Lord Morpeth paid a generous tribute to Horner's merits, in which Canning, Sir Samuel Romilly, and others joined (ib. xxxv. 841–50). The speeches made upon this occasion were afterwards translated into Italian by Ugo Foscolo (London, 1817, 12mo). Horner was a man of sound judgment and unassuming manners, of scrupulous integrity, and great amiability of character. He was a correct and forcible speaker, and though without the gift of eloquence or humour, exercised a remarkable influence in the House of Commons, owing to his personal character. Few men, with such small advantages at the outset of their career, ever acquired in such a short space of time so great a reputation among their contemporaries. As a political economist Horner ranks deservedly high, and though the bullion report, with which his name is identified, produced no immediate legislative result, its effect upon public opinion was so great that Peel was enabled to pass his bill for the gradual resumption of cash payments by the bank a few years afterwards (59 Geo. III, c. 49). Lord Cockburn, in ‘Memorials of his Time,’ has recorded his conviction that ‘Horner was born to show what moderate powers, unaided by anything whatever except culture and goodness, may achieve, even when these powers are displayed amidst the competition and jealousy of public life’ (p. 313), while Scott declared that Horner always put him ‘in mind of Obadiah's bull’ (, Life of Sir Walter Scott, 1845, p. 156).

The original portrait of Horner by Sir Henry Raeburn is now in the National Portrait Gallery. From a note on the back of this portrait it appears that there were ‘three copies of this picture,’ one of which hangs in the hall of the Speculative Society, another belongs to the National Gallery of Scotland (where there is also a bust of Horner by Chantrey), and the third was lent by ‘the Raeburn family’ to the Raeburn Exhibition