Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 44.djvu/390

Perceval vide curates, properly paid, to discharge their parish duties, and twice brought it in, though without success. In the debates on the financial irregularities which led to Lord Melville's impeachment, he played a very brilliant part. When Pitt died (23 Jan. 1806), Perceval resigned; but he showed himself fertile in expedient and cautious in counsel. It was he who suggested in debate the device of appointing a trustee for Lord Grenville as auditor of the exchequer, and so set him free to form a ministry; and it was in spite of his remonstrances that Lord Ellenborough became a member of the cabinet while still continuing to be chief justice.

During 1806 he constantly criticised the measures of the ‘Talents’ administration; and, after the death of Fox on 13 Sept., Lord Grenville, through Lord Ellenborough, unsuccessfully invited him to join the ministry. His attack on the government's Roman catholic policy on 5 March 1807 contributed to its fall. When, a fortnight later, the Duke of Portland came to form his administration, it was obvious that Perceval must find a place in it. The difficulty was to determine what his place should be. He himself desired to continue to be attorney-general, and to increase his income by practising at the bar. Finally, at some pecuniary sacrifice, he accepted the office of chancellor of the exchequer (31 March 1807), with a salary of some 1,300l. He was offered at the same time the chancellorship of the duchy of Lancaster for life, so that he might be provided with an adequate income. This arrangement roused some scruples on Perceval's part, but there were two precedents for it, and it had been contemplated on several other occasions. But the plan provoked strenuous opposition in the House of Commons, and a motion for an address against it was carried by 208 to 115. The duchy was consequently bestowed on Perceval during pleasure only. The new ministry shortly dissolved, and returned with a strong majority.

On 25 June Perceval gave the usual ministerial dinner to hear the king's speech read at his house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, which he was about to quit for Downing Street (, Diary, ii. 123). Both on the address and on Whitbread's motion of 6 July, to draw attention to the state of the nation, he and his followers obtained large majorities. He at once provoked the hostility of the opposition by adding supporters of his own to the committee on expenditure originally appointed in February (see, Memoirs, ii. 205), and by so modifying the inquiry on places held in reversion, which was proposed by Lord Cochrane, as to exclude from inquiry his own reversion to his brother Lord Arden's place of registrar of the court of admiralty. Other of his parliamentary performances were unsatisfactory to his friends. He spoke ill, stammered, was nervous in manner and weak in matter. Official business prevented that elaborate preparation for debate upon which he had hitherto depended, and he had not obtained such a mastery of public business as to enable him to debate effectively without preparation. His anxieties only increased after the session of parliament ended, when the necessity arose for the seizure of the Danish fleet at Copenhagen and for the issue of the orders in council. The latter originated with and were drafted by him. In the debates upon them which took place as soon as parliament met in January and February 1808, he took the leading part, and showed a marked improvement in his attitude to the house.

Though untried as a financier, he was successful with his budget, and his scheme for the conversion of three-per-cent. stock into terminable annuities was generally approved. The Stipendiary Curates' Bill, which he had introduced in 1805 and 1806, he this year passed through the commons, but it was rejected in the House of Lords; nor, though subsequently reintroduced by him, did it pass till after his death. His first personal achievement in 1809 was the speech in which he met Wardle's motion for an address praying for the removal of the Duke of York from the chief command of the army, in consequence of the scandals connected with Mrs. Mary Ann Clarke [q. v.] His speech on 8–9 March, described by the speaker as a ‘masterly speech of three hours,’ was afterwards published; the almost unprecedented adjournment in the middle of his speech was by the general desire of the house (, Diary, ii. 172). His personal popularity was enhanced by the failure of Maddocks' ill-grounded attempt to connect him with parliamentary corruption in connection with the sale of seats at Rye, Queenborough, Hastings, and Cashel. On 11 May the house rejected the motion for hearing these charges by 310 votes to 85. The disclosures, however, of corruption which were made against others, and the general demand for increased purity in public life which had resulted from the Clarke scandals, led to the introduction of a bill for parliamentary reform by preventing the sale of seats, which ultimately passed. Perceval had from the first recognised that such a bill must be accepted, and, while objecting to some of the details, gave it a general support. But by his influence