Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 45.djvu/136

 rated by the redemption of the loans through the action of the sinking fund, would, it was supposed, if the war continued, become capable of again being pledged on the raising of fresh loans in a revolving series. The eleven resolutions in which this plan was formulated were, after severe criticism, agreed to by the house; but on the Grenville administration going out of office, they were subsequently negatived on 14 July 1807. The ministry resigned on 8 April 1807, on the king's demand for a pledge from the cabinet against the introduction of the catholic question, and on 8 May Petty lost his seat for the university of Cambridge (, Life of Lord Palmerston, i. 22), mainly in consequence of his expressed sympathy with the catholic claims. He entered the new parliament, which met on 22 June 1807, as member for Camelford, and immediately became a prominent and active leader of the opposition. On 21 Jan. 1808, on the discussion of the address, he strongly supported Mr. Whitbread in his condemnation of the attack on Copenhagen, and spoke frequently on all questions of importance during the session. In November 1809, on the death of his half-brother, who had succeeded his father as second Marquis of Lansdowne, Petty's career in the House of Commons terminated at a moment when his services as a leader were specially required (ib. i. 111), and the influence which for the rest of his life he exercised over his party was maintained by him, as Marquis of Lansdowne, in the House of Lords.

For twenty years following on the death of Fox the disorganisation of the whig party was complete, the opposition at times appearing only to exist in the drawing-rooms of Lansdowne, Devonshire, and Holland houses. During this period Lord Lansdowne took a regular and prominent part in the debates in the House of Lords. He proved himself a warm supporter of the abolition of the slave trade, moving an address to the regent on the subject on 30 June 1814, and on 1 June 1815 moving the second reading of a bill designed to prevent English subjects from lending capital to assist in the carrying on of the trade; again, five years later, on 9 July 1819, he co-operated with Wilberforce by taking charge in the lords of an address to the crown similar to that moved at the same date in the commons. He showed warm sympathy with the South American insurgents in their struggle for independence by opposing on 28 June 1819 the Foreign Enlistment Bill, a measure designed to prevent British subjects fighting on behalf of revolted colonies. Lansdowne's views on the development of trade were clearly expressed, in May 1820, in a speech proposing the appointment of a committee to consider the means of extending our foreign commerce, when he pronounced himself in favour of free trade. A true liberal in his love of tolerance, he opposed on 6 Dec. 1819 the second reading of the bill for the prevention of blasphemous and seditious libels; moved on 2 April 1824 the Unitarian Marriage Bill; and subsequently advocated the removal of the political disabilities of the Jews. But catholic emancipation was the political question which more than any other engrossed his attention during this period. When supporting Lord Donoughmore's introduction of the Irish Roman catholic petition in the House of Lords on 18 June 1811, he declared that the granting of the catholic claims was in his opinion necessary to the completion of the union; he again supported Lord Donoughmore's motion to call attention to the petition of the Roman catholics praying for relief, on 17 May 1819, and in 1824 he introduced two bills evidently designed to prepare the way for the consideration of the whole Roman catholic question in the next session; the first of these measures conferred the parliamentary franchise on English catholics, the second declared them eligible for various offices, and removed the disability of the Duke of Norfolk from exercising the office of earl marshal. Though both bills were rejected, Lansdowne received the support of five cabinet ministers, including Lord Liverpool.

In April 1827 Lansdowne was mainly instrumental in bringing about the coalition between a section of the whigs and the followers of Canning. Two conditions of this alliance were that the Roman catholic question should not be made a cabinet question (, Life of Canning, iii. 341), and that parliamentary reform should be a forbidden subject (Diary of Lord Colchester, iii. 486). Although the bulk of the whig party agreed with Canning on the catholic question, and supported his later foreign policy, Lansdowne's action in supporting a coalition occasioned a temporary split in the party, Lord Grey and Lord Althorp, and a considerable following, refusing to either join or support the ministry (, Life of Lord John Russell, i. 134). The Duke of Bedford wrote to Lord John Russell, 29 April 1827, that Lansdowne had ‘been the victim and dupe of the two greatest rogues, politically speaking, in the kingdom’ (ib. i. 135). Although his action displeased members of his party, it gave great satisfaction to O'Connell (Correspondence of O'Connell, i.