Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 4.djvu/67

1807 Timothy Pickering and Roger Griswold should join hands with Aaron Burr was less wonderful than that Spencer Perceval and his friend James Stephen, the author of "War in Disguise," should adopt the violence of Napoleon as the measure of their own morals, and avow that they meant to respect no other standard. With the same voice Spencer Perceval expressed fear lest calling Parliament on a Monday should lead members into Sunday travel, and justified the bombardment of Copenhagen and the robbery of American commerce.

The Whigs thought little of his abilities. Sydney Smith, who delighted to ridicule him, said that he had the head of a country parson and the tongue of an Old Bailey lawyer. The Tories admired and followed him as readily as they had once followed Pitt; but to an American, necessarily prejudiced, Sydney Smith's estimate seemed just. Every American critic placed Perceval in an order of intelligence not only below the Whigs, but below Lord Sidmouth. When confronted with the dulness of Spencer Perceval, Americans could even feel relief in the sarcasm of George Canning, which, unlike Perceval's speeches, had at least the merit of rhetoric.

Of George Canning, who passed so rapidly across the scene, and yet left so sharp an impression on the memory of America, something must be said, if only to explain how a man so gifted, and in later life so different in influence, should have thought it worth