SPEECHES IN PARLIAMENT AND SOME MISCELLANEOUS PAMPHLETS OF THE LATE HENRY DRUMMOND, ESQ. EDITED BY LORD LOVAINE In Two Volumes VOL. I. LONDON BOSWORTH & HARRISON, 215 REGENT STREET 1860 226. a. 16. INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. As an introduction to this selection from the parliamentary speeches of the late Mr. Henry Drummond, to which are annexed some of his earlier pamphlets, little known to the present generation of readers, the Editor believes that the following short sketch of his political career will not be unacceptable. Henry Drummond was born in 1786; his father died before he was eight years old; and his mother, a daughter of the first Lord Melville, subsequently remarried to Mr. Strange, accompanied her husband a few years later to India, leaving behind her in this country her eldest son, then aged sixteen, with the remainder of her family by the first marriage. He was then still at Harrow, whither he had been sent at the early age of seven; during his stay there he was the cotemporary of Peel, Byron, and the other men of genius who, in the beginning of the present century, gave celebrity to the annals of the school. From thence he went to Oxford, where he remained two years; and in 1807, on returning from a tour in Russia, he married, before attaining his majority, Lady Henrietta Hay, eldest daughter of the ninth Earl of Kinnoull. In his boyhood he attracted much of the notice of Mr. Pitt, with whom he was brought in contact by his grandfather Lord Melville, who was much attached to him: it was in familiar intercourse with those statesmen, that he imbibed the principles of loyalty to the crown, and veneration for the institutions under which this country has so long flourished, with the recognition of the natural rights and duties of the individual; by which alone reverence for authority can be prevented from degenerating into slavish submission, and the love of freedom and independence reconciled with intelligent obedience to the ruling power. By inheritance he became one of the partners in the bank at Charing Cross, founded by the brother of the attainted Lord Strathallan, to whose integrity the sufferers under the proscription consequent upon the insurrection of 1745, confided the relics of their fortunes and the management of their affairs. It is a curious instance of the mutability of human events that George III. selected as his private bankers the house whose fortunes had been reared upon the reputation gained by their fidelity to those whom his grandfather's vengeance had driven into banishment. Although the occupation of banking was not one naturally congenial to so ardent and so expanded a mind as Mr. Drummond's, he applied himself, as was his wont, to the duties of the hour with unremitting diligence, and only abandoned the active pursuit of the profession when it became incompatible with his devotion to higher and more important objects. In 1810 he entered Parliament for the Borough of Plympton Earle, but left it after three years, finding that his health did not permit him to encounter the fatigue of attendance on his public as well as his private duties. In the course of this period, however, he conferred upon the country a benefit of no small magnitude by carrying through the House a Bill*, which made the embezzlement by bankers of the securities entrusted to them, a misdemeanour punishable by fourteen years' transportation, -a severity of which subsequent events have but too clearly shown the necessity. Convinced of the general ignorance prevalent with respect to the true principles of political economy, which produced in 1826 results of such tremendous importance to the nation, he founded in 1825 the professorship of political economy at Oxford, which boasts amongst other distinguished persons who have held it, the present Archbishop of Dublin and Mr. Herman Merivale. The interval between this epoch and his return to Parliament in 1847, was occupied by labours and studies of a different nature, pursued with that energy and devotion to a deep sense of duty, which were the prominent features in his character. The fruit of these studies was manifested when he once more took his seat in the House, as member for the western division of Surrey, at the invitation of the conservative party in that county. Though he accepted their requisition, which was the more flattering that he had never solicited nor invited it, he at the same time proclaimed his intention of pursuing a line of conduct uninfluenced by party considerations and party pledges; while he de 52nd George III. cap. 63. |