The Creevey Papers
Henry Grey Bennet to Thomas Creevey, 13 June 1815
“Whitehall, June 13.
“Why, what a fellow you are! have you not received
my two last letters that you complain so? Sam complains too, and he sends you his respects, for you never
write to him, and he says you ought to do so, for you have nothing to do but to
lounge. He has not been well—his old attack, but he looks better, and is
so. I hope soon he will get out of town, and we shall have our release from
that damned place the H. of C, where we spend our time, health and fortunes. .
. . We all congratulate you at the recovery of your senses, as we thought the
Great Lord* had bit you, and that he,
[illegible] and the
Frog† had got you quite over, and that you really believed
Boney was to be eat up alive; but from
all we hear from Paris he has a great army, and that things are disturbed in La
Vendée, &c., &c. Yet I put my confidence in the Jacobins, and if they
act; all the youth of France will come out with them, and then let me see the
state your Kings will be in. For my part, if I thought they [the Kings] could
succeed, I shd. be miserable; it is only their entire failure that keeps me in
tolerable humour.
“Our warlike friends are more peaceable, except the
Grenvilles: at least Ld.
Buckingham is trying hard for office. His own creature,
Freemantle, never comes near us: the
Stale‡ stays away, too, from the Lords, and
uses the old language of clogging the wheels of government. All this, you will
perceive, leads to place, and I am prepared for anything—be it the basest
of the crew. . . . Grey is in the most
confounded ill humour: Ponsonby goes to
the play, and when he comes to the House sits on the 2nd bench, and Opposition
muster in general from 20 to 30 persons, amongst whom is your humble servant:
no other people make a show. Ridley and
Monck never miss. Mrs. Cole§ is doing very well: the young one‖ factious and violent—looking
at the coming storm with fear; for come it will, and not long first. It is
quite impossible but
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that our finances must, if Boney be not overthrown this year, give way, and our dividends
cease. . . . The Loan is taken this day, I hear, at 54, so you see to what a
state our finances have sunk.”
James Abercromby, first baron Dunfermline (1776-1858)
The son of Lt.-Gen Sir Ralph Abercromby; he was MP for Midhurst (1807), Calne (1812-30)
and Edinburgh (1832), judge-advocate general (1827) and speaker of the House of Commons
(1835-39); he was raised to the peerage in 1839.
Sir William Henry Fremantle (1766-1850)
After a military and civil career in Ireland he was MP for Enniskillen (1806), Harwich
(1806-07), Saltash (1807-08), Tain Burghs (1808-12), and Buckingham borough (1812-27); he
was afterwards treasurer of the royal household.
William Wyndham Grenville, baron Grenville (1759-1834)
Educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, he was a moderate Whig MP, foreign secretary
(1791-1801), and leader and first lord of the treasury in the “All the Talents” ministry
(1806-1807). He was chancellor of Oxford University (1810).
Charles Grey, second earl Grey (1764-1845)
Whig statesman and lover of the Duchess of Devonshire; the second son of the first earl
(d. 1807), he was prime minister (1831-34).
Sir Charles Miles Lambert Monck, sixth baronet (1779-1867)
The son of Sir William Middleton, fifth baronet (1738-1795); educated at Rugby, he was MP
for Northumberland (1812-20) and the designer of his admired house and garden at Belsay
Hall. Sydney Smith described him as “quick, shrewd, original, well-informed,
eccentric, paradoxical, and contradictory.”
Emperor Napoleon I (1769-1821)
Military leader, First Consul (1799), and Emperor of the French (1804), after his
abdication he was exiled to Elba (1814); after his defeat at Waterloo he was exiled to St.
Helena (1815).
George Ponsonby (1755-1817)
The son of John Ponsonby (d. 1787); he was speaker of the Irish House of Commons, lord
chancellor of Ireland in the Fox-Grenville ministry (1806) and succeeded Lord Grey as
leader of the Whigs in the British House of Commons.
George Tierney (1761-1830)
Whig MP and opposition leader whose political pragmatism made him suspect in the eyes of
his party; he fought a bloodless duel with Pitt in 1798. He is the “Friend of Humanity” in
Canning and Frere's “The Needy Knife-Grinder.”
Samuel Whitbread (1764-1815)
The son of the brewer Samuel Whitbread (1720-96); he was a Whig MP for Bedford, involved
with the reorganization of Drury Lane after the fire of 1809; its financial difficulties
led him to suicide.
William I, king of the Netherlands (1772-1843)
The Prince of Orange, who in 1815 had himself proclaimed the first king of the
Netherlands at the urging of the Congress of Vienna.
