The Creevey Papers
Thomas Creevey to James Currie, 21 January 1804
“21 Jan., 1804.
“. . . When I repeat any of Sheridan’s opinions, I do so with more
doubt than in stating the opinions of any other persons, for he has acquired
such tricks at Drury Lane, such skill in scene-shifting, that I am compelled by
experience to listen with distrust to him. For the last three months he has
been damning Fox in the midst of his
enemies, and in his drunken and unguarded moments has not spared him even in
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circles of his most devoted admirers. He did so at
Woburn, the Duke of Bedford’s, and
was (as you may have heard) challenged for it upon the spot by Adair.* Whitbread, who was present and who made it up (for
Sheridan accepted the challenge), told me all the
particulars. Now he apparently is much pacified and less inclined to volunteer
his panegyric upon the Doctor;† and
if one may venture to guess at the motive in so perfect a performer in all
mysterious arts, I should say he had been damnably galled by the coldness with
which Fox’s friends resented the abuse of the old
fellow, and that the dinners and stupidity of Addington
and his family parties had been but a poor recompense for his treachery to
Fox, and that he was creeping back as well as he is
able into his old place. Tierney, as you
may suppose, would be dished by Pitt and
Addington embracing, and he is therefore laboring to
keep the present administration as it is, and with this view is incessantly
intriguing for support of it. . . . I forget whether I ever told you of his
inviting me to dinner once. It was to meet Brogden and Col.
Porter, two cursed rum touches that he has persuaded to vote with
him and to desert Fox; so I told Mrs. Creevey before I went that I was sure I
was invited to be converted. Accordingly, after a decent time and a
considerable allowance of wine had been consumed after dinner, my gentlemen
begun to open their batteries upon me. I returned their fire by telling them I
should save them much time and trouble by stating to them at once that my
political creed was very simple and within a very narrow compass—that it
was ‘Devotion to Fox.’ And so we all got to
loggerheads directly, and jawed and drank till twelve or one o’clock, and
I suppose I was devilish abusive, for they are all as shy as be damned of me
ever since.”
Sir Robert Adair (1763-1855)
English diplomat; he was Whig MP for Appleby (1799-1802) and Camelford (1802-12), a
friend and disciple of Charles James Fox, and ambassador to Constantinople, 1809-10. He was
ridiculed by Canning and Ellis in
The Rovers.
James Brougham (1780-1833)
The younger brother of the Lord Chancellor Henry Brougham; he was MP for Tregony
(1826-30), Downton (1830-31), Winchelsea (1831-32), and Kendal (1832-33).
Eleanor Creevey [née Branding] (d. 1818)
The daughter of Charles Branding (1733-1802); in 1779 she married William Ord (d. 1789)
and in 1802, the politician and diarist Thomas Creevey.
Charles James Fox (1749-1806)
Whig statesman and the leader of the Whig opposition in Parliament after his falling-out
with Edmund Burke.
William Pitt the younger (1759-1806)
The second son of William Pitt, earl of Chatham (1708-1778); he was Tory prime minister
1783-1801.
George Porter, sixth Baron de Hochepied (1760-1828)
Of Adur Lodge, Sussex; the son of James Porter, ambassador to the Porte, he was a a
British military officer and Whig MP for Stockbridge (1793-1820).
Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816)
Anglo-Irish playwright, author of
The School for Scandal (1777),
Whig MP and ally of Charles James Fox (1780-1812).
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.
