The Creevey Papers
Samuel Whitbread to Thomas Creevey, 11 January 1809
“Southill, Jan. 11, 1809.
“Your letter reached me at Woburn Abbey amidst rows,
festivities and masquerades. . . . By all I can collect from the Duke of Bedford and FitzPatrick it is not the desire of Ponsonby and the wise heads in London that any great effort
should be made for an attendance. . . . I have heard from Tierney since I saw you. He seems in flat
despair about any effect to be produced by our exertions in Parlt. the ensuing
session, and I am told that he wishes to abstain from active attendance altogether. I do not believe that any persons join
with him in this feeling. I am sure I do not. It would be as unwise as
impracticable to be seen and not heard in the House of Commons; and as his plan
does not go the whole length of secession, it will amount in practice to
nothing at all. . . . Lord Grenville
intends to come down on the first day and make a general attack: after that, he
does not at present mean to follow the matter up with the assiduity he
displayed last year in the House of Lords, nor, indeed, in the absence of
Grey and Holland, could it be expected. . . . I will only add for
myself, that I have the greatest respect for Ld.
Grenville, but that that respect would in no way prevent my taking
any line I thought the right one. . . .”
Thomas Creevey (1768-1838)
Whig politician aligned with Charles James Fox and Henry Brougham; he was MP for Thetford
(1802-06, 1807-18) Appleby (1820-26) and Downton (1831-32). He was convicted of libel in
1813.
Richard Fitzpatrick (1748-1813)
English military officer, politician, and poet allied with Fox and Sheridan in
Parliament; he was secretary of state for war (1783, 1806) and author of
Dorinda, a Town Eclogue (1775).
Henry Richard Fox, third baron Holland (1773-1840)
Whig politician and literary patron; Holland House was for many years the meeting place
for reform-minded politicians and writers. He also published translations from the Spanish
and Italian;
Memoirs of the Whig Party was published in 1852.
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).
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.”
