The Creevey Papers
Thomas Creevey to Eleanor Creevey, 21 January 1811
“21st Jan., 1811.
“I am very much gratified to find you approve my
counsel to Sam, and
Sam for acting upon it. Every succeeding moment
convinces me of the necessity there was for acting so, and of the infinite
advantage and superiority it will give him over all his colleagues at starting.
“What shall you say to me when I tell you I am not to
vote to-night after all? Villiers
won’t release me from contract of pairing off; at least he consented only
to stay upon terms that I could not listen to, such as—if my being in the division might be of any use to me in the new
arrangement, that then he would certainly stay. This, as you may
suppose, was enough to make me at once decline any further discussion. . . .
However, it is universally known how I am situated, and McMahon told me just now of his own accord
that the Prince had told him this morning ‘that
Villiers would not release Creevey from pairing off with him; that it
was very good of Creevey to stay after this, and to
show himself in the House, as he knew he intended.’ . . . Here
has been Ward* just now to beg I would come
and dine with him tête-à-tête, and
that I should have my dinner at six precisely, as he knew I liked that: so I
shall go. I know he was told the character I pronounced of him one night at
Mrs. Taylor’s after
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| 1811.] | THE PROSPECT OF OFFICE. | 141 |
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he was gone, upon which
occasion I neither concealed his merits nor his frailties, and he has been
kinder to me than ever from that time. . . . I don’t know a syllable of
what has transpired to-day between Prinny
and the grandees, but I must not omit to tell you that the night before last my
Lord Lansdowne* for the first time
condescended to come up to me at Brooks’s, and to walk me backwards and
forwards for at least a quarter of an hour. He asked me how I thought we should
get on in the House of Commons (meaning the new Government), whether we should
be strong enough; to which I replied it would depend upon the conduct of the
Government—that if they acted right they would be strong enough, and that
so doing was not only the best, but the sole, foundation of their strength, and
my lord agreed with me in rather an awkward manner, and was mighty civil and
laughed at all my jokes, and so we parted.”
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.
Sir John McMahon, first baronet (1754 c.-1817)
Irish politician who was MP for Aldeburgh (1802-12); he was a friend of Sheridan and
secretary to the Prince Regent.
Frances Ann Taylor [née Vane] (d. 1835)
Whig hostess, the daughter of Sir Henry Vane, first baronet (1729–1794); in 1789 she
married the politician Michael Angelo Taylor.
John Charles Villiers, third earl of Clarendon (1757-1838)
Younger son of the first earl of the second creation; he was envoy to the Portuguese
court (1808-1810) and was MP for Old Sarum (1784-90), Dartmouth (1790-1802), Tain burghs
(1802-05), and Queenborough (1807-12, 1820-24); he succeeded his brother in 1824.
John William Ward, earl of Dudley (1781-1833)
The son of William Ward, third Viscount Dudley (d. 1823); educated at Edinburgh and
Oxford, he was an English MP, sometimes a Foxite Whig and sometimes Canningite Tory, who
suffered from insanity in his latter years.
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.
