Note 39 — Chapter III

Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, afterwards Marquis of Londonderry, English statesman, born in 1769, died in 1822. In the Commons he supported the policy of Pitt; sent to Ireland in 1797, his administration was marked by extreme violence. He joined one of the Cabinets of Fox as Minister of War and of the Colonies, resigned his portfolio in 1806, resumed office in the following year, and became the directing power of England’s policy. He was the relentless enemy of the Revolution and of Napoleon, and granted subsidies to all the powers arrayed against him. At the Congress of Vienna, where he sacrificed Poland, Saxony and Belgium, he incurred great hatred, and his acts were strenuously opposed in Parliament itself. His anti-liberal government rendered him unpopular, and besides his weakness for the Holy Alliance, his malignant persecution of Caroline of Brunswick, the Consort of George IV., and his brutality towards the poorer classes made him generally disliked. He killed himself in a fit of insanity. Castlereagh had a great reputation as a political orator, but though more fluent than Canning (with whom he fought a duel in 1806), his speeches lacked the charm of the latter’s. His son, the Marquis of Londonderry, ambassador and political writer, distinguished himself in the House of Lords by a violent Toryism and his hatred of France.