Note 130 — Chapter VI

Lord Camden, with more apparent firmness than Lord Mansfield, was neither a brave nor a steady man; though having taken the better side, the defence of the Constitution, he was not reduced to the artifices and terrors of the Chief Justice. It was but rarely that Lord Camden took a warm and active part, but often absented himself from the House when he should have stood forth. He told me himself that he forbore attending private causes in the House lest he should hurt the side he supported by Lord Mansfield’s carrying the majority against the party defended by Lord Camden, merely from enmity to him. If this tenderness was well founded, how iniquitous was his antagonist! I do believe that though their hatred was reciprocal, Lord Camden feared the abilities and superior knowledge of his antagonist; and as Lord Camden was a proud man, he could not bear inferiority. As even Lord Chatham did not retain the deference for him he expected and deserved, their friendship declined almost to annihilation. The Duke of Grafton and Lord Shelburne, though still much more unjustifiably, slighted him too; and a series of those neglects concurred to throw Lord Camden, towards the end of his life, into a situation that did not raise his character, nor was even agreeable to his opinion, for the moment before he joined Mr. Pitt in 1784, he had declared his sentiments of Mr. Fox’s predominant abilities.