every self-denying virtue, an adept in debauch CAP. and vain of his excesses, he feared nothing. Unlucky at the gaming-table beyond all calculation of chances, draining the cup of pleasure to the dregs, fond of loose women and beloved by them, the delight of profligates, the sport of usurers, impoverished by his vices, he braved scandal, and gloried in a lordly recklessness of his inability to pay his debts, as if superb ostentation in misfortune raised him above all his fellow-men. He had a strong will; but he never used it to bridle his passions, even though their indulgence wronged his own father, or corrupted his young admirers. Born to wealth and rank and easy access to the service of the king, at heart an aristocrat, he could scoff at monarchy and hold the language of a leveller and a demagogue. He loved poetry and elegant letters, the songs of Homer above all; but science was too dull for him, and even the style and lucidity and novelty of Adam Smith could not charm the licentious, rollicking statesman to the study of political economy. His uncurbed licentiousness seemed rather to excite than to exhaust his lofty powers; his perceptions were quick and instinctively true; and in his wildest dissipation he retained an unextinguishable passion for activity of intellect. Living as though men and women were instruments of pleasure, he yet felt himself destined for great things, and called forth to the service of mankind. To be talked about, he would stake all he had and more on a wager; but the all-conquering instinct of his ambition drove him to the house of commons. There his genius

CHAP. was at home; and that body cherished him with VIII. the indulgent pride which it always manifests to 1776. those who keep up its high reputation with the

Nov.

world. A knotty brow, a dark brown complexion,
thick, shaggy eyebrows, and a compact frame
marked a rugged audacity and a commanding
energy, which made him rude and terrible as an
adversary; but with all this he had a loveliness
of temper which so endeared him to his friends
that the survivors among them never ceased the
praise of the sweetness and gentleness of his
familiar intercourse. It was natural to him to ven-
erate greatness like Edmund Burke's; and a wound
in his affections easily moved him to tears. His
life was dissolute; his speech was austere. His
words were all pure English; he took no pains to
hunt after them; the aptest came at his call, and
seemed to belong to him. Every part of his
discourse lived and moved. He never gave up
strength of statement for beauty of expression;
and never stopped to fill up
fill up gaps with fine
phrases. His healthy diction was unaffectedly sim-
ple and nervous, always effective, sometimes majes
tic and resounding, rarely ornate, and then only
when he impressed a saying of poet or philosopher
to tip his argument with fire. He never dazzled
with brilliant colors, but could startle by boldness
in the contrast of light and shade. He forced his
hearers to be attentive and docile; for he spoke
only when he had something to say that needed
to be said, and compelled admiration because he
made himself understood. What was entangled he
could unfold quickly and lucidly; now speaking

VIII.

1776.

Nov.

with copious fluency, and now discussing point by CHAP. point; at one time confining debate within the narrowest limits, and again speaking as if inspired to plead the welfare of all mankind. He had a wonderful gift at finding and bringing together what he wanted, though lying far off and apart. It was his wont to march straight forward to his end; but he knew how to turn aside from an attack, to retreat with his eye ever ever on his enemy, and then, by an unexpected reversion, to strike him suddenly as with talons. When involved in dispute, he dashed at the central idea, which was of power to decide the question; grasped it firmly and held it fast; turned it over and over on every side; presented it in the most various aspects; came back to dwell upon it with fresh force; renewed blow after blow till it became annealed like steel. He hit the nail again and again, and always on the head, till he drove it home into the minds of his hearers; and when he was beaten by the majority, he still bore away the palm as a wrestler. His merits, as summed up by Mackintosh, were "reason, simplicity, and vehemence."

Yet Fox was great only as a speaker; nay, his sphere was still narrower: he was great only as a speaker in the house of commons, and there great only as a speaker in opposition. He was too skilful in controversy to be able to present the connections and relations of events with the comprehensive fairness of an historian; and his strength went out from him when he undertook only to tell what had been done. He failed as a statesman, not from defect of heart, but from the uncer

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CHAP tainty which attends the want of fixed principles, and which left him exposed to the allurements of any promising coalition; but he was the very man to storm a citadel. In running down a ministry, his voice hallooed on the pack, and he was sure to be the first in at the death. And now, in the house of commons, this master of debate had declared for the independence of the United States.

CHAPTER IX.

THE BORDER WAR IN THE NORTH AND IN THE SOUTH.

JULY-NOVEMBER, 1776.

IX.

1776.

July

ALL hopes of an early subjugation of "the rebels" CHAP. were growing dim. Subordinates in Canada paid court to the "confidential circle" of Germain by echoing censures of Carleton, especially that he Sept. had chilled the zeal of the Indians by forbidding them to pass the boundary of his province.

Early in September, Hamilton, the lieutenantgovernor of Detroit, wrote from his district directly to the secretary of state, promising that small parties "of the savages assembled" by him "in council," "chiefs and warriors from the Ottawas, Chippewas, Wyandots, and Potawatomies," with the Senecas, would "fall on the scattered settlers on the Ohio" and its branches; and he checked every impulse of mercy towards the Americans, by saying that "their arrogance, disloyalty, and imprudence had justly drawn upon them this deplorable sort of war." The British people were guiltless of

16.