Administration from 1783 to the French Revolution must remain entitled to the praise of having first carried into effect the great economic principles which in more recent times have so entirely changed the face of Europe. Shelburne may however justly claim to have been his precursor. "Vous m'apprenez la nouvelle du monde la plus intéressante," writes Morellet to him at this period; "en me disant que vos principes sur la liberté du commerce et de la communication des nations se répandent et s'accréditent parmi vos négociants et vos manufacturiers et jusque dans votre capitale, où l'esprit de monopole a étè, je crois, plus dominant qu'en aucun autre lieu de l'Europe. Il m'est bien clair que ce progrès dans les lumières de votre nation est dû à vous-même. M. Smith et quelquefois le Doyen Tucker chez vous les ont bien saisies, ces vérités, mais ils n'ont fait que les mettre dans les livres et vous les avez mises dans le monde."[1]
The speech which Lord Lansdowne delivered on the French treaty may be perhaps considered his ablest effort, and will bear comparison with the speech made by Pitt on the same occasion.[2] "Is the old commercial system to be changed as totally erroneous, and should France for any political reason make an exception in this change, were," he said in reply to the Bishop of Llandaff, "the two great questions before the House. The first required very little discussion. Truth had made its own way. Commerce, like other sciences, had simplified itself. There was no science that had not done so. A right reverend prelate had said that our commercial system required no alteration, which, with great submission, he thought could not be said of anything; and, if the question was put to him, he believed he would not say it of the Church. It was unnecessary to define the progress of the change. A great minister in Holland
- ↑ Morellet to Shelburne, July 9th, 1785. Lettres de Morellet, xliv. 209 (edited by the present author, Paris, 1898).
- ↑ For an account of this speech see Rutland Papers, iii. 376. Hist. MSS. Commission Reports. Daniel Pulteney to the Duke of Rutland, March 2nd, 1787. Wraxall, Posthumous Memoirs, ii. 266.
