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of Londonderry , better known to the world as Lofd Castiereagh . He was the ? eldest son of the late Marquis of Londonderry * to whose title be succeeded on the death of his father last year , and of
Lady Sarah Frances Conway , sister of the late Marquis of Hertford , and was born June 18 , 1769 , and was consequently in the 53 rd year of his age . He received his early education at Armagh , under Archdeacon Hurrock ; and at 17
was entered at St . John ' s College , Cambridge . After remainiug the usual time at the University , he made the tour of the continent , and on his return commenced his political career in his native country . His family were Presbyterians
and Whigs * and his Lordship came out into the world as a patriot . He was elected in 1791 , after a keen and expensive contest , as representative of the county of Down in the Irish Parliament ; and on this occasion it was that he gave
a written pledge to his constituents to support the cause of Parliamentary Reform and Irish Freedom * His first parliamentary efforts were in consonance wfth this engagement . He favoured the principles on which the Society of United
Irishmen was founded at Belfast , in 1792 , and was in habits of intimacy with some of the leaders of the Society , particularly the two interesting and unfortunate brothers , the Sheares ' , if he himself was not sworn in as a member .
The first Irish conspiracy failed , and Lord CastJereagh became a member of the English Parliament , and a humble supporter of Mr . Pitt , Under the patronage of this minister , he returned to the Irish Parliament in 1797 , and was appointed , in reward of what his former compatriots termed his apostacy , first Keeper of the Privy Seal of Ireland , and then one of the Lords of the Irish
Treasury . His political advancement was promoted by his family connexion with Earl Camden , the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland , to whom , on the resignation of Mr . Pelham , the present Earl of Chichester , he became Chief Secretary . He was also sworn of the Privy Council . He
continued the office of Secretary under the Marquis Cornwallis . In this situation he was accused of conniving , at least , at many of the worst atrocities that the triumphant faction in Ireland perpetrated ; but we know not that any one crime was ever brought home to him .
The Union with Ireland was accomplished chiefly by his agency , that is , as manager of the Irish House of Commons , and posterity will probably know the means by which this measure was effected . The Irish Parliament being destroyed , Lord
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Castiereagh took his seat in the Uaited Parliament , as member for the county of Down ; and Wilder the Sidmouth administration , in 1802 y he was appointed President of the Board of Controul , a post which \ he continued to hold on Mr
Pitt's return to / office . He was afterwards made Secretary for the War and Colonial Departments . On this occasion , he was rejected by . the County of Down and obliged to come into Parliament for a ministerial borough . The death of Mr . Pitt drove him and the
other clerks of office ( as they were contemptuously styled ) from place and power . The displaced party carried on a most harassing opposition to the Fox and Grenville administration , and at length prevailed against them by the " No Popery" cry ; although Mr . Pitt ,
whose memory they affected to cherish and whose policy they pretended to pursue , had been ever friendly to the Catholic claims , and had once resigned the seals of office because he could not carry them ; although Lord Castiereagh had , under Mr . Pitt ' s sanction , held out to
the Irish , emancipation as the price of consent to the Union ; and although he himself was at the very time , and continued afterwards to the hour of his decease , an advocate for all the concessions , and more than the concessions , that the Whigs proposed to make to the Roman
Catholics . In the Perceval ministry , Lord Castiereagh filled his former post of Minister of War , and in that office planned the ridiculous and disastrous expedition to Walcheren . This led to the duel with Mr . Canning , and to his expulsion from office . On the death of Mr .
Perceval , he was recalled to place by the necessities of his party , and made Foreign Secretary , which he contiuued to be to the day of his death . The extraordinary events of the close of the French war elevated his Lordship to an eminence
to which he could never have expected from his talents , principles or connexions to arrive . He divided kingdoms , parcelled out masses of population , disposed of crowns and determined the fate of dynasties . With what instruments he woi ked m
• It must never be forgotten that the Perceval , Liverpool , Eldon and Castiereagh ministry , which had run down the Fox and Grenville administration on account of their Catholic Bill , afterwards carried
secretly introduced and quietly the same , measure , only with larger allowances to the Catholics ! This is a memorable example of political consistency and integrity .
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512 Obituary . —Marquis of Londonderry .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1822, page 512, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2515/page/56/
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