Memoirs of Sir Elijah Impey, Knt

The fortune and after-fame of public men, often depend rather upon the spirit of the times in which they live, and the state of political parties, to whose influence they are exposed, than upon their own intrinsic merits or defects. This is an axiom, approaching indeed to a truism, applicable to all times and countries, but more especially to our own; where, for so many generations, government has avowedly been carried on upon the principle of balancing party against party; and where, until quite recently, no public man seems to have thought that we could be governed in any other manner. It was the lot of my father to enter the service of his country, at a period when party heat and violence had attained to their greatest height; and it was his misfortune to excite the personal enmity of a man, who became, in a manner, the oracle and prompter of a faction, the most intemperate, and, at the same time, the most able, persevering, and influential, that ever sate upon the Opposition benches I allude to Sir Philip Francis. This is not the place to descant upon the character of that gentlemen; it will be fully developed hereafter. But I think it highly important, thus early in this work, to premise, in a summary way, what manner of man he was, who originated these proceedings.