Liverpool,

Liverpool, ROBERT BANKS JENKINSON, EARL OF, statesman, was born 7th June 1770, the son of the first Earl (1727–1808). He was educated at the Charterhouse and Christ Church, Oxford, and entered parliament in 1791 as member for Rye. Like his father he was a Tory, but with Liberal ideas on trade and finance. In 1794 he became a member of the India Board, and in 1801 foreign secretary in the Addington ministry, when he negotiated the unpopular treaty of Amiens. In 1803 he was created Lord Hawkesbury, and on Pitt's return to power he went to the Home Office, as it was thought desirable he should continue to lead the House of Lords. On the death of Pitt he was invited to form an administration, but declined in consequence of the schism in the Tory party. In 1807, however, he again took the Home Office, under the Duke of Portland, and next year succeeded his father as Earl of Liverpool. In Perceval's ministry of 1809 he was Secretary for War and the Colonies, and in this capacity was charged with pusillanimity in connection with the Peninsular war. After the assassination of Perceval in 1812 Lord Liverpool formed an administration which it was predicted would not last for six months, but which in fact existed for nearly fifteen years, and then fell only through the illness of the premier himself. The first ten years of the Liverpool ministry (1812–22) have been severely criticised. The partition of Saxony, the abandonment of Poland, the union of Holland and Belgium, the Austrian establishment in Italy, the alleged connivance of England in the suppression of the revolutionary agitation in Naples, the mismanagement of the finances, the increase in the duty on foreign corn, the coercive measures adopted for dealing with discontent in England, are all pointed to as so many proofs of the incapacity or despotic sympathies of the English government of this period. Lord Liverpool himself was a Free Trader, and regarded the Corn Law of 1815 as merely an experiment; and when he was joined by Huskisson and Canning he began to liberalise the tariff. He also desired to retain a portion of the property tax, which would have obviated the necessity for fresh taxes; and, as it only affected men with incomes of upwards of £200 per annum, its retention would have been a distinct boon to the working-classes. But Whigs and Tories alike opposed it. Notwithstanding the blunder of the sinking fund, Lord Liverpool's financial policy generally was of a sound and enlightened character; and his administration was an economical one. As a statesman, his chief title to remembrance lies in the fact that he united the old and the new Tories at a critical period, and in a manner which neither Canning nor Wellington could accomplish. On February 17, 1827, he was stricken with apoplexy, but he remained nominally prime-minister until April, when Canning formed a new government. He died 4th December 1828. See the Life by C. D. Yonge (3 vols. 1868).

Liver-rot. See FLUKE.