Between 1760 and 1820 there were only two prominent Whigs who approached complete Liberalism. Others occasionally used {64} language which led in the same direction. Lord Moira was not far away in 1796, when he opposed a Bill for suppressing public meetings. "He could not believe that the Almighty made any part of mankind merely to work and eat like beasts. He had endowed man with reasoning faculties, and given him leave to use them." Whitbread was as near when he introduced a Bill to enable justices to fix a minimum wage instead of leaving workmen to charity and the Poor Law. "Charity afflicted the mind of a good man, because it took away his independence--a consideration as valuable to the labourer as to the man of high rank."[73] But the Whig leaders whose settled habits of mind were most Liberal were Shelburne and Charles James Fox. Shelburne's Liberalism was deep and philosophic, that of Fox impetuous and practical. But both, though they were never friendly with each other, had substantially the same sympathies in all controversies of their time. Shelburne seems to have had no social prejudices. He was an intimate friend of Bentham the Utilitarian, of Priestley the Unitarian, of Price the Dissenting parson-economist, and of Horne Tooke the Radical. He even appointed a Dissenting minister as tutor to his son. In politics he held opinions which were astonishingly in advance of those of his contemporaries. He was a Free Trader. He favoured the election of local authorities, the abolition of alehouses, the encouragement of workmen's clubs and friendly societies, annual national holidays, cheap county courts, the conversion of prisons into reformatory institutions, and national compulsory education.[74] This practical Liberalism was inspired by original Liberal theory. The old feudalism and government by territorial aristocracy must go, and the middle and working classes must take its place. After the fall of the Bastille he said: "The nonsense of feudality can never be revived.... The Bastille cannot be rebuilt. The administration of justice {65} and feudality cannot again go together.... The rest ... may be very safely left to public opinion and to the light of the times. Public opinion once set free acts like the sea never ceasingly, controlling imperceptibly and irresistibly both laws and ministers of laws, reducing and advancing everything to its own level."[75] In drawing up a series of reflections on society he laid down "one fundamental principle, never to be departed from, _to put yourself in the power of no man_."