“Lord Wellesley,” he declared, speaking in the third person, “had repeatedly, with great reluctance, yielded his opinions to the Cabinet on many other important points [besides the war in the Peninsula]. He was sincerely convinced by experience that in every such instance he had submitted to opinions more incorrect than his own, and had sacrificed to the object of accommodation and temporary harmony more than he could justify in point of strict public duty. In fact he was convinced by experience that the Cabinet neither possessed ability nor knowledge to devise a good plan, nor temper and discernment to adopt what he now thought necessary, unless Mr. Perceval should concur with Lord Wellesley. To Mr. Perceval’s judgment or attainments Lord Wellesley, under the same experience, could not pay any deference without injury to the public service.” Probably Wellesley did not conceal in Council the opinion of his colleagues which he freely expressed in society. In every way they annoyed him. A scholar, who prided himself on his classical studies and refined tastes, he found these colleagues altering his state papers and criticising his style. “He had thought he was among a Cabinet of statesmen,” he said; “he found them a set of critics.” His own criticisms occasionally touched matters more delicate than style. Once at a Cabinet meeting Lord Westmoreland, the Privy Seal, put his feet on the table while Wellesley was talking. The Foreign Secretary stopped short. “I will go on with my remarks,” he said, “when the noble Lord resumes a more seemly attitude.” Americans could hardly be blamed for holding a low opinion of this Administration, when most intelligent Englishmen held the same. If Whigs or Liberals like Grenville, Brougham, and Sydney Smith were prejudiced critics, this charge could hardly be brought against Canning; but if Canning’s opinion were set aside, the Wellesleys at least being identified with his administration had every reason to wish Perceval success. How the Marquess hated and despised Perceval; how he struggled to get rid of him, and strained every nerve to bring Canning, Castlereagh, Sidmouth, Grey, or Grenville into the Government as a counter-balancing influence, can be read in the biographies of all these men, and of many less famous. London echoed with the Marquess’s deep disgust; every man of fair parts in England sympathized with it, unless his personal interests or feelings bound him to blind devotion. The yoke hung heavy on Whigs and Tories alike. Even Lord Sidmouth rebelled against the commercial system to which Perceval clung more desperately than to his offices or power. “Of that destructive system,” wrote Sidmouth in the summer of 1810,[236] “all are weary, ‘praeter atrocem animum Catonis.’”