Canning (GEORGE an English orator)

Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)

GEORGE, an English orator and statesman; born in London, April 11, 1770; educated at Eton and at Oxford. He was first brought into Parliament by Pitt in 1793, and in 1796 became Under-Secretary of State. In 1797 he projected, with some friends, the "Anti-Jacobin," of which Gifford was appointed editor, and to which Canning contributed the "Knife-grinder" and other poems and articles. In 1798 he supported Wilberforce's motion for the abolition of the slave-trade. In 1807 he was appointed Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in the Portland administration, and was slightly wounded in a duel with Lord Castlereagh, arising out of the dispute which occasioned the dissolution of the ministry. In 1814 he was appointed Minister to Portugal, and remained abroad about two years. He refused to take any part in the proceedings against the Queen, and in 1822, 22, having been nominated Governor-General of India, he was on the point of embarking when the death of Castlereagh called him to the Cabinet as foreign Secretary. One of his earliest acts in this situation was to check the French influence in Spain. He continued to support the propositions in favor of Catholic emancipation, arranged the triple alliance for the preservation of Greece, but opposed parliamentary reform and the Test and Corporation ion Acts. April 12, 1827, his appointment to be Prime-Minister was announced. On all the leading political questions of his day, with two exceptions - the emancipation of the Catholics and the recognition of the South American republics he took the high Tory side. He died in Chiswick, Aug. 8, 1827.