Charles
Fox, the son of the Henry Fox, a leading politician in the House of
Commons, was born on 24th January, 1749. After being educated at Eton
and Oxford University, Fox was elected
to represent Midhurst in the House
of Commons when he was only nineteen.
At the age of twenty-one, Fox was appointed by Frederick North, the
prime minister, as the Junior Lord of the Admiralty. In December 1772
Fox became Lord of the Treasury but was dismissed by in February 1774
after criticising the influential artist and journalist, Henry Woodfall.
Out of office, Charles Fox opposed North's policy towards America.
He denounced the taxation of the Americans without their consent.
When war broke out Fox called for a negotiated peace.
After
1780 Fox became a supporter of parliamentary reform. He advocated
the disfranchisement of rotten and pocket
boroughs and the redistribution of these seats to the fast growing
industrial towns. When Lord Frederick North's government fell in March
1782, Fox became Foreign Secretary in Rockingham's Whig
government. Fox left the government in July 1782, on the death of
the Marquis of Rockingham as he was unwilling to serve under the new
prime minister, Lord Sherburne. Sherburne appointed the twenty-three
year old William Pitt as his Chanchellor
of the Exchequer. Pitt had been a close political friend of Fox and
after this the two men became bitter enemies.
When the French Revolution broke out in 1789 Charles Fox was initially
enthusiastic describing it as the "greatest event that has happened
in the history of the world". He expected the creation of a liberal,
constitutional monarchy and was horrified when King Louis XVI was
executed. When war broke out between Britain and France in February
1793, Fox criticised the government and called for a negotiated end
to the dispute. Although Fox's views were supported by the Radicals,
many people regarded him as defeatist and unpatriotic.
Fox disapproved of the ideas of Tom Paine
and criticised Rights of Man, however, he consistently opposed
measures that attempted to curtail traditional freedoms. He attacked
plans to suspend habeas corpus in May
1794 and denounced the trials of Thomas Muir,
Thomas Hardy, John
Thelwall and John Horne Tooke. Fox also
promoted Catholic Emancipation and opposed
the slave trade. Fox continued to
support parliamentary reform but he rejected the idea of universal
suffrage and instead argued for the vote to be given to all male householders.
When Lord
Grenville became prime minister in 1806 he appointed Charles Fox
as his Foreign Secretary. Fox began negotiating with the French but
was unable to bring an end to the war. After making a passionate speech
in favour of the Abolition of the Slave Trade
bill in the House of Commons on 10th June
1806, Fox was taken ill. His health deteriorated rapidly and he died
three months later on 13th September, 1806.
James
Gillray produced The Friend of the People in
1806. It shows Charles Fox (left) and Henry Petty, the
Chancellor of the Exchequer, collecting extra taxes.
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