William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne Quotes

1737–1805 Ireland

William Petty Fitzmaurice, 1st Marquess of Lansdowne KG PC (2 May 1737 – 7 May 1805; known as the Earl of Shelburne between 1761 and 1784, by which title he is generally known to history), was an Anglo-Irish Whig statesman who was the first home secretary in 1782 and then prime minister from 1782 to 1783 during the final months of the American War of Independence, in which he negotiated the Treaty of Paris with the United States. He succeeded in securing peaceful United Kingdom–United States relations and this feat remains his most notable legacy.

Ireland
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Random William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne quote

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He condemned, in general, the madness, injustice, and infatuation of coercing the Americans into a blind and servile submission.

After the dismission of the present worthy chancellor, the seals would go a begging; but he hoped there would not be found in the kingdom a wretch so base and mean spirited, as to accept of them on the conditions on which they must be offered.

I felt attaching the name of rebellion hastily, and traitors, to the Americans, and comparing them to the Scots at Derby—which was the language used—dangerous, and perhaps both imprudent and unjust.

Noble lords would do him the justice to recollect, that not one session had passed over since 1793, in which he had not, to use a vulgar but a strong expression, bored their lordships with his prophetic admonitions.

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.