ABSTRACT
CANNING brought to the Foreign Office the impulse at once of a fresh mind and of a giant energy. "What you have heard of Mr Canning's intense application is true. It was such as to surprise the clerks at the F.O." 1 And it was an energy which was sustained as well as enormous. On his visit to Paris in 1826 he kept the clerks there writing twelve hours a day, and, when he lived at the Foreign Office in his last two years, the work of his subordinates was as unending as his own. "His habits of industry," wrote Lord Dudley, " must appear quite incredible to those that did not know him. I met him once at a country house where he went for what he was pleased to call his holidays. He had his secretaries about him soon after eight (a.m.), had despatches ready before breakfast, then wrote all day till six (p.m.). At tea· time he established himself in a corner of the drawing-room to write his private letters-and this every day-only now and then with the exception of a ride, and even during that he talked eagerly and fully upon public affairs or any other subject that happened to present itself." 2 He noted, too, that while Wellington was' as quick as,' Canning was' quicker than,' lightning. Though severe, in some sense, to subordinates, because exacting and at times irritable, Dudley 'never knew a more kind-hearted and affectionate man.'
