ABSTRACT
As critics never failed to point out, he was not a member of the landed classes, his father being a doctor and his family having no claim to bear arms. On closer inspection Addington’s circumstances and prospects were not as unusual or bleak as they might seem. Being of professional origins was not an advantage but he had been educated alongside members of the traditional elite at Oxford and Lincoln’s Inn. With regard to the war the key to Addington’s overall strategy was his belief that the combination of a lack of effective allies and a weakened economy necessitated a period of recuperation before the struggle could be resumed with any hope of success. However, Addington’s chief hope of the peace was that it would enable him to prepare the economy for war, a task he made his own. Nevertheless, it was the government’s defence measures that brought about its downfall.
