His horizon reached from London out to India and America; and he cared as deeply for the Indian ryot's wrongs as for the iniquities of English policy to Ireland.

With less width of mind than Hume and less intensity of gaze than Adam Smith, he yet had a width and intensity which, fused with his own imaginative sympathy, gave him more insight than either.

He had an unerring eye for the eternal principles of politics.

He knew that ideals must be harnessed to an Act of Parliament if they are not to cease their influence.

Admitting while he did that politics must rest upon expediency, he never failed to find good reason why expediency should be identified with what he saw as right.