The fortune, at the time Miss Burdett-Coutts received it, was estimated at about three million pounds sterling. To make a proper use of so vast a sum is in itself a career, and an arduous, difficult career. Miss Burdett-Coutts—or simply Miss Coutts, as she was usually called—perceived this, and devoted herself with courage, constancy, and intelligence to the task of wielding worthily the powerful instrument for good or for evil which had been entrusted to her hands. The mistakes which she has made in this endeavor have not been few, nor insignificant; her successes have been many and glorious.
She is a lady who can listen to advice; but, also, she is capable of deciding whether the advice is good or otherwise, and of acting according to her decision. She had common sense, reasonable docility, and a strong will. A person in her position needs to be able to say No, perhaps even more than to be able to say Yes, and Miss Coutts has always been able to utter the harder monosyllable. This useful quality of decision she probably derived from her father, Sir Francis Burdett, who was a man of strong and peculiar character. Impressed while traveling in France at the time of the Revolution with the most ultra-liberal ideas, Sir Francis, on his return to England, gave open expression to them in private and in Parliament. For a letter which he wrote to his constituents denying the right of government to commit for libel (as had recently been done) his arrest was ordered by the House of Commons. Officers were sent to his house, but he refused to surrender, barricaded the doors and windows, and maintained the siege for three days, at the end of which he was captured with much difficulty. Another letter, written at the time of the Manchester riots, brought upon him a trial for libel; he was found guilty and sentenced to three months' imprisonment and a fine of a thousand pounds.
