300l. each to various London charities (see Gent. Mag. new ser. xii. 660).
[R. V. Taylor's Biog. Leodiensis, p. 375; Gronow's Anecdotes, iii. 86; Cannon's Hist. Rec. 17th Lancers (succession of colonels); Gurwood's Well. Desp.; Narratives of the Peninsular and Waterloo campaigns, various; Gent. Mag. new ser. xi. 430-1, xii. 650.]
ELLICE, EDWARD, the elder (1781–1863), politician, was of an English family which settled in Aberdeenshire about the middle of the seventeenth century. His grandfather established himself as a merchant in New York, and his father, Alexander, taking the English side in the war of independence, removed to Montreal and founded the house of Inglis, Ellice, & Co. He was also managing director of the Hudson's Bay Company, supplied a very large part of the capital with which the whole fur trade was carried on, and established a branch of his firm in London about 1800. Edward, his third son, was born in 1781, and was educated at Winchester. He afterwards studied at Marischal College, Aberdeen, and while there lived in the family of Principal Brown. He matriculated at the university in 1797, and graduated M. A. in 1800, having chiefly studied ancient history, logic, and moral philosophy. He became a clerk in his father's London house, and there acquired his remarkable business habits, and went to Canada in 1803, where he engaged in the fur trade. He happened while in Canada in 1806 to make the first passage in the first steamboat ever launched, the Fulton. In 1805 he became connected with the competing Canadian fur companies, the North-West Company and the X. Y. Company. In this way he was the opponent of the Hudson's Bay Company. In 1820 the colonial secretary, Lord Bathurst, consulted him as to an amalgamation of the companies, which, after a very difficult negotiation, he accomplished 26 March 1821, and on his suggestion an act was passed in 1821 giving the thus constituted Hudson's Bay Company the right of exclusive trade for twenty years. He remained connected with the company till his death, and was then still a deputy-governor. In 1803 he also paid his first visit to the United States, which he repeatedly revisited down to 1859, acquainting himself with the state of politics from time to time. He foresaw for many years the civil war of 1861 and its enormous cost, and deplored the prospect of the conquest of the confederate states. He was, however, so little of a partisan as to entertain impartially Mason, the confederate commissioner, in 1862, and Adams, the United States ambassador, in 1863. Having married in 1809 Lady Hannah Althea Bettesworth, widow of Captain Bettesworth, R.N., and youngest sister of the second Earl Grey, he was thrown into constant contact with the whig party. By her he had one son, Edward [q. v.], afterwards M.P. for the St. Andrews burghs. She died 29 July 1832. He married in 1843 Lady Leicester, widow of the first Earl of Leicester, and third daughter of the fourth Earl of Albemarle. She died in 1844. His views were at first strongly radical, and he was the friend and associate of Sir F. Burdett, Sir J. Cam Hobhouse, and Whitbread; and during his closest alliance with the whig government he was supposed to represent the radical section. He was elected a member of Brooks's Club 3 June 1809, and in 1818, with Peter Moore, defeated Joseph Butterworth and was returned for Coventry, Coventry had an exclusively freeman's franchise, and there being no householder vote as such, a large proportion of the 3,700 voters had to be brought from a distance. The elections were thus enormously costly, but there was no direct bribery. In 1820 he was again returned at the head of the poll. Foreseeing the difficulty of colonial relations with Canada, he supported in 1822 Wilmot's Canadian Government and Trade Bill. He was defeated at Coventry in 1826, but was again successful in 1830. In 1831 he was returned with Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer,and continued to represent the town till his death, receiving the second votes of radicals and conservatives, as well as liberal support. He never canvassed. but during elections, or when his votes had given offence, his habit was to address meetings. In general his constituents allowed him much political latitude. During his first three parliaments he was a follower of Joseph Hume. In Lord Grey's government, in spite of Lord Duncannon's claims from his services as whip to the opposition, he was appointed, November 1830, secretary to the treasury and whip — an arduous post, as he had the principal conduct of the election of 1831, was opposed by a very able tory whip, Holmes, and had large funds to administer. 'He beat the enemy with their own weapons,' says Le Marchant; 'He collected large sums from the leading whigs, with which he purchased several of the nomination boroughs previously represented by tories.' Having a great provincial connection with local liberal leaders, he was widely successful. He was not on the committee of four which prepared the first scheme of reform for the approval of the cabinet, but he vigorously supported it in parliament, especially the parts of it which enfranchised the metropolitan boroughs. 'He had more to do,' says Campbell, 'with carrying the bill than any other man' (Autobiography, i. 500). In August 1832 he resigned
