LONDONDERRY, ROBERT STEWART, MARQUIS OF, was born at the family seat of Mount Stewart, in the county of Down, Ireland, on the 18th of June 1769 (the same year which gave birth to the Duke of Wellington and to Napoleon Bonaparte). His father, of the same names, after representing the county of Down for many years in the Irish parliament, was made Baron Stewart of London derry in 1789, Viscount Castlereagh in 1795, Earl of Londonderry in 1796, and Marquis of Londonderry in 1816—all in the peerage of Ireland. Robert was his only child that survived by his first wife, Sarah Frances, daughter of Francis Seymour, first marquis of Hert ford, whom bo married in 1766, and who died in 1770. He received the first part of his education at the grammarschool of Armagh, whence he was removed in 176d to St. John's College, Cambridge. lle was nut yet of ago when, on his father being raised to the peerage In 1789, he offered himself for the vacant seat in the representation of the county of Down, and was returned, though not without a severe contest, which lasted for three months, and Is said to have cost the family 25,000/. or 80,0004 Nor did he come in without pledging himself, in contradiction to what had hitherto been the family politics, to the cause of parliamentary reform, which had for some time been a popular watchword in 'Ireland. For three or four years accordingly he was considered as belonging to the party of the opposition, though to the aristocratic and more moderate section of It. He very early began to take part in the debates. His conversion from liberalism seems to have taken place about 1793 or 1701; and it may he fairly considered to have been the natural result of his family position co-operating with the more alarming aspect which popular polities iu Ireland were every day assuming ; but he in consequence became excessively unpopular.
In the summer of 1794 he was returned to the British parliament for the borough of Tregony ; and after remaining silent for a session he made his maiden speech in the House of Commons in seconding tho address on the 29th of October 1795. It is said to have greatly
disappointed the expectations excited by the reputation he had brought over with him. He was to the last a remarkably unequal speaker, at one time rising above, at another time—sometimes on the same night—falling below his ordinary or average style of execution in a degree scarcely credible, and the more wonderful in a person Of so much nerve and self-possession.
He does not appear to have ever spoken again during this parliament, which was dissolved after the close of that its sixth Sessiou, in May 1796. That year he became Viscount Castlereagh ; and ho was again returned to the next British parliament, which met In September, for the borough of Orford. But he vacated his seat in July 1797; upon which he was re-elected to the Irish parliament for the county of Down, and was made Keeper of tho Privy Seal for Ireland. In the beginning of 1796 he was appointed Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant and an Irish privy councillor; and from this date he may be regarded as having been distinctly the ministerial leader in the Commons. The credit or discredit of the measures adopted for the suppression of the rebellion, which broke out and was put down in this year, has also been commonly assigned to him, although it does not appear that he really did more than carry out the system which be found already in action when be came into office. He was no doubt one of the principal managers of the project of the Union, which followed two years after.
He was returned for the county of limn to tho first Imperial Par liament, which met in February 1801; and also to the second, which met in November 1802; though, upon the latter occasion, not till after a severe struggle with the interest of the Downshire family, whose hostility had been provoked by the dismissal of the late marquis from the command of his militia regiment and the lord-lieutenancy of the county for his opposition to tho Union.