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The Duel: Castlereagh, Canning and Deadly Cabinet Rivalry, by Giles Hunt; pp. xiii + 214. London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 2008, £20.00, $37.00.
On 21 September 1809, Foreign Secretary George Canning and Lord Castlereagh, Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, fought a duel. On the surface, this might not seem extraordinary; the infamous and deadly duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr had taken place only five years earlier. But Britain was at war with Napoleon and in the middle of economic chaos. Whatever would possess two members of the government to engage in such cavalier behavior? Answering this question is the purpose of Giles Hunt's biographical and ideological study in political ambition and contrasting success in the age of high politics and war.
Organizing the book in chapters that contrast their early lives, education, and political careers, Hunt argues that Canning and Castlereagh came to serve His Majesty's government from two very different paths. On the one hand, Canning's father had been disowned for his choice in marriage, leaving the family bankrupt when he died during Canning's infancy. While his grandfather held estates in Northern Ireland, the young Canning relied upon his uncle and only upon his grandfather's death was his grandmother able to pay for his formal schooling at Eton. Robert Steward, later Lord Castlereagh, on the other hand, descended from an Ulster Scots plantation fortune and the commercial wealth of an Indian nabob. He was born into privilege and grew up at his grandfather's estate, Mount Stewart, experiencing...