Friends Until the End

In eighteenth-century Britain, Edmund Burke and Charles Fox made common political cause for twenty-five years. They supported the rebellious American colonies, attacked the British slave trade, defended religious liberty, and attempted to shield Britain's public credit from the crisis-prone East India Company. The two men did not share social position, a way of life, a political legacy, or even a generation—but improbably, they were friends. The hard-drinking, mistress-collecting Fox loved and admired Burke, feelings that the clean-living political philosopher and statesman warmly reciprocated. Friends Until the End tells the story of two men who hailed from different worlds, yet thrived together in the London intellectual sphere. With wit and panache, James Grant traces their relationship through three events: the American Revolution; the impeachment of the East India Company's governor-general; and the French Revolution, which ended their political union and shattered their friendship. Fox and Burke were uniquely suited to their enduring careers marked by political opposition—they possessed the fluency, self-command, and principle that allowed them to resist, most often, what they regarded as an overreaching British crown. Along with the men's two remarkable lives, this book illuminates their era's politics, economics, and lessons for our divided times.