After due consideration he responded favourably to
these advances, and was in due course returned by a considerable majority.
One of his earliest votes in the House of Commons was in favour of
free-trade. He soon became known as a ready and effective speaker, whose
judgment on commercial questions was entitled to respect. His zeal for the
principles of his party was also conspicuous, and when Earl Grey formed his
Administration in November, 1830, the office of Vice-President of the Board
of Trade, together with the Treasurership of the Navy, was offered to and
accepted by Mr. Thomson. He was at the same time sworn in as a member
of the Privy Council. The acceptance of the former office rendered it
necessary for him to sever his connection with the commercial firm of
which he had up to this time been a member, and he never again engaged in
mercantile business of any kind. By this time, indeed, he had established
for himself a reputation of no common order. The part he had taken in
the debates of the House, and in the proceedings of its Committees, on
questions connected with commerce and finance, had proved him to possess
not only a clear practical acquaintance with the details of these subjects,
but also principles of an enlarged and liberal character, and powers of
generalization and a comprehensiveness of view rarely found combined in so
young a man.
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