Page "William Coventry" Paragraph 10

Writing Coventry's biography in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, Philip Chesney Yorke stated that " though Sir William Coventry never filled that place in the national administration to which his merit and exceptional ability clearly entitled him, his public life together with his correspondence are sufficient to distinguish him from amongst his contemporaries as a statesman of the first rank.

Lord Halifax obviously derived from his honoured mentor those principles of government which, by means of his own brilliant intellectual gifts, originality and imaginative insight, gained further force and influence.

Halifax owed to him his interest in the navy and his grasp of the necessity to a country of a powerful maritime force.

He drew his antagonism to France, his religious tolerance, wider religious views but firm Protestantism doubtless from the same source.

Sir William was the original Trimmer ".