I never failed to convince an audience that the best thing they could do was to go away.

He opposed the employment of steamers on the Red Sea probably in deference to the supposed interests of the company. Sir Edward Strachey wrote of him

"A kind-hearted genial friendly man who loved to share his enjoyment of life with all around him and self-indulgent without being selfish. The official duties of the India House delayed the completion and publication of Maid Marian begun in 1818 until 1822 and as a result of the delay it was taken for an imitation of Ivanhoe although its composition had in fact preceded Scott's novel.

He was a close friend of Percy BysThomas Love Peacock Shelley and they influenced each other's work. Peacock wrote satirical novels each with the same basic setting — characters at a table discussing and criticising the philosophical opinions of the day. Thomas Love Peacock (18 October 1785 – 23 January 1866) was an English novelist poet and official of the East India Company.