George Townshend

“ TOWNSHEND, GEORGE, second Marquis Townshend, Earl of Leicester, and Baron de Ferrars of Chartley (1755–1811) , born on 18 April 1755, was the eldest son of George Townshend, first marquis [q. v.] , by his first wife, Lady Charlotte Compton, baroness de Ferrars. He was educated at Eton and St. John's College, Cambridge, and was created M.A. on 6 July 1773. On his mother's death in 1774 he succeeded to the barony of De Ferrars. ”

“ I should think it would be also an act of real justice to Townshend to say something to him about his conduct towards you, which I think as honourable and friendly as possible. If one could but join the power of the one with the integrity of the other! ”

“ He, and his friends for him, even attempted to ravish the honour of the conquest from Wolfe. Townshend’s first letter said nothing in praise of him. In one to the Speaker of the House of Commons he went so far as indirectly to assume the glory of the last effort. The words were these, “We determined on the 13th of September to do what we ought to have done in the beginning: but in military operations it is never too late to reform.” In other more private dispatches Townshend was still more explicit. These he ordered to be shown to the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Newcastle, and Mr. Pitt. ”

“ General Handasyde, a blundering commander on the Prince’s side, spoke strongly against the Queries; and Colonel Richard Lyttelton, with a greater command of absurdity, spoke to the same points as Sir Francis Dashwood; like him, disclaimed Jacobitism, and wished that “even a worse punishment than burning could be found out for the paper;” told a long story of Colonel George Townshend’s having been refused leave to stay in Norfolk, “though he was cultivating the Whig interest;” ”

“ Sir George tells us, that Townshend's object was to be prime minister, and that he would doubtless have attained that object had he lived to see the Duke of Grafton's resignation. Lord North succeeded him as chancellor of the exchequer, and Townshend would evidently have preceded him as prime minister. "As a private man, his friends were used to say, that they should not see his like again. Though they were often the butts of his wit, they always returned to his company with fresh delight, which they would not have done had there been either malice or rancour in what he said. ”

“ She had a great deal of wit, which was seldom delicate, and had turned Jacobite on some disregard from the Duke of Cumberland. One day that she was very severe on the Royal Family, Margaret Cecil, Lady Brown, said to her, “Lady Townshend, it was very well, while you was only affected; but now you are disaffected, it is intolerable.” A famous bon mot of Lady Townshend on the Royal Family was occasioned by seeing them often at Ranelagh: she said, “This is the cheapest family to see, and the dearest to keep, that ever was.”
[51] Afterwards Sir George Brydges Rodney ”

“ The Speaker himself was insulted at Guildford, and menaced in his own house at Ember-court, and could not disperse the insurrection but by promising no further steps should be taken till the next session of Parliament. But the greatest indecencies were committed by the [42] family of Townshend. George, the author of the Militia, was on very ill terms with his father, who was as wrong-headed as his son, and more mad. They wrote abusive pamphlets against one another ”

“ He was convinced, he said, that it would come in the end to your proposition. But in the meantime Thurlow was against it, and meant to oppose the Bill; and Shelburne wanted to be forced to it, and said that he was sure a stand would be to be made somewhere; and why not now? I answered that it did not seem to me the most prudent step to choose a post where no man of any description would stand by you. We had much more conversation of the same sort. There were those, Townshend said, who had said that as the preliminaries were expected soon, it would come with better grace then. ”

“ In 1724 he printed a Latin ode on the return of George I from Germany, and ‘Divine Entertainments,’ a book of emblems, with woodcuts, the last work he did in London of any consequence. The secret list of printers in London and Westminster presented to Lord Townshend in 1724 enumerates ‘Gent, Pye-Corner,’ among those ‘said to be high-flyers’ (Nichols, Literary Anecdotes, i. 303) . Among his employers were Henry Woodfall and Samuel Richardson. On 10 Dec. 1724 he married Alice, widow of Charles Bourne, printer of York, whose business he had taken up. ”

“ Pitt no injury. Barré was abhorred as a barbarian irregular, and Fox, who had lent such kind assistance to a ruffian, drew the chief odium on himself. Charles Townshend, being asked soon after, when the House would rise for the holidays, replied,151 “I do not know; but when it does, the roads will be as dangerous as if the army were disbanded.” ”

“ In the mean time, the opposition is so staunch that, I think, after the three questions on Warrants, DismisSion of officers, and the Manilla-money, I shall be at liberty to come to you, when I shall have a great deal to tell you. If Charles Townshend gets a place, Lord George Sackville expects another, by the same channel, interest, and connexion; but if Charles may be disappointed himself, what may a man be who trusts to him? ”

“ That, as to the young man, (Charles Townshend,) youth and parts require beauty and riches, flesh and blood inspire such thoughts, and therefore he [349] excused him—but men of riper years and graver had opposed; that the first, (the Speaker,) was a good, well-meaning man, but had been abused by words—that another, (Fox,) dark, gloomy, and insidious genius, who was an engine of personality and faction, had been making connexions, and trying to form a party, but his designs had been seen through and defeated. That in this country you must govern by force or by law ”

“ On the 12th, Colonel Lutterell proceeded to Brentford with a much smaller troop of gentlemen than he had expected; and the mob having assembled before his door, that little band of heroes stole away to the election by breaking down the wall of the garden behind Lord Irnham’s house. This prevented their rendezvous at Holland House, where a great breakfast had been prepared for them. Stephen Fox, Lord Holland’s son, proposed Lutterell, as Mr. Townshend did Wilkes. Townshend desired the people to behave with temper and decency ”

“ Dowdeswell proposed a clause to take away their votes at elections from all officers of the revenue. Upon this, one Fonnereau, a peevish man, who had all his life been a Court tool, complained that Chauncy Townshend,75 a brother-dependant, but more favoured, had so much interest with the Ministers, that one Bennet, parson of Aldborough, and attached to Townshend, had vaunted that he could obtain the dismission of any officer of the revenue who should vote for Fonnereau.76 Grenville caught artfully at this complaint, and with Blackstone and Dowdeswell insisted on inquiring into the affair. ”

“ The lady's family reckoned upon the help of Sir Luke Schaub, a Swiss, formerly secretary to Stanhope, and 'a kind of Will Chiffinch to George I' (Cunningham, note to Letters of Horace Walpole, i. 83) , now British minister at Paris. Townshend, however, with the aid of the Duchess of Kendal and her 'niece,' the Countess of Walsingham, obtained the dismissal of Bernstorff from the ministry of state at Hanover, and frustrated the efforts of Bothmar, who had come over to use his influence (Coxe, ii. 104-5) . The marriage took place at Paris, King George giving the bride a portion of 10,000l. ”

“ George, eldest son of the Viscount Townshend, whom he succeeded in the title, afterwards Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.—A.
Our Author, who had no objection to satirical jokes, should have been more indulgent to a man whose chief offence was his success in them. A love of fun may be mischievous, but is rather a proof of levity than of sullenness, pride, or a contemptuous temper.—E.
[43] The King of Prussia melted the gold coin which we furnished for our subsidy, and recoined it with much more alloy. ”

“ Robert Wood, a man whose character was much brighter in the literary than in the political world.
In October came on the election of the Lord Mayor. Sawbridge and Townshend, the late Sheriffs, declared themselves candidates. The Court were afraid publicly to interfere; but they excited the wealthier merchants, who groaned under the ascendant of the upstart tribunes, to make a stand against the popular faction. The idea was eagerly346 embraced, and one Nash, a senior Alderman, and very opulent grocer,207 was set up against the two demagogues. ”

“ He had art enough to disguise anything but his vanity. He spoke long and with much wit, and drew a picture, with much humour at least, if not with much humility, of himself and of his own situation, as the younger son of a capricious father, who had already debarred him from an advantageous match: “were new shackles to be forged to keep young men of abilities from mounting to a level with their elder brothers?” Nugent had not shone with more parts the preceding day; Nugent on no day discovered less modesty. What will be their fates I know not; but this Mr. Townshend and Mr. ”

“ Exuberant animal spirits, a brilliant and ever ready wit, boundless facility of repartee, a clear, rapid, and spontaneous eloquence, a gift of mimicry which is said to have been not inferior to that of Garrick and Foote, great charm of manner, and an unrivalled skill in adapting himself to the moods and tempers of those who were about him, had made him the delight of every circle in which he moved, the spoilt child of the House of Commons’ (History of England, ed. 1892, iv. 115-16) . Townshend's portrait was painted by Reynolds and engraved by Dixon and J. Miller. ”

“ The universal tribute of Townshend's colleagues allows him the possession of boundless wit and ready eloquence, set off by perfect melody of intonation, but marred by an unexampled lack of judgment and discretion. He shifted his ground in politics with every new moon, and the world fastened on him the nick- name, which he himself adopted in his “champagne” speech, of the weathercock. ”

“ This, combined with the natural assurance and sense of power in the man, caused Mr. Townshend to hold his head pretty high, and to treat with persons vastly superior in social station to himself upon at least an equal footing. His easy nod, with which the great Bow Street runner favoured us in Harley Street that evening, upon his first introduction, was not very much unlike the salutation which Mr. ”

“ Townshend was a handsome burly man, of brusque manners and hot temper, but a loyal friend, and with his friends a genial companion. In parliament he always spoke to the point, but without eloquence (Chesterfield, Letters, ed. Mahon, i. 368) , and his haughty disposition rendered him inapt in the delicate art of managing men. An attempt which he made towards the close of his career to establish a party of his own entirely failed, and his differences with Walpole were aggravated by frequent ebullitions of ill-humour. ”

“ Even as a jewel of gold in a swine's snout——"
"Master Marshman, I pray you stand from the door; you have already meddled further in my matters than any other man could do with safety;" and, brushing past the minister, Harrison dashed out of the room.
"Methinks, Brother Marshman, you have forgotten Æsop his fable concerning the sun and the wind!" said the writer, turning in his chair.
"Tush, Brother Rogers!" answered Mr. Marshman, whose temper had risen rapidly. "Soft words are but wasted on this wanton generation. Women who forsake the modesty of their sex and ape the stature of men! ”

“ Townshend was of a proud, impetuous disposition, born with a nature more accustomed to rule than to obey. His family had for several generations stood higher in the social life of Norfolk than Walpole's progenitors, and when he himself attained to distinction in politics his position as a member of the Upper House was greater than that enjoyed by his friend in the Commons. As the power of the Lower House increased, and as Walpole became more and more the object of the attacks of the Tories, the pre-eminence of Townshend passed from him. ”

“ Walpole lamented him with an ironical appreciation. "Charles Townshend is dead. All those parts and fire are extinguished; those volatile salts are evaporated; that first eloquence of the world is dumb; that duplicity is fixed, that cowardice terminated heroically. He joked on death as naturally as he used to do on the living, and not with the affectation of philosophers who wind up their works with sayings which they hope to have remembered." Townshend had passed away, but his policy remained, a fatal legacy to the country. ”

“ TOWNSHEND, Sir ROGER (d. 1493) , judge and founder of the Townshend family, was son and heir of John Townshend (d. 1465) of Rainham, Norfolk, by his wife Joan, daughter and heir of Sir Robert Lunford of Romford in Essex and Battle in Sussex. The family had long been settled in Norfolk, and in ancient charters the name was latinised as ‘ad Exitum Villæ’ (‘at town's end’) . ”

“ Was it indeed in vain? What does this people care for liberty, when they are even now holding festival over the forging of their new chains!"
He was roused from his brooding by steps under the window. From the shelter of the curtain Harrison saw a swaggering figure in tawdry finery lurch into the yard where Audrey was scouring her milk-cans by the pump. It was a figure he remembered only too well. What cursed chance had brought that knave Astbury begging at Inglethorpe? And was it chance? The rascal might have dogged him. Richard pressed close to the window and listened. ”