Memoirs of the Reign of King George the Third (Vol. 1-4). Horace Walpole
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give Barré a biscuit, Townshend said, “Oh! you should feed him with raw flesh.”
152 George Augustus Selwyn, of Matson, Gloucestershire, famous for his wit. His correspondence has been recently published in 4 vols. 8vo.—E.
153 Philip Francis, translator of Horace and Demosthenes, and the father of Sir Philip Francis, K.B.; a scholar and a man of talent, and a most active political partisan. He was for some time the tutor of Gibbon.—E.
154 “Of this very alarming connection Mr. Pitt had the most early and authentic intelligence, together with the most positive assurances from persons of undoubted veracity, who are at this moment in no common sphere of life.” History of the Minority, p. 30. Mr. Adolphus states the treaty itself to have been communicated to Mr. Pitt by the Earl Marechal Keith, in gratitude for the reversal of his attainder, but “that the fact, if it existed, was not disclosed to the Cabinet,” Adolphus, vol. i. p. 44. This story receives some confirmation from a cotemporary memoir of the Earl Marechal recently published by the Spalding Society of Aberdeen, and supposed to have been written by Sir Robert Strange, who had once been a zealous Jacobite. Neither the Chatham Correspondence nor the Mitchell manuscripts contain anything on the subject; and the papers of the Earl Marechal, at Cumbernald, have never been thoroughly examined. The Editor is disposed to believe the intelligence received by Mr. Pitt did not go so far as the existence of the treaty, but consisted of facts sufficient, in his estimation, to leave no doubt of the object of the negotiation between France and Spain, and of the general intentions of the Spanish government. These facts he had imparted to Lord Bute, who had not drawn the same conclusions from them. Hist. of Minority, p. 33.—E.
155 Charles Pratt was a younger son of Lord Chief Justice Pratt, and became afterwards Lord Chancellor and Baron Camden, as will appear in these memoirs. Pratt had been made Attorney-General by Pitt in 1757, and their connection was too close for the Government to feel easy at his continuing any longer in office.—E.
156 He nevertheless made a favourable impression on the Duke of Newcastle, at their first interview; and at a later period we find him very handsomely mentioned by Lord Rochford. Some of his private letters in the Chatham Correspondence, as well as his public dispatches in the Parliamentary Papers, are those of an ambassador who understood his duty, and performed it. He laboured hard, in conjunction with his friend the Marquis of Grimaldi, to restore the old connection of his country with France; and one result of their success was, the appointment of Grimaldi to succeed Wall as First Minister of Spain. Fuentes, then, for some time, replaced Grimaldi at Paris; and subsequently returning to Spain, he employed all his influence, which was considerable, in supporting Grimaldi’s administration, until the latter imprudently allowed his son, the Prince of Pignatelli, to accompany the expedition to Algiers, under the Count O’Reily, in 1777, where the Prince perished; and Fuentes, who had refused his consent to his going, was so deeply offended, that he immediately joined the opposition to Grimaldi, and contributed essentially to his retirement from office. Coxe’s History of the Kings of Spain of the House of Bourbon, vol. v.—E.
157 George William Hervey, Earl of Bristol, son of the famous John Lord Hervey, and grandson of John Earl of Bristol, whom he succeeded in the title. His dispatches prove him to have acted with great prudence as long as the disposition of the Spanish Court was doubtful and with great spirit afterwards. His connection with Mr. Pitt was in no degree of a servile character. It appears to have strengthened as that great minister was losing his ascendancy in the Cabinet, and it stood the test of his downfall. Lord Bristol died unmarried, in March 1775, aged 54.—E.
158 Amelie Sophie de Walmoden, Countess of Yarmouth, mistress of George the Second.
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