Following the prorogation of Parliament at the end of Mary 1775, the situation changed for the worse, as news of the armed confrontation at Lexington and Concord in April reached Britain. Following that, reports of Britain’s bloody pyrrhic victory in June at Bunker Hill (Charlestown) arrived in London on 25 July. Almost immediately the government of Lord North decided on sterner measures against the unruly colonists. The principal minister co-ordinating the deployment of troops was North’s step-brother, William Legge, 2nd earl of Dartmouth, secretary of state for America. The office had only existed since 1768 and Dartmouth, who came from a family that had long contributed officials, had held it since August 1772.

Dartmouth’s papers suggest that he was efficient in preparing for an increased military presence in America. As someone who had always sought conciliation, more troublesome to him were plans for a Royal Proclamation declaring the American colonies ‘in rebellion’ and thus that a state of war existed between Britain and America. On 1 February 1775, he had refused ‘to pronounce any certain opinion’ regarding the earl of Chatham’s conciliation bill, and even admitted he ‘had no objection to the bill being received’. [Almon, Parl. Reg., ii. 23] Similarly, in August, Dartmouth had feared that a formal declaration of war would jeopardize negotiations. He held off on agreeing to the Proclamation for as long as he could on the news that the Continental Congress was sending new proposals for a settlement: the so-called ‘Olive Branch Petition’. By late summer, however, the government was in belligerent mood, and on 23 August the Proclamation of Rebellion was promulgated.

Thus, when Parliament resumed on 26 October, Britain and the colonies were formally at war. Even Lord North ‘had changed his pacific language and was now for vigorous measures’. [H. Walpole, Last Journals, i. 490] One result was a ministerial reshuffle over 9-10 November. This gave the government a radically new complexion, and Dartmouth was moved from the American office, apparently unwillingly.

To soften the blow, the king offered Dartmouth his choice of being appointed groom of the stole, secretary of state for the southern department, or taking a pension. Dartmouth turned them all down and instead insisted on taking over as lord privy seal. The king had intended the place for Thomas Thynne, 3rd Viscount Weymouth, but made him secretary of state for the southern province instead. Dartmouth, George III complained, was not ‘in the least accommodating’ by ‘carrying obstinacy greatly too far’. [Fortescue, iii. 282-88]

The man who Replaced Dartmouth as secretary of state for America was Lord George Germain, a younger son of the duke of Dorset. Horace Walpole described him as ‘of very sound parts, of distinguished bravery, and of an honourable eloquence, but hot, haughty, ambitious, obstinate’. [Walpole, Mems. of George II (Yale), i. 190]

In 1758 Germain (at that point known as Sackville) had been sent to Germany as second-in-command of the British forces and was later promoted commander-in-chief. At the battle of Minden on 1 August 1759, though, he failed to obey orders given by his superior, Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, commander-in-chief of the Allied army, to lead the British cavalry against the shattered French forces. The prince charged him with disobedience, while Sackville held that he had received conflicting orders, often delivered in German, and had been stationed on difficult terrain. He was castigated as a coward, even a traitor, by the enemies he had gained by his high-handed behaviour. Ever self-confident, Sackville insisted on convening a court martial so he could justify himself. According to Walpole, ‘Nothing was timid, nothing humble, in his behaviour’ [Mems. of George II, iii. 101-105], but the court declared him ‘unfit to serve… in any military capacity whatsoever’.

The shame of Minden always hung over Sackville, and for the next decade and a half he worked to rehabilitate his reputation. His chances were improved by the death of George II, who had developed a violent personal dislike of him. Sackville looked forward to better treatment from George III, but even he was unwilling to take a disgraced soldier back into favour immediately. Sackville relied for his slow recovery on his service in the Commons, where he advocated a firm line against the colonists, arguing at one point that ‘The ministers… must perceive how ill they are requited for that extraordinary lenity and indulgence with which they treated… these undutiful children’.[HMC Stopford-Sackville, i. 119]

In 1769 Sackville took the surname Germain, after inheriting property from Lady Elizabeth Germain. He continued speaking against the colonists throughout the first half of the 1770s and on 7 February 1775 he was the Commons’ messenger to the Lords requesting a conference on the address declaring Massachusetts in rebellion. He seemed, thus, an obvious choice as North looked for a new direction in the morass of the American crisis. Walpole summarized the effect that the change had on the war and the ultimate loss in America: ‘Till Lord George came into place, there had been no spirit or sense in the conduct of the war… [He was] indefatigable in laying plans for raising and hiring troops’. [Walpole, Last Journals i. 511, ii. 49]  Some contemporaries went so far as to suggest that Germain’s belligerence towards the Americans was an attempt to put to rest the shame of Minden. As Edward Gibbon put it, Germain hoped to ‘reconquer Germany in America’.

CGDL

Further reading:

P.D.G. Thomas, Tea Party to Independence: The Third Phase of the American Revolution, 1773-1776 (Oxford, 1991)

Andrew O’Shaughnessy, The Men who Lost America (Yale, 2013), esp. ch. 5

Alan Valentine, Lord George Germain (Oxford, 1962)

HMC Dartmouth

HMC Stopford Sackville, vols. I and II

On 7 Feb. 1775 the House of Lords considered an address from the Commons claiming for the first time that ‘a Rebellion at this time actually exists’ in the Massachusetts Bay colony. The inflammatory language was accepted, and in consequence a bill to restrain the trade of the Massachusetts Bay colony was introduced. Both its committal at second reading on 16 March and its eventual passage five days later led to violent debate. Another bill to extend trading restrictions to the colonies south of Massachusetts was debated at third reading on 12 April.

Inevitably, events on the ground in America overtook many of these discussions, as on 19 April American militiamen and British troops exchanged gunfire at Lexington and Concord. Crucially, news of their confrontation did not reach Britain until the end of May, and the House continued unaware that armed conflict had already begun. On 17 May Charles Pratt, Baron Camden, brought in a bill to repeal the Quebec Act, one of the so-called Coercive Acts of 1774. The government’s motion to reject the repeal bill occasioned yet another debate.

In all, these matters occasioned eight divisions in the Lords between 7 February and 17 May 1775. The government won every one handily, with the numbers in the minority ranging between 21 and twenty-nine. In other words, there was a core of about 22 lords who consistently opposed the government’s bellicose policies towards the colonies during the tense spring of 1775. Both then and in the years following, the opposition’s main concern was domestic, as they fought against what they saw as the corruption, ‘secret influence’, and tendency to arbitrary rule of George III’s government.

The opposition used the ministry’s mismanagement of the American crisis as a means to attack the Crown and seek for ‘new measures and men’ in government. With a few exceptions, however, they did not apply themselves to addressing the substantive constitutional questions raised by the colonists.

There were some within the opposition who came close to an actively pro-American stance, or at least made an attempt to understand the colonists’ complaints, such as Willoughby Bertie, 4th earl of Abingdon. Charles Lennox, 3rd duke of Richmond, also took a ‘radical’ Whig stance both in 1775 and for the following 30 years, and remained one of the most frequent, and forceful, speakers for the opposition.

A third, was Thomas Howard, 3rd earl of Effingham, who was summed up by Horace Walpole as ‘a rough soldier, of no sound sense [Walpole’s Last Journals, i. 439]. As a captain in the 22nd Foot Regiment, Effingham had adopted a pro-American stance as early as 1774. On his estates near Rotherham, he built a hunting lodge which he dubbed Boston Castle, where he forbade the drinking of tea, in honour of the Boston Tea Party.

Throughout the spring of 1775 Effingham acted with the opposition, acting as a teller for the minority in three of the eight divisions. On 18 May the government sought to block an opposition motion that a memorial from the New York Assembly should be read out. Effingham intervened, but quickly turned away from the technical procedural issues with which the House was embroiled. He made clear his sympathy with the colonists, declaring ‘Whatever has been done by the Americans I must deem the mere consequence of our unjust demands’. He predicted imminent bloodshed (which, of course, had already occurred), for all it would take was ‘a nothing to cause the sword to be drawn and to plunge the whole country into all the horrors of blood, flames and parricide’. He then turned to himself. Speaking of his love for the military life, he confessed that he now found himself bound to resign his commission in the Army, as:

‘the only method of avoiding the guilt of enslaving my country and embruing my hands in the blood of her sons. When the duties of a soldier and a citizen become inconsistent, I shall always think myself obliged to sink the character of the solider in that of the citizen, till such time as those duties shall again, by the malice of our real enemies, become united’. [John Almon, Parliamentary Register, vol. 2 (1774-5). 154-56].

Effingham was briefly the toast of the country for his act of self-sacrifice. Walpole was asked, ‘Was there ever anything ancient or modern better either in sentiment or language than [Effingham’s] late speech?’. [Walpole Corresp., xxviii. 208-9] Although Walpole thought that Effingham ‘was a wild sort of head’, he admitted the intervention had been ‘very sensible’. [Walpole’s Last Journals, i. 466] Effingham was apparently a bit of a showman. It was widely reported that in a dramatic conclusion, he flung his sword clattering down on to the floor of the House.

Effingham’s speech was the last in this particular debate, and at 8.30 at night the House rejected hearing the memorial from New York. Parliament was prorogued a week later, about the time news of the armed confrontation at Lexington reached Britain. That changed everything, and although the Second Continental Congress made one last-ditch effort at peace with its ‘Olive Branch Petition’ of 8 July, the king rejected it out of hand. On 1 August he issued a royal proclamation declaring that the colonists were ‘engaged in open and avowed rebellion’. The declaration left Britain and the American colonists formally at war.

CGDL

Further reading:
John Almon, The Parliamentary Register, vol. 2, (1775)
Frank O’Gorman, ‘The Parliamentary Opposition to the Government’s American Policy, 1760-1782’, in H. T. Dickinson (ed.), Britain and the American Revolution (1998), pp. 97-123
Alison Olson, The Radical Duke: The Career and Correspondence of Charles Lennox, 3rd duke of Richmond (1961)

Bloomsbury Square, and its immediate surroundings, have long been associated with prominent political figures. In 1706, several peers had residences in the square, notably the (2nd) duke of Bedford and the earls of Northampton and Chesterfield. Close neighbours residing in Great Russell Street, were the duke of Montagu (whose house later became the British Museum), the earl of Thanet and Lord Haversham, and John Hough, at that point bishop of Lichfield and Coventry. By 1727, things had changed somewhat. Montagu was still living in Great Russell Street, now joined by William Baker, bishop of Bangor, shortly after translated to Norwich. But Northampton’s heir had left Bloomsbury Square for Grosvenor Street, though another house had been taken by the earl of Nottingham. [Jones, ‘London Topography’]

Jump forward half a century, and Bloomsbury Square remained a place closely associated with the aristocracy. It was still home to the (5th) duke of Bedford and he had been joined by one of the foremost legal minds of the time: William Murray, earl of Mansfield, who had moved there from Lincoln’s Inn Fields a few years previously. According to Mansfield’s biographer, the square ‘conveyed a delightful atmosphere of leisure and repose, where often the only sounds came from the twittering and chirping of birds’. [Poser, 167] In June 1780, this ‘delightful’ haven was to be turned on its head and Mansfield’s residence was to become one of the principal targets of the Gordon rioters, who flocked to the square on the night of 6/7 June determined to torch the place.

Much has been written about the Gordon riots, which brought London (and other cities) to a virtual standstill for several days in June 1780. The immediate cause was the Protestant Association’s petition calling for the repeal of the 1778 Catholic Relief Act. Having gathered in St George’s Fields on Friday 2 June, members of the Association, led by their president, Lord George Gordon, processed to Parliament to present the petition. While things had begun calmly enough, in the course of the day more unruly elements flocked to Westminster and MPs and members of the Lords found themselves besieged within their chambers.

Thus, what began as a relatively focused cause was soon taken over by general lawlessness, and as Bob Shoemaker and Tim Hitchcock have argued persuasively, many of those involved in the later stages of the rioting had as their target the criminal justice system itself and were far less driven by concerns about religion. [Hitchcock and Shoemaker, 346, 349-50] Consequently, several prisons were attacked and the inmates released; lawyers in and around the inns of court went in fear of assault (or worse) and prominent judges, like Mansfield, became very obvious targets. The fact that Mansfield had also been vocal in his support of the Catholic Relief Act made him doubly susceptible.

Mansfield had been singled out for special treatment even on that first day. Arriving at Westminster, his carriage had been attacked and he had had to be rescued by the archbishop of York. After the day’s proceedings were adjourned, Mansfield was forced to make his way out of the Lords via a back door and travelled home by river as his coach had since been torn to pieces.

Over the next few days rioting gripped London. By Tuesday 6 June Mansfield’s nephew (and eventual heir) David, 7th Viscount Stormont, felt the need to advise the officer commanding the guards in London that he had received ‘reliable information’ that several houses were in need of additional protection, among them those of the marquess of Rockingham and Mansfield. [TNA, SP37/20/54, ff. 76-6] Despite Stormont’s efforts, Mansfield himself decided that too visible a military presence might only infuriate the crowd, so he requested the guards remain at a distance. It was a fatal mistake. When a band of rioters arrived outside Mansfield’s house on the night of 6/7 June, they found it undefended and set to work pulling down the railings before breaking into the house itself. There, they gave vent to all their destructive power, burning his library and gutting the building. Mansfield and Lady Mansfield only narrowly escaped, by using the back door onto Southampton Row.

Mansfield’s losses were significant. Consigned to the flames were his own legal notebooks, along with his library and pretty much the entire contents of the house. Efforts to save the building were stymied because when firefighters arrived on the scene, they refused to get involved until the soldiers (who had by then made themselves known) withdrew, in case they got caught in the middle of fighting between the crowd and the troops.

According to one paper, Mansfield’s losses amounted to £30,000, the library constituting a third of the total. [Morning Chronicle, 9 June 1780] Another paper attributed the destruction to Mansfield’s own ‘ill-judged lenity’, after he had ‘humanely requested [the troops] not fire upon the deluded wretches’. The same paper detailed some of the irreplaceable items that had been destroyed, including a portrait of Viscount Bolingbroke by the poet, Alexander Pope, ‘which, though not having the merit of a professed artist, was always esteemed a great likeness’. [Whitehall Evening Post, 10-13 June 1780]

The tragedy of the Gordon Riots and its impact on Bloomsbury Square did not end on 7 June. Precisely how many people were killed and injured in the rioting remains unclear, but among the rioters well over 300 were killed. Some troops were also among the dead, one of them a cavalrymen posted in Bloomsbury Square, who came off his horse and was finished off by the crowd. [Whitehall Evening Post, 8-10 June 1780] Retribution for some of those involved came quickly and within days there were numerous arrests. By the end of the month the first trials were underway.

As was so often the case, it was the very recognizable among the most marginalized who ended up being handed in. One such was John Gray, whose case has been written about extensively. A native of Taunton in Somerset, who had made his way to London, Gray was one of many on the fringes of society, eking out a living by feeding horses for hackney carriages. [London Courant, 24 July 1780] Although described as ‘a stout made man’, he appears to have had a clubfoot and to have needed a crutch to walk. He seems also to have had mental health issues. He stood out in the crowd taking part in pulling apart one of Mansfield’s outhouses and a few days later was arrested after being spotted trying to pick someone’s pocket.

Gray was convicted at the Old Bailey (https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/) and, in spite of a petition for mercy subscribed by several prominent Taunton residents, one of them the chaplain to Lord Bathurst, [TNA, [SP37/21/132, f. 250] and other recommendations that his case was one worthy of the king’s consideration, [TNA, SP37/21/91] the appeals for clemency were rejected. On Saturday 22 July, he was conveyed back to Bloomsbury Square with two others and hanged on a gallows positioned so that their last view was the remains of Mansfield’s burnt-out former residence.

RDEE

Further reading:
Clyve Jones, ‘The London Topography of the Parliamentary Elite: addresses for peers and bishops for 1706 and 1727-8’, London Topographical Record, xxix (2006)
Norman S. Poser, Lord Mansfield: Justice in the Age of Reason (2013)
Tim Hitchcock and Bob Shoemaker, London Lives: poverty, crime and the making of a modern city 1690-1800 (2015)

For a young man seeking political independence and prestige but having little by way of financial stability to obtain it otherwise, Pitt’s strategy for targeting Cambridge made sense. But even with his failure at the 1780 election and his rapid turn of fortune, Pitt held onto his conviction. Once the opportunity arose in March 1784, Pitt opted to contest the University again, against the backdrop of his dramatic ascent to power. Standing alongside him was George FitzRoy, Earl of Euston, son of the University’s Chancellor. Opposing them were the two sitting members, James Mansfield and John Townshend, who represented Foxite interests.

While Pitt’s success in the University election seems inevitable in retrospect, this was not the case at the time of the dissolution of Parliament. From the outset, the contest was projected to be very fierce. Writing to his friend the Duke of Rutland, Pitt admitted that Cambridge was ‘unexplored ground’, though he was ‘sanguine in [his] expectations’. Owing to its position as a respectable and pious institution, the electoral culture and processes of the University significantly differed from the disorder often associated with Hanoverian elections. Hustings, dinners, and speeches were prohibited and its erudite electorate was expected to make independent choices which benefitted the nation at large.

Nevertheless, voters still expected to be courted, and with the official canvassing period being only nine days, all candidates had much to keep them occupied. Written correspondence was a key part of the canvassing process. Generic letters from candidates ‘taking the liberty’ to request ‘the honour’ of the recipient’s support were sent to all voters. But more important were the ‘personal application’ letters, used to solicit votes directly. James Talbot, Regius Professor of Hebrew, advised a prospective candidate for the 1700 election that electoral success at the University ‘must be gained by personal application, and the solicitation of private friends, letters from patrons, relations’. [Cook, Representative History, 228-9]. This was an established practice, and Pitt and his agents managed an extensive operation of sending these applications throughout the short and intense canvassing period. Some were sent directly to voters, but they often went to a ‘middle-man’ (sometimes middle-woman) – a friend of Pitt and/or the administration who could make applications to the voter(s) on their behalf.

The relationship between the ‘middle-man’ and the voter varied from patronage and friendship to kinship. In a letter between Pitt’s friends and election agents, John Charles Villiers and Thomas Pretyman-Tomline, an extensive list of ‘connexions’ which ‘sh[oul]d be immediately attended to’ was attached. Unfortunately, the list was quite rudimentary, consisting mostly of pairs of names connected by a single line, for instance: ‘[Thomas] Lund [of St John’s] – L[ad]y Irwine’. A few items contained clues regarding particular connections, such as: ‘L[or]d Aylesford c[oul]d perhaps get us even a single vote from Rev[erend] Mr Barnard of St John’s to which he has just been given a living’. [TNA, PRO 30/8/315]

Pitt and his agents had at their disposal an expansive network of contacts which covered a broad geographical, ideological and institutional range, from the reformers of the Association Movement in Yorkshire to the friends of the King such as William Hayward Roberts, Provost of Eton. The applications were not always successful, but not for reasons one might expect. Mistakes, such as targeting disenfranchised voters, were extremely common. Pre-existing personal obligations or attachments to other candidates also prevented voters from committing to Pitt. Carrington Garrick of St John’s, for example, could not vote for Pitt, having already made promises to Mansfield and Townshend, but was happy for Pitt to instruct him on the vote he also possessed for the Cambridgeshire county election [TNA, PRO 30/8/315]. Rather than political partisanship, it was often the influences and obligations associated with personal relationships which swayed the voters towards particular candidates.

Besides the letters, candidates themselves were expected to be involved on the ground, and their every move was reported in the national press. Letters exchanged between Pitt’s agents emphasised the importance of Pitt being physically present at the University, as he was expected to pay in-person visits to certain key University figures, such as the heads of the colleges. Richard Watson, bishop of Llandaff and Regius Professor of Divinity, recalled in his memoir that during Pitt’s visit, he set out some policy expectations for the Prime Minister-to-be. [Watson, Anecdotes, 211-15]

Throughout the nine days, the contest remained unpredictable. Townshend was projected to top the poll, but Pitt soon took the lead. Mansfield, whose odds were poor from the beginning, reportedly planned to oust Pitt by transferring his votes to Townshend on election day. Euston’s prospects were uncertain, but his affiliation with Pitt would save him from his father’s poor reputation. By election day, set for 3 April, most of the English boroughs had already made their returns, making the University one of the last constituencies to go to the polls before the county elections began.

The University’s election took place, as it always had, in the Senate House, accompanied by the ‘notable Bustle’ from its learned population. The University enjoyed relative control over its electoral process: unlike other constituencies in this period, votes were cast in ‘secret’. Each voter would inscribe his own and his chosen candidates’ names onto a ballot paper (in Latin) before depositing it at a designated table. Each ballot was then read aloud, and subsequently recorded in the poll book. Voting took place throughout the day, with an adjournment in the early afternoon, at which point the number of votes was read out. Once voting resumed, it lasted until the end of the day, and the final count was announced. [Ceremonies Observed in the Senate-House, Wall ed. Gunning, 230-33].

According to the accounts of William Ewin and John Robinson, Pitt was ‘secure’ quite early on in the count, at two o’clock in the afternoon, and there were ‘sanguine hopes’ for Euston. For Ewin, however, Euston’s success was little more than the results of ‘the little Electioneering Tricks of making over Votes & people breaking their words & promises’. Never one to shy away from gossip, Ewin suggested that this was the result of the ‘art’ and machinations used by ‘a Certain great man’. It is unclear whom this comment targeted – Pitt certainly seemed a prime suspect, but it is not unreasonable to assume that it could be the King, who was certainly pleased with the Ministry’s sweeping victory at the University.

Pitt would faithfully represent the University until his death in 1806. Though history has been kind to him, it has been less kind to the University as a political institution. Much like other features of Hanoverian politics, it was lambasted by the Victorians as corrupt and anachronistic. By examining some of its unique characteristics, however, we can begin to recalibrate our understanding not only of Pitt or Cambridge but also of the inner workings of political life in this period.

NSJ

Further Reading
John Cannon, The Fox-North Coalition: Crisis of the Constitution, 1782-4 (Cambridge, 1969)

David Cook, The Representative History of the County, Town, and University of Cambridge, 1689-1832 (University of London PhD thesis, 1935)

John Gascoigne, Cambridge in the Age of the Enlightenment: Science and Politics from the Restoration to the French Revolution (Cambridge, 1989)

Joseph S. Meisel, Knowledge and Power: The Parliamentary Representation of Universities in Britain and the Empire (Parliamentary History: Texts & Studies, 4, 2011)

Peter Searby, A History of the University of Cambridge, Vol. 3 (Cambridge, 1997)

‘William Pitt and Pembroke’, Pembroke Annual Gazette (Pembroke College Society, Vol. 8, 1934), held in Pembroke College Archive, Cambridge

At the beginning of 1775, pretty much every British politician agreed that something needed to be done about America, with many eager to find a way to reconcile both parties [Bradley, 19-20]. What they could not agree on, was how. Since the ending of the Seven Years War in 1763, relations between Britain and the American colonies had been difficult. In the aftermath of the war, there were large numbers of troops stationed in America, which annoyed many colonists, who viewed the presence of a standing army as a threat to their liberties. Matters became worse when George Grenville’s administration imposed the 1764 sugar duty and 1765 Stamp Act as a way of helping to pay for the colonies’ defence. In the aftermath of the latter, nine colonies convened the ‘Anti-Stamp Act Congress’ to condemn the ‘manifest tendency to subvert’ their rights and liberties. [Duffy]

Repeal of the acts by the Rockingham administration in 1766 went some way towards resetting relations, but it was to prove a very brief lull. The Townshend duties of 1767 ramped up tensions once more and in March 1770 matters boiled over with the Boston Massacre. Three years later, in response to Britain granting the East India Company a monopoly on supplying tea to the colonies, a group of patriots in disguise boarded several ships in the harbour at Boston and dumped their cargo of tea into the water, in the so-called Boston Tea Party. This in turn led to more punitive action from Britain with the ‘Coercive’ or ‘Intolerable’ acts, which were aimed at punishing the state of Massachusetts for its involvement.

It was in this context, that on 1 February 1775, William Pitt the Elder, now in the Lords as earl of Chatham, rose to his feet to propose a Provisional Act for settling relations with America. Throughout the ongoing crisis Chatham and his followers maintained a consistent approach, sitting in between the government of Lord North, and the opposition Whig grouping led by the marquess of Rockingham, by arguing for a middle way in approaching the problem. America should remain a colony of Britain, it was contended, but its concerns should be addressed and concessions offered to help stabilize relations.

Chatham’s speech on 1 February, set out in detail his plans for how this might be achieved. He hoped that ‘true reconcilement’ would ‘avert impending calamities’ and the accord ‘stand an everlasting monument of clemency and magnanimity in the benignant father of his people’. In answer to those who thought he was offering the colonies too much by way of concession, he insisted it was ‘a bill of assertion’, stating clearly an ongoing relationship between mother country and colonies, in which Parliament would retain supremacy.

Well-known for his fiery (and often very lengthy) harangues, Chatham had couched his speech in terms of moderation and compromise, but after the proposed bill was laid on the table an immediate intervention by the earl of Sandwich ‘instantly changed this appearance of concession on the part of the administration’. Sandwich objected that the Americans had already committed acts of rebellion and turned on Chatham for introducing a measure which ‘was no less unparliamentary than unprecedented’.

Over the course of a debate that engrossed the Lords until almost ten o’clock at night and featured at least eleven lengthy speeches, the honours appeared relatively evenly matched. Speaking in support of Chatham was the gaunt figure of Lord Lyttelton, who praised him for his extensive knowledge and his good intentions and who, although not agreeing with everything Chatham was proposing, argued that his effort deserved a much kinder reception than Sandwich had given it. Lyttelton was then followed by an ‘extremely animated’ Lord Shelburne, one of Chatham’s principal acolytes, who feared that the interruption of supplies of corn that was one result of the collapse in relations between Britain and America, would lead to widespread rioting. He concluded with a start warning:

Think, then, in time; Ireland naked and defenceless, England in an uproar from one end to the other for want of bread, and destitute of employment.

Not all of Chatham’s erstwhile colleagues were so supportive. The duke of Grafton, who had served with Chatham when prime minister and succeeded him in the office, complained about the ‘very unparliamentary manner in which the noble earl had hurried the bill into the House’. He also found fault with Chatham lumping so many different themes together within the one bill. They ought, he felt, to have been treated separately. His intervention later attracted a rebuke from Chatham, who was amused at being accused of rushing the bill into Parliament, when the crisis called for swift action, which he argued the government was incapable of doing.

After Sandwich, probably the fiercest critic of Chatham’s propositions from the government side came from Earl Gower, who was said to have risen to his feet ‘in a great heat, and condemned the bill in the warmest terms’. He was particularly irritated by what he perceived as Chatham’s decision to sanction the ‘traitorous proceedings of the [American] congress already held’ but also his suggestion that it be legalized ‘by ordaining that another shall be held on the 9th of May next’. When Chatham rose to answer Gower’s criticisms, Gower could not stop himself from making further interventions as the atmosphere in the Lords collapsed into general name-calling. Chatham’s final contribution to the day’s mud-slinging was to accuse the ministry’s conduct over the past few years of demonstrating:

one continued series of weakness, temerity, despotism, ignorance, futility, negligence, blundering, and the most notorious servility, incapacity, and corruption…

The final contributions of the day were attempts at moderation by the duke of Manchester and Chatham’s cousin, Earl Temple. Manchester feared that a civil war would end in the destruction of the empire, as had happened in the case of Rome and wished only ‘that one sober view should be taken of the great question, before perhaps we blindly rushed into a scene of confusion and civil strife’. Temple, meanwhile, pointed the finger of blame for the current problems at the repeal of the Stamp Act, but most of all appealed to the Lords not to reject out of hand Chatham’s propositions, which he believed were thoroughly well intentioned.

In spite of Temple’s last minute effort to persuade his colleagues to grant time to Chatham’s ideas, when the House divided the government secured a sizeable majority, voting to reject the bill by 68 to 32. A few days later, on 9 February, Massachusetts was declared to be in a state of rebellion. It was, of course, just the beginning of an affair that would ultimately result in all-out war a few months later.

RDEE

Further Reading:

James E. Bradley, Popular Politics and the American Revolution in England (1986)

Cobbett, Parliamentary History xviii (1774-1777)

Michael Duffy, ‘Contested Empires, 1756-1815’ in Paul Langford, ed. The Eighteenth Century (2002)

The recent riots engulfing parts of Britain have rekindled interest in the propensity of the populace to riot during the eighteenth century – the Sacheverell riots of 1710, the Porteous Riots of 1736 and the Gordon Riots of 1780, being three examples that spring to mind. The latter took place in June 1780, taking their name from the principal instigator of the disorder, Lord George Gordon (1751-93), MP for Ludgershall, who was charged with high treason, but acquitted in February 1781.

Lord George was the third son of Cosmo Gordon, 3rd duke of Gordon, and Catherine, daughter of Alexander Gordon, 2nd earl of Aberdeen. This article provides some family background to the main actor in the drama, focussing mainly on his two elder brothers, who were in Scotland when the riots occurred.

Gordon’s eldest brother was Alexander (1743-1827), 4th duke of Gordon, a Scottish representative peer from 1767 to 1784, and from 1784 earl of Norwich in the British peerage. He was married to Catherine (1748-1812), younger daughter of Sir William Maxwell, 3rd bt., ‘a great beauty but no fortune’, according to the duchess of Portland [University of Nottingham Library, Pw F 801]. Subsequently, she became a society figure and hostess for Henry Dundas and his friend William Pitt the Younger when Prime Minister in the late 1780s. The couple split in the 1790s, and after the death of the duchess, Gordon married his long-time mistress, Jean Christie, mother of five of his eight illegitimate children.

The duke of Gordon was heavily involved in trying to secure a seat for his youngest brother in the House of Commons. Preparations seem to have begun in 1772 for Lord George’s campaign for Inverness-shire. However, the sitting MP, Simon Fraser, son of the notorious Lord Lovat, executed after the Jacobite rebellion of 1745-6, kept his seat after a negotiation which saw Gordon returned instead for the venal borough of Ludgershall, owned by George Selwyn.

Selwyn sold his seats at Ludgershall to the ministry, so with Lord North in agreement, and the duke of Gordon presumably paying – hence his comment in 1776 that he had given it to his brother ‘as a free gift without laying you under any restriction whatsoever’, Gordon was safely elected as an MP. [NRS, GD224/655/7/2] However, his conduct there soon caused comment. In April 1778 Gordon was said to have ‘rather looked mad in the House last night’, where ‘his abuse of Lord North was in regard to the bargain about the borough he comes in for’. [A. and H. Tayler, Lord Fife and His Factor … 1729-1809 (1925)] Consequently, an analysis of the forthcoming election in 1780, noted that Lord George Gordon had no chance of being re-elected for Ludgershall, and indeed, he never sat in the House again.

Initial reports in London suggested that both the duke of Gordon and another brother, Lord William, were attempting to raise their clans in Scotland in support of Lord George. These rumours turned out to be false, though, the opposite being the case. Indeed, the duke made sure that there was no disorder and wrote to the king to assure him of his loyalty. [Jones Letters, ed. G. Cannon, i. 412] The duke did, however, travel to London to begin the organization of his brother’s defence, arranging visits to the Tower from his sister, the dowager countess of Westmorland, and George Gordon, 3rd earl of Aberdeen.

Informed observers were unsure as to whether Lord George’s his actions could be deemed treasonable. On 13 June Lady Spencer was informed that ‘the lawyers seem to be of opinion, that Lord George Gordon cannot be convicted of high treason’. The duke himself was nervous as the date of the trial approached, writing on 26 Jan. 1781, ‘God grant it was well over. I am in great anxiety about him I do assure you but I hope all will go right’. [NRS, GD44/43/248/9] His brother’s ultimate acquittal on 6 February 1781 had surprisingly little effect on the duke’s career. He remained involved in politics and achieved office in the 1790s as a supporter of the government.

The other brother, Lord William Gordon (1744-1823) was originally perceived as ‘one of the most accomplished young noblemen of the age’, [Namier and Brooke, ii. 519], but his career was sent into turmoil by his scandalous elopement in February 1769 with Lady Sarah Bunbury, sister of Charles Lennox, 3rd duke of Richmond, with whom he had already had a daughter. Lady Sarah eventually went to reside with her brother and was divorced in 1776. Having been described in March 1769 by one commentator as ‘odd to a degree, and certainly a little mad (several of his family are shut up)’, and by another as ‘a beggar and mad’ [Leinster Correspondence, i. 568, 570], Lord William seems to have escaped abroad for a few years.

Upon Lord William’s return his brother, the duke, managed to secure his return in a by-election for Elginshire in April 1779, which he retained in the general election the following year. in March 1781, he married Frances Ingram Shepheard, daughter and coheiress of Charles, 9th Viscount Irwin, who resided at Temple Newsam, near Leeds, a convenient staging post for visiting Scotland. In 1784 he transferred to Inverness-shire, and after a two-year break, he was returned for Horsham, on the interest of the dowager Viscountess Irwin.

As for Lord George Gordon, upon his release he continued to agitate for political change, was eventually cast adrift by his family in 1785 and two years later converted to Judaism. He died in Newgate prison on 1 November 1793.

Biographies of Lord William Gordon can be found in both The House of Commons 1754-90, edited by Namier and Brooke, and The House of Commons 1790-1820, edited by R. Thorne. Lord George Gordon features only in Namier and Brooke. The Duke of Gordon will be covered in the forthcoming House of Lords 1715-90 volumes and in the planned volumes on The House of Lords 1790-1832.

SNH

250 years ago, tea was very much an American drink. Everyone in the colonies consumed it, even the very poor. One contemporary foreshadowing a later advertising campaign for a brand of lager remarked that the Americans were ‘probably the greatest tea drinkers in the universe’. From the point of view of the British, though, there was a problem. The tea sold in American shops and tea parlours ought to have been supplied by the East India Company. Despite that, it has been estimated that something between 75 and 90 per cent of tea consumed in America in the period may have been smuggled. ‘Dutch’ tea as it was known – in reality tea imported from any number of places, including Germany and Sweden – was able to be sold on much more cheaply. This was not least because the EIC was required to store its tea in bonded warehouses in England, paying a duty to import it, and then paying another when exporting it out to America.

By the beginning of 1773 the EIC was in financial trouble and desperately needed a boost. It had a huge stockpile of tea in its English warehouses, so approached the government to find a way of helping it shift the excess. On 2 March the Company petitioned Parliament to allow it to export its tea to America duty-free enabling it to undercut the smuggled ‘Dutch’ tea.

On 26 April a compromise scheme was presented to the Commons by Prime Minister, Lord North. He was criticized over the government’s insistence on the retention of the existing Townshend duties, which meant that the Company would still need to levy 3d. on every lb of tea. Critics argued that this would scupper the Company’s plans, but North did not believe that the Townshend duties were having that much impact and pointed out that 300,000 lb of Company tea was sold in the colonies already. Meanwhile, the scale of the smuggling problem was highlighted conveniently at the same time that North was selling his new bill to Parliament as the London Evening Post reported the seizure of a smuggler, who had been brought into Plymouth with a cargo of tea and brandy, with a reputed value of £600 (more than £75,000 in modern terms).

On 6 May the Commons sent the proposed bill up to the Lords for their concurrence. It was entitled rather unglamorously:

‘An Act to allow a Drawback of the Duties of Customs on the Exportation of Tea to any of His Majesty’s Colonies or Plantations in America; to increase the Deposit on Bohea Tea to be sold at the India Company’s Sales; and to empower the Commissioners of the Treasury to grant Licences to the East India Company to export Tea Duty-free.’

It received its first and second readings at once and was committed to a Committee of the Whole House to sit on the bill the next day. On 7 May the House adjourned accordingly. Having completed their deliberations, the earl of Westmorland reported the Lords’ agreement to the measure without amendment. It was passed promptly after third reading and received royal assent three days later.

The bill may have sounded innocuous but in America it prompted serious unrest. The arrival of EIC ships laden with tea proved the catalyst for several members of the ‘Sons of Liberty’ in Boston to board the vessels and throw the cargo overboard. Combined with earlier provocations, the so-called Boston Tea Party resulted in the government passing punitive measures against the colonists, including the Boston Port bill (1774), which closed the port and required the Bostonians to pay compensation. Lord North was utterly convinced that the Americans needed to be shown a firm hand. Charles James Fox, who had been dismissed from government in 1774, supported the bill but warned that any package of measures had to include repeal of the Tea Duty Act, arguing ‘A tax laid merely to maintain a right is very improper’. Edmund Burke, on the other hand, argued warmly against the Boston Port bill, emphasizing it was unjust to punish the whole city for the crimes of those involved:

‘It’s a devilish doctrine that every person is punishable where a riot is committed, even though it should be out of his power to prevent it’

Other MPs came at the problem from rather different angles. Sir George Savile, for example, the man who would later promote the Catholic Relief Bill (1778) was passionately against tea altogether. He thought the beverage injurious to health and wanted to see an end to its consumption. He also regarded the EIC as little better than a bunch of gangsters, robbing lands overseas.

Calls for repealing the Tea Duty Act were taken up by Rose Fuller, who regarded it as ‘the genuine foundation of our evils’. He also thought the subsequent government initiatives ill-thought-out and liable to make matters much worse. An expert on American affairs, in one of his 1773 speeches Fuller argued that too many young British men were wasting their time undertaking tours of Europe, when they might better acquaint themselves with life in America. [East Sussex and Brighton and Hove Record Office, SAS-RF/18/154]. He had first-hand experience of life across the Atlantic himself having married the daughter of a Jamaican plantation owner. The extent of his ‘interests’ there were indicated at the time of his death when his ‘property’ was noted to have included 290 enslaved people, jointly valued at £17,985 (Jamaican), comprising over 80 per cent of the total value of his estate.

On 19 Apr. 1774 Fuller rose in the Commons to move the repeal of the Tea Duty Act and was seconded by Richard Pennant, another Jamaican plantation-owner. Burke then gave a lengthy oration, before Fox in turn got to his feet in support of Fuller’s motion, warning of the risks of open rebellion if the government continued to pursue its current path. After the remaining speakers had had their say, the debate was brought to a close at 11.20 pm. Just 49 divided in favour of Fuller’s motion, with the government securing 182 against.

The Boston Port Act was just the first of a series of coercive measures designed by the government to bring the colonists to heel. Many MPs supported the first bill but became increasingly concerned by the subsequent measures as the government showed no sign of offering even the flimsiest of olive branches to the Americans. North, though, was convinced he was on the right track. He concluded, utterly mistakenly as it turned out, ‘they can hurt nobody but themselves’.

RDEE

Further Reading:

Cobbett, Parliamentary History, vol. XVII (1813)

Mary Beth Norton, 1774 the Long Year of Revolution (2020)

Conor Cruise O’Brien, The Great Melody: A Thematic Biography and Commented Anthology of Edmund Burke (1992)

P.D.G. Thomas, Lord North (1976)

Accompanying the publication of a new collection covering 300 years of British Prime Ministers, the book’s editor compiled a list assessing the 55 premiers in order of their significance. Frederick, Lord North, who became Prime Minister in 1770 and is probably best known as the man who lost America, came towards the bottom of the pile at number forty. Dr Robin Eagles reassesses North’s early response to growing tensions in America and how he was caught asleep on the job in more ways than one…

By the time he finally succeeded to the House of Lords as 2nd earl of Guilford in 1790, Lord North‘s effective career was long over. He had spent his whole life waiting to take control of the family estates, and when they finally came to him he was barely well enough to know what to do with them. Besides, North’s whole reputation by then was overtaken by two things: his highly controversial decision to go into coalition with Charles James Fox in 1783; and the loss of America – a cause that had dominated his premiership of over a decade.

North had been just 37 years old when he became Prime Minister. The circumstances were unpropitious, and like the (even more youthful) Younger Pitt in his first few weeks in office, he faced a turbulent situation in Parliament as he settled into the role. His appointment had come following a period of crisis in government with the king at one point reported to have laid his hand on his sword insisting ‘I will have recourse to this sooner than yield to a dissolution’. [John Brooke, George III, p.158] Unsurprisingly, North had been extremely reluctant to take on the premiership. Despite this, some senior politicians were cautiously optimistic about him. Lord Holland noted in a letter to a friend:

I believe you hear, as I do, a very good account of Lord North of whom, without knowing him, I have a very high opinion; but whether good omens will be follow’d by good events or no, you will not wonder that I don’t guess…

Campbell Correspondence, ed. Davies, p.316

One advantage was that, unlike Pitt, North was able to draw on a lengthy political apprenticeship. He had been returned to the Commons in his early twenties in 1754, and had become a predictably fast friend of the king, continuing the family tradition of loyal dependability. He accepted his first post in government in 1759 and from 1767 had served as chancellor of the exchequer. All of this ought, on the face of it, to have made him well prepared for the task ahead.

All of North’s good qualities – and there were plenty of them – were insufficient for a crisis of the proportions that was about to assail his administration from America. Some were out of North’s control; others stemmed from policies to which he had contributed in previous administrations. Perhaps the biggest problem was that no one ever seemed entirely sure quite what government policy towards the colonies was supposed to be, though there should have been little doubt given the king’s own very clear determination to keep America as a British possession. North’s own response left everyone mildly confused. On one occasion, he was asked what the government plan was, only for him to reply that no one had come up with one. Famously soporific, he was occasionally caught napping (quite literally) and after dozing off in one debate in the House of Commons William Burke suggested:

I wish the noble lord opposite had someone at his elbow, to pull him every now and then by the ear, and give him a gentle tap on the shoulder… to keep him awake to the affairs of America

Thomas, p.71

The early months of North’s administration were dominated by the proposed repeal of the unpopular Townshend duties (which imposed taxes on various goods within America), while maintaining the levy on tea. On 5 March, North set out his stall, criticizing American trade boycotts, but insisting that keeping the levy on luxury items like tea made sense, and generated much-needed revenue to help run colonial government. In his effort to arrive at a compromise position, North warned his colleagues not to ‘imitate the man in the fable, and consent to lose a single eye merely that their neighbours may be wholly deprived of sight’. [Cobbett, Parliamentary History, xvi. 854] Unsurprisingly, North faced criticism from both sides, with some opposed to any alteration to the measures, and others equally convinced that anything short of full repeal would be a waste of effort. One Member, Sir William Meredith noted:

It amazes me not a little to find administration so perversely, so inflexibly persisting in error on every occasion; it is surprising, to use an expression of Dryden’s – “That they never deviate into sense”

In a subsequent debate of 8 May, relating to the recent disorders in America, North’s attitude riled the former Prime Minister, George Grenville, who, in what was to be his final speech in the Commons, criticized the government in no uncertain terms and concluded prophetically:

to his neglect the King may owe the loss of America

Cavendish Debates, II. 36

The debates in the Commons were then mimicked by one in the Lords ten days later, promoted by the duke of Richmond, who, like Grenville, accused the ministry of neglect and how in spite of “the solemn assurances given us at the commencement of the session, like the baseless fabric of a vision, vanish totally into air, and leave not a wreck behind”. Soon after, the session was brought to a close.

After the turmoil of the previous session, things looked more positive for North as Parliament reconvened in the winter of 1770. Grenville’s death on the opening day of the session (13 November) boosted the government benches as many of his followers were subsequently absorbed by the ministry. Nevertheless, the king’s speech delivered on the day Grenville died made clear that the state of America remained at the top of the government’s agenda and, although many of the problems were thought to have been alleviated, tensions remained. Just over two years later, the new Tea Act of 1773 precipitated a fresh round of agitation, resulting in the Boston Tea Party and the steady slide into war.

During the early months of his premiership North had declared himself to be ‘a friend to trade and a friend to America’ [Thomas, p.70]. Ultimately, he succeeded in being neither.

RDEE

Further Reading

The Prime Ministers, ed. Iain Dale (2020)

PDG Thomas, Lord North (1976)

The Parliamentary History of England… Volume XVI

The Correspondence of John Campbell MP… ed. J.E. Davies (Parliamentary History: Texts & Studies 8)

On this blog we are publishing some tasters of ‘The Story of Parliament’ from a number of the academics who contributed to the book. Our fourth post looks at the origins of the Prime Minister’s office in the 18^th century, now of course the most important political post in the country.

This article was originally written by Dr Robin Eagles, Senior Research Fellow in the House of Lords 1660-1832 section.

One of the most significant political developments of the 18^th century was the emergence of the office of prime minister. Sir Robert Walpole (1722-42) is normally credited with being the first effective holder of the office, though Walpole never styled himself as such. He owed his position to holding in combination the offices of the first lord of the treasury and chancellor of the exchequer, as well as being the principal government spokesman in the Commons. It was the first of these offices that was to become synonymous with the premiership. Walpole was notorious for presiding over a system based on corruption, but his significance was not so much the extent of his authority – it could be argued that the Earl of Godolphin (Lord High Treasurer from 1702-10) or Robert Harley (Lord High Treasurer from 1711-14) had wielded more extensive control over appointments – but his ability to maintain his position from the House of Commons for such a lengthy period. After Walpole’s fall and following the short-lived ministry of the Earl of Wilmington, the effective inheritor of Walpole’s mantle was Henry Pelham (1743-54), who again presided over the ministry from the Commons.

Government in the 18^th century, though, remained a collaborative affair with the king at times a very active partner. During the remainder of the century, only three prime ministers managed the government from the lower house: George Grenville (1763-65), Lord North (1770-80) and William Pitt (1783-1801, 1804-06). The other eight were all senior figures in the House of Lords, though the Duke of Portland (1783) for one was merely a figurehead presiding over the so-called Fox-North coalition. Even in the nineteenth century many prime ministers led the government from the Lords: only in the twentieth century did it become the firm convention for the position to be held by an MP.

RDEE

‘The Story of Parliament’ is available at the Parliamentary bookshop for £14.99. You can purchase it here.

The circumstances of the vote in 1782 were very different than those of last week, and had dire consequences for North’s Premiership. The British had been fighting against the 13 American colonies who desired independence since 1775, but by this time the Americans had been joined by the French, Spanish and Dutch. Funding the war was becoming increasingly difficult and voices of opposition were growing. It was not until the British surrender at Yorktown in October 1781, however, that the war appeared completely lost. Over 7000 British soldiers were captured along with their commander, Earl Cornwallis.

The news of the defeat arrived in Britain on 25 November. North is said to have cried out ‘Oh God! It is all over’ on hearing the news. After this he, along with most of his cabinet, seems to have acknowledged the need to make peace with the American colonies, even if that meant recognising their independence. This was not yet accepted by the King, George III, however, and saying so in public would have presented political difficulties for the government.

Yet it is on this issue that the North government lost the decisive Commons vote. The opposition parties and factions now united against the government.  On 22 February 1782 General Henry Seymour-Conway, who had opposed the war from the beginning, put forward a motion against ‘further prosecution of offensive warfare on the continent of North America’. North’s government defeated this motion (by just one vote), but a second, similar, motion a week later the government lost by 234 to 215.

North tried to resign; yet, as he had many times previously, George III prevented him from doing so. The King neither wanted to give up the American colonies nor appoint an opposition figure to the Premiership. However, a month later the situation became untenable. On 8 March North’s government narrowly survived a motion of no confidence, put forward by Lord John Cavendish. On 15 March he survived a motion of censure against the Government, moved by Sir John Rous, by 236 to 227. North’s government was surviving thanks to a group of independent MPs who were against the war but did not want North replaced. When it became clear that a number of this group would no longer support him, on 18 March North again offered his resignation to the King:

Your Majesty is well apprized that in this country the prince on the throne cannot with prudence oppose the deliberate resolution of the House of Commons.

This time the King was forced to accept, and on 27 March North resigned.

EP

For more on the politics of this period, see our Survey volume, 1754-90.