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trifles. He seldom directs his elocution so as to gain the avenues to the heart; and when he makes the attempt he always misses his way; he never studied the graces-or if he did, he made as unsuccessful a progress as Phil. Stanhope. He speaks like a soldier, thinks like a politician, and delivers his sentiments like a man. On the whole, he may and ought to profit from the sneers of his antagonists. They call him the Story-teller, and with great justice; for whether it be the salvation of a great empire, or a skirmish with a few wild Indians, the colonel is never at a loss for a story in point, in which he himself had the fortune to be one of the dramatis personæ. We will close this rude sketch, by affirming, that we have heard him interlard some of his most pointed speeches on the most important occasions, with anecdotes that would disgrace a school-boy at the Christmas recess; or a garrulous old woman, when she takes it into her head to be most narrative, uninteresting, and loquacious."

Sir John Eardley Wilmot.

BORN A. D. 1709.-died a. d. 1792.

THIS eminent lawyer was born at Derby on the 16th of August, 1709. He was the second son of Robert Wilmot of Osmaston. He received his elementary education at the free school of his native place, from which he was removed to Westminster school, and subsequently to Trinity-hall, Cambridge. His professional views at first inclined to the church, but, in compliance with his father's wish, he finally adopted the law, and was called to the bar in 1732.

In the year 1753 he was offered the rank of king's counsel, and subsequently of king's sergeant, but declined both, in consequence of a resolution which he had early formed to withdraw himself as much as possible from public life. Ultimately he withdrew from the metropolis, and settled in his native county as a provincial counsel; but soon after his taking this step, he was raised to the king's bench in room of Sir Martin Wright. He took his seat in Hilary term, 1755, and, according to custom, was knighted. In 1766 he was prevailed upon, though not without difficulty, to accept of the chief justiceship of the court of common pleas. To his son, a youth of seventeen, he is said to have thus expressed himself on his new appointment. "I will tell you a secret worth knowing and remembering; the elevation I have met with in life, particularly this last instance of it, has not been owing to any superior merit or abilities, but to my humility, to my not having set up myself above others, and to an uniform endeavour to pass through life void of offence towards God and man." His conduct in the court of common pleas was marked by candour and urbanity mingled with firmness, and united to the most unimpeachable impartiality. The uprightness with which he administered justice between the crown and the subject is sufficiently manifested by his decision against the legality of general warrants in the memorable case of Wilkes v. Lord Halifax and others. "There is no doubt," said his lordship, "but that the warrant whereby the plaintiff was imprisoned, and his papers seized, was illegal; it has undergone the consideration of the court of king's bench,

and has very properly been deemed so by every judge who has seen it; and there is no pretence or foundation for the defendant in this cause to make any stand against this action by way of justification, in the way he has done, because it clearly and manifestly is an illegal warrant, contrary to the common law of the land. And if warrants of this kind had been found to be legal, I am sure, as one of the plaintiff's counsel observed, it is extremely proper for the legislature of this kingdom to interpose and provide a remedy, because all the private papers of a man as well as his liberty would be in the power of the secretary of state, or any of his servants. The law makes no difference between great and petty officers. Thank God, they are all amenable to justice, and the law will reach them if they step over the boundaries which the law has prescribed."

In 1770, on the resignation of Lord Camden, and the death of Mr Yorke, Sir Eardley Wilmot was offered the great seal by the duke of Grafton. But he at once and firmly declined the honour; and, although offered it again in the course of the same year by Lord North, persisted in his resolution. Indeed, besides his strong aversion to public life, which he had never yet overcome, his health was at this time so bad, that instead of accepting a more laborious office, he felt necessitated soon after to resign his seat in the common pleas. When released from the toils of office, he devoted himself chiefly to the society of his own family, but occasionally attended appeals before the privy-council. He died on the 5th of February, 1792.

Montague, Earl of Sandwich.

BORN A. D. 1718.—DIED A. D. 1792.

JOHN GEORGE MONTAGUE, earl of Sandwich, was born in the month of November, 1718. He was educated at Eton and Trinitycollege, Cambridge.

From the time of his taking his seat in the house of lords, until 1744, he was in opposition to ministry. On the formation of the Broad-bottom ministry he came in as one of the junior lords of the admiralty. In the duke of Bedford's ministry he held the office of secretary of state. In 1767, on the return of the duke's party to office, he was ap-pointed postmaster-general. "Here," says the writer of Characters,' published in 1777," he remained like his predecessor,' in a kind of ministerial probation, till a vacancy in the cabinet should happen; and there he might have remained ever since if the scruples and fears of a certain noble viscount had not given his lordship's friends an opportunity of calling him into cabinet. On his last-mentioned noble friend's resignation of the seals, towards the close of the year 1770, he was appointed secretary of state for the northern department, in the room of Lord Rochford, who succeeded Lord Weymouth in the southern. He did not remain long in this situation; for an honest tar, who then presided at the admiralty board, finding himself rendered a cypher through the overbearing mandates of a junto, and the treachery of his 'Lord Hillsborough. Lord Weymouth.

* Sir Edward, afterwards Lord Hawke.

brethren in the mock or ostensible cabinet, on one hand; and perceiving, on the other, that he had been grossly deceived and imposed on by his surveyor, resigned in a fit of chagrin and disgust, which made way for our hero, who was appointed first commissioner of the admiralty very early in the spring, 1771. The conduct and language held in both houses of parliament on this occasion, was to the last degree curious and entertaining: it proved beyond question what ministers were capable of saying,-what the king's friends were capable of enacting,what the high priest and his immediate associates and assistants were capable of commanding,-and what the spiritless, deluded, degenerate people of this country were capable of enduring, without even a groan. "As we would wish to clear the ground as we proceed, and not re port naked occurrences without pointing to the causes, when those causes become obvious, we beg leave to remind our readers, that our lord had done away all his former transgressions, and knit himself closer to the junto than ever, by the very distinguished part he took in the house of lords during the spring session, 1770, in relation to the Middlesex election, particularly by that celebrated speech made in his closet, printed and disseminated by previous agreement, and said to be spoken on the 2d of February, on Lord Rockingham's motion, that the house of commons, in the exercise of its judicature in matters of elec tion, is bound to judge according to the law of the land, and the known and established law and custom of parliament, which is part thereof.' He was then at the post-office, in a state somewhat resembling a deserving naval veteran of rank and meritorious service appointed governor of Greenwich, happy in retirement, yet ready to come forward when an opportunity of serving his country in a more elevated and efficient situation should call him forth.

"From his taking his seat at the board, at which he at present presides, till the commencement of the present troubles in America, we know very little of his lordship, in either his official, cabinet, or parliamentary capacity, worth recording, more than what might be included within this compendious description, that he supported administration, that is, in plain English, he did not commit an act of political suicide on his own precious person. It is true, the house of commons were divided into two parties, respecting his conduct and abilities. His adversaries contended that there was never known in this country so high or burthensome a naval peace-establishment, that half-a-million, and other great and extraordinary grants, had been made on his lordship's entrance into office; that besides these naval grants made at that time, the articles of extraordinaries, wear and tear, repairs, buildings and rebuildings, exceeded any thing ever known within the same period; that, added to this, a heavy navy-debt was still incurring; that the navy, with all this monstrous and unprecedented expense, was far from being in the respectable condition it was represented; and at all events, if what his lordship's blazoners and defenders said was strictly just, then the house of commons was deceived by administration; for how was it possible, if what ministers asserted respecting the flourishing state of the navy on the threatened rupture with Spain were true, that the nation should be put to the annual extraordinary expense of at least a

• Sir Thomas Slade, surveyor of the Navy.

nillion in buildings, rebuildings, and purchase of timber, and all kinds of stores? His friends, particularly the minister-who nevertheless complained loudly of the expense-said, that the navy, it is true, when his lordship came into office, was in a rui ous state; yet ministers had not misled or misinformed the house, for the ships built of green timber in the height of the late war rotted imperceptibly, and were obliged to be broken up for other uses, or sold; that the noble lord who now presides at the board, perceiving the necessity of putting our navy on a respectable footing, had laid in vast stocks of seasoned timber not subject to decay, and a proportionable quantity of all kinds of naval stores, the consequence of which would be, that late in 1774, or early in 1775, we should have in our different docks as guardships, and at sea, above eighty men of war of the line fit for actual service, and upwards of twenty of them manned and ready for sea at a few hours' notice. Which of those accounts may be nearer the truth-for we have hardly a doubt that they are both exaggerated-we will not pretend to determine.

"His lordship has been all along one of the warmest advocates for the unmodified claim of supremacy of this country over America, on the alternative of absolute conquest, as against an alien enemy on our side, and unconditional submission on theirs. His arguments are built entirely on the same foundation with those of Lord Mansfield. The right of taxation, he contends, is in the British legislature; and though we were willing to relax or concede, America is not; therefore we must assert that right, or for ever relinquish it. On the point of expediency his lordship is, if possible, more express and explicit. He has engaged not only for the pacific and friendly dispositions of the courts of Versailles and Madrid, as often as any fears for the event of their conduct have been suggested, but he has done more; he has engaged and pledged himself repeatedly to parliament and the public, for the cowardly dispositions of every British subject of American birth, from Hudson's bay to St Augustine. He has compared them-we have heard his lordship with our own ears-to the cowardly Asiatics defeated by a certain deceased noble lord," whom he distinguished by the wellknown appellation of the Heaven-born General;' and added emphatically, in answer to something urged by his opponents in debate, respecting their numbers, that the more numerous they were the better; it would give him pleasure to hear that the rebels consisted of a hundred thousand instead of ten: for in that event, as in Asia, and wherever else a regular disciplined force were to contend with a mob-particularly a mob composed of cowards, braggards, and poltroons-success would be more certain, and would be bought on cheaper and easier terms, one victory would answer every purpose of a dozen, and the flame of rebellion would be sooner extinguished, and with less trouble and bloodshed.

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"His lordship is undoubtedly a man of talents, and well-acquainted with business; but whether he is equal to the very important post he now occupies, is more than we dare venture to decide on. He is certainly, from his ignorance of naval affairs, extremely liable to be imposed on; and of course he may be led into error, in proportion—

Lord Clive.

strange as it may appear-to the goodness of his heart, and the soundness of his understanding. His lordship's talents, in other respects, are confessed. He is certainly a great statesman. If report be not a liar, he convinced the late Lord Chesterfield, that he could outdo him even in his own way; and showed the lords Bute and Holland, and the celebrated George Grenville, of plodding memory, that honesty and quick parts were an overmatch for mere cunning and a knowledge of Cocker's arithmetic. Be that as it may, Lord Sandwich is now a noun-substantive; or if there be a question who supports him, and has for some years, it can only be solved at Buckingham-house.

"As a parliamentary speaker, Lord Sandwich certainly stands very low on the list; and it is only on account of his political value in other respects, that we have brought him forward thus early. His discourses are awkward, loose, and detached. He generally stands with his hands in his pockets, or as if in the very act of driving a flock of geese, or forcing them into the end of a narrow lane. His speeches are stories, or short replies to what is offered on the other side, consisting chiefly of contradictions. In the midst of his gravest arguments, he lets fall some expression which throws the house in a roar, and seems little solicitous whether it be at the expense of himself or his antagonists."

This sketch, though overstrained in some points, is not very far wide of the truth. The earl of Sandwich was a man of negative rather than positive qualities. His patronage of Captain Cook, however, deserves all praise. He died on the 30th of April, 1792.

George, Lord Rodney.

BORN A. D. 1717.-DIED A. D. 1792.

THIS distinguished naval officer was the second son of Henry Rodney of Walton-on-Thames, and was born in December, 1717. He entered the navy while a boy, and in the spring of 1742 was appointed by Admiral Mathews, then commanding in the Mediterranean, one of his lieutenants. In the same year he was promoted to be captain of the Plymouth, of sixty guns, from which he passed successively to the Sheerness, the Ludlow Castle, and the Eagle. In the latter vessel he contributed eminently to Sir Edward Hawke's success off Cape Finisterre, in October, 1747. In 1749 he was appointed governor of Newfoundland. During his absence in this capacity he was returned to parliament for the borough of Saltash, and, at the next general election, for Oakhampton.

After a series of minor services in various commands, he was appointed rear-admiral of the blue in 1759. Soon after this he sailed on an expedition against Havre de Grace, where he succeeded in effectually destroying the whole of the flat-bottomed boats and warlike stores which had been collected in that harbour with the view of invading England. In 1761 he was returned for Penryn, but sailed soon after for Martinico. On his return he was promoted to be vice-admiral of the blue, and, on the 21st of January, 1764, was created a baronet.

On the dissolution of parliament in 1768, he allowed himself to be led into a most ruinous contest for the representation of Northampton,

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