to an end he never took up the command. In 1785 Grey was one of a board of land and sea officers nominated by the king, under the presidency of the Duke of Richmond, to investigate the question of the defenceless state of the dockyards. Grey was one of the majority of the board which reported in favour of fortifying both Portsmouth and Plymouth. A motion to that effect, introduced by Mr. Pitt on 27 Feb, 1786, was lost on division by the casting vote of the speaker (Parl. Debates, vol. xxv.) In 1787 Grey was transferred to the colonelcy of the 8th dragoons, and in 1789 to that of the 7th dragoon guards. In 1793 Grey and Jervis (afterwards, Earl St. Vincent) were appointed to command a combined expedition against the revolted French West India islands. Before it sailed the Duke of York had retired from before Dunkirk, and the ports of Nieuport and Ostend were in immediate peril. Grey was accordingly despatched with a small force to relieve Nieuport, a service which he effected. On his return the expedition, which was marked by the perfect accord between the two services, left England for Barbadoes, 23 Nov. 1793. Martinique was reduced in March 1794, and St. Lucia, the Saints, and Guadeloupe were taken in April. At the beginning of June the same year a superior French force from Rochefort regained possession of Guadeloupe, the British garrison, which was greatly reduced by fever, being inadequate to hold it. On receiving the news Grey and Jervis, who were at St. Kitts preparing to return home, collected such forces as were available and attempted the recapture of Guadeloupe, but without success. Grey returned home in H.M.S. Boyne in November 1794. On his return he was promoted to general, made a privy councillor, and transferred to the colonelcy of the 20th or Jamaica light dragoons; thence in 1799 he was removed to that of the 3rd dragoons (now 3rd hussars).
At the time of the mutiny at the Nore in 1797, Grey, who appears to have had a knowledge of naval matters, was selected for the command at Sheerness in the event of its becoming necessary to reduce the mutineers by the fire of the defences. He commanded what was then known as the southern district, consisting of the counties of Kent, Sussex, and Surrey, in 1798-9, during which time he resided and had his headquarters at Barham Court, near Canterbury. After his retirement from active service Grey was raised to the peerage by patent, on 23 May 1801, under the title of Baron Grey de Howick, in the county of Northumberland. On 11 April 1806 he was advanced to the dignities of Viscount Howick and Earl Grey. He also had the governorship of Guernsey in the place of that of Dumbarton, previously held by him.
Grey married, 8 June 1762, Elizabeth, daughter of George Grey of Southwick, county Durham, and by her, who died in 1822, had five sons and two daughters. He died at Howick 14 Nov, 1807, and was succeeded in the title by his eldest son, Charles, second earl Grey, K.G. [q. v.] His fifth son, Edward (1782-1837), was bishop of Hereford from 1832 to 1837 (see Gent. Mag. 1837, ii, 311), and was father of Sir William Grey (1818-1878)[q. v.]
[Collins's Peerage (1812 ed.), vol. v.; Foster's Peerage; Annual Army Lists; Sykes's Local Records, i. 193(notice of first Sir Henry Gray); Beatson's Nav. and Mil. Memoirs, vols, iii-vi.; Appleton's Amer. Biog. Dict.; Ross's Cornwallis Corresp. i. 155, ii. 284; Rev. J. Cooper Willyams's Campaign in the West Indies in 1794; Cannon's Historical Records, 20th Foot and 3rd Light Dragoons: Gent. Mag. 1807(which contains the absurd misstatement that Grey was the last surviving officer present with Wolfe at Quebec). A letter from Gray, addressed to Earl St. Vincent in 1805, forms Addit. MS. 29915, f. 31. A bundle of about sixty letters from Grey on naval matters, the dates ranging from 1761 to 1794, are noted in Hist. MSS. Comm. 4th Rep. p. 230, as preserved among the Marquis of Lansdowne's MSS.]
GREY, CHARLES, second Earl Grey, Viscount Howick, and Baron Grey (1764–1845), statesman, eldest surviving son of General Sir Charles Grey, K.B., afterwards first Earl Grey [q. v.], by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of George Grey of Southwick, Durham, was born at his father's seat at Fallodon, near Alnwick in Northumberland, on 13 March 1764. When he was six years old he was sent to a preparatory school in Marylebone, London, where be remained very unhappily for three years, and was then removed to Eton. Subsequently he went to King's College, Cambridge, where he took several prizes for English composition and declamation, and his school verses, contributed to the 'Musæ Etonenses,' published in 1795, prove him to have been a good classical scholar; but, in his own opinion, he did not owe much to his career at school or college. He quitted Cambridge in 1784, and travelled in the suite of Henry, duke of Cumberland, in France, Italy, and some parts of Germany. In July 1786 he was returned member for Northumberland, which he continued to represent until in 1807 he declined to contest the seat again on the ground of the expense of the election. His first speech In the House of Commons was
