by cutting off Montcalm from his base of supply, force him either to fight or surrender. The credit of suggesting this plan, which being adopted by Wolfe led to the capture of Quebec, is ascribed by Warburton (Conquest of Canada, p. 249) to Townshend, though in the ‘Letter to a Brigadier-General’ it is expressly stated that he protested against it as too hazardous (cf. Stanhope, Hist. of Engl. iv. 243). At the battle on the heights of Abraham on 13 Sept. he commanded the left wing, and, in consequence of the death of Wolfe in the moment of victory and the disablement of Monckton, the direction of the army devolved upon him. Fearing an attack on the part of Bougainville, he recalled his men from the pursuit, and, forming them into line of battle, set to work to entrench himself. The inactivity of the French generals affording him breathing space, he pushed his trenches up to the city, which, seeing no prospect of relief, capitulated on easy terms at midnight on 17 Sept.
On the 20th Townshend sent an account of the battle and his success to the secretary of state so stilted in comparison with the famous despatch of Wolfe on 2 Sept. announcing his plan of operations, of which the authorship had been claimed for him by his brother Charles, that George Augustus Selwyn (1719–1791) [q. v.], happening to meet the latter at the treasury, facetiously inquired, ‘Charles, if your brother wrote Wolfe's despatch, who the devil wrote your brother George's?’ (Wright, Life of Wolfe, p. 554). Monckton recovering sufficiently to enable him to take command (Townshend MSS. p. 327), and Murray being appointed governor of Quebec, Townshend seized the opportunity to return home with the fleet under Admiral Sir Charles Saunders [q. v.] in October, there ‘to parade his laurels and claim more than his share of the honours of the victory’ (Parkman, Montcalm and Wolfe, ii. 317). His conduct was severely criticised in an anonymous pamphlet entitled ‘A Letter to an Hon. Brigadier-General,’ London, 1760, in which, among other indictments, he was charged with enmity and ingratitude towards Wolfe. The ‘Letter,’ ascribed by some to Charles Lee (Winsor, Hist. of America, v. 607), by others to Junius (Letter, ed. Simons, 1841), but stated by Walpole (George III) to have been inspired by Henry Fox, drew forth a number of replies (see Imperial Mag. 1760), and among them ‘A Refutation of the “Letter to an Hon. Brigadier-General,”’ London, 1760, described by Parkman as ‘angry, but not conclusive,’ attributing the authorship of the ‘Letter’ to the Earl of Albemarle [see Keppel, George, third Earl] and his patron, the Duke of Cumberland. So incensed, indeed, was Townshend that he challenged Albemarle. A meeting was happily prevented; but, feeling the necessity of vindicating himself, he published, or caused to be published, a letter said to have been written by him soon after the victory at Quebec to a friend in England expressive of his warm admiration of Wolfe; but the letter was considered by many to have been a clever afterthought on the part of his brother Charles (Wright, Life of Wolfe, p. 612 n.) On 2 Dec. 1660 he was sworn a privy councillor, and, with the rank of major-general (6 March 1761), appointed lieutenant-general of the ordnance on 14 May 1763, holding the post till 20 Aug. 1767. He lent a cordial if rather erratic support to the ministry of George Grenville (1763–5), but refused to ‘disgrace himself’ (Grenville Papers, iii. 207–9) by joining the old whigs under Rockingham. He succeeded his father as fourth Viscount Townshend on 12 March 1764, and on 12 Aug. 1767 he was appointed lord-lieutenant of Ireland.
His appointment, the work of his brother Charles, chancellor of the exchequer and the ruling spirit in the Chatham administration, marks a new epoch in the history of Ireland. Hitherto, owing largely to the non-residence of the viceroy, the government had slipped almost entirely into the hands of a small knot of large landowners and borough proprietors, known as the ‘undertakers.’ Their government, though notoriously corrupt, possessed certain negative merits which, by contrast with what followed, rendered it popular; for the undertakers were at any rate Irishmen, and next to the interests of their own families had those of their country at heart. But the analogy between the situation in Ireland and that in the American colonies had not escaped the notice of English politicians, and there was at least a danger that Ireland, under the rule of the undertakers, might grow bold enough to imitate the example of the latter. So indeed it seemed to Charles Townshend, and he determined to prevent such a possibility by breaking down the power of the undertakers. To this end it was necessary to form a party in parliament wholly dependent on the crown. The task was difficult, and also for him disagreeable, as it implied constant residence in Ireland. But in his elder brother the chancellor of the exchequer found a congenial ally, whose frank, social, and popular manners seemed formed to charm the Irish, though, as the event proved, Walpole, with a keener insight into his character, came nearer the mark when he predicted that he would im-
