Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Crow, Mitford
CROW, MITFORD (d. 1719), colonel, is supposed by Noble (Biog. Hist. ii. 176) to have acquired an ascendency in politics by his relationship to Christopher Crow, who married Charlotte, daughter of Edward, earl of Lichfield, and relict of Benedict Leonard, lord Baltimore. He was M.P. for Southampton 1701–2. Crow was employed as British diplomatic agent in Catalonia, where he persuaded the Catalans to espouse the cause of the Archduke Charles of Austria, afterwards Charles V. Lord Fairfax made him one of the trustees under his patent for securing all wrecks occurring in the West Indies, and he was governor of the island of Barbadoes from 1707 to 1711. His name has not been found in the imperfectly kept military entry books of the period (Home Office Papers), and the colonial and other records furnish but scanty information concerning him. Letters from Christopher Crow, who was consul and prize agent at Leghorn (see Treas. Papers, xcv. 94, xcix. 94, cii. 118), and from Mitford Crow, who at one time sat for Southampton, are indicated in various volumes of ‘Hist. MSS. Comm. Reports.’ Crow appears to have been on terms of intimacy with Swift, and is frequently mentioned by the latter in letters from London in 1710–12. He died 15 Dec. 1719.
[Noble's Biog. Hist. vol. ii.; Calendar Treasury Papers, 1702–7; Swift's Works, ii. 267, 287, 385, iii. 11.]