Stockbridge to be opposed, and, although the Duke of Bedford refused to join in the opposition, Hay was defeated. With the exception of the brief interval from April to July 1757, he held a seat at the admiralty board from November 1756 to August 1765. He was a member of that body when Byng was executed (14 March 1757), and, as George II thought that the board had transferred to him the odium of the execution, Hay, with the rest of his colleagues, fell under the royal displeasure, and a seat for treasury borough was refused him. Ultimately he was elected for a Calne (July 1757), and represented it till the dissolution in 1761. In the next parliament (1761–8) he represented Sandwich, and from November 1768 until his death he sat for Newcastle-under-Lyme. Horace Walpole's reluctant praise of Hay's speeches is echoed in the good opinion of others. Alexander Carlyle, when in London in 1758, heard him speak in a debate in the commons on the remodelling of the Habeas Corpus Act ‘with a clearness, a force, and brevity’ which delighted him. In the debates in 1762 on the questions connected with Wilkes he interfered, says Walpole, with ‘much and able subtlety,’ but was attacked by the whigs for his assertion that the law of government was superior to the law of the land. Many years later, on the motion for the repeal of the Stamp Act, he was subjected in the same way to much censure for his ‘arbitrary notions from the civil law.’
Hay resigned his posts of chancellor of Worcester diocese, vicar-general, and king's advocate in 1764, on becoming dean of the arches, judge of the prerogative court of Canterbury, and chancellor of the diocese of London. These offices he retained until his death, and from November 1773, in which month he was knighted, he held with them the judgeship of the high court of admiralty. It was hoped in March 1778 that he would be one of the commissioners to treat with the American colonies, but he ‘positively refused’ the offer. Hay loved company and was lax in application to the duties of his profession. Hogarth, his intimate friend, dedicated to him the fourth print of ‘The Election’ (1 Jan. 1758), and painted his portrait. Hay possessed several of Hogarth's pictures. Garrick admitted that he had passed in Hay's company ‘some of the happiest hours of his life.’ When Hay intervened in the debates on Wilkes, he was taunted with his former intimacy with the agitator, and acknowledged the ‘pleasure and instruction’ which he had received in Wilkes's society. With his irregularities in private life and disregard of his profession his affairs became embarrassed, and under their pressure he put an end to his life on 6 Oct. 1778. Hay was an eloquent speaker and an ingenious advocate. Thurlow, when attorney-general and engaged on the trial of the Duchess of Kingston [see Chudleigh, Elizabeth], called him an ‘able and excellent judge.’ There was printed at Boston, U.S., in 1853 a volume of ‘Decisions in the High Court of Admiralty during the time of Sir George Hay and Sir James Marriott. Edited by George Minot. Vol. i. Michaelmas Term 1776 to Hilary Term 1779.’ Some of his speeches are condensed in Cavendish's ‘Debates,’ i. 401, 503.
[Gent. Mag. 1778, p. 495; J. N[ichols]'s Biog. Anecdotes of Hogarth, pp. 98, 334; Bedford Corresp. iii. 337; Green's Worcestershire, vol. ii. p. cxl; Walpole's George III, i. 112, 368–72, ii. 53, 60, 63, 303, 422; Walpole's Journals, 1771–83, ii. 220, 267; Walpole's Letters, ii. 483–484, 493, iii. 46–7, 68, iv. 208; Garrick's Corresp. ii. 157–8; Grenville Papers, i. 167, 187, ii. 263; Carlyle's Autobiog. p. 336; Coote's English Civilians, pp. 118–19; Bedford Corresp. ii. 220–2, 241; Foster's Alumni Oxon.; Robinson's Reg. Merchant Taylors' School, ii. 64.]
HAY, GEORGE, D.D. (1729–1811), catholic bishop of Daulis, and vicar-apostolic of the lowland district of Scotland, born at Edinburgh on 24 Aug. 1729, was the only son of James Hay, a ‘writer in Dalrymple's Office,’ who as a nonjuror and a Jacobite was put in irons and banished in 1715. His mother was Mary Morrison. The father, grandson of Andrew Hay of Inch-noch, was directly descended from Dugald Hay of Linplum, father of George Hay (d. 1588) [q. v.], and his son was the last in the male line of his branch of the house. George Hay attended school in Edinburgh, and at the age of sixteen was bound apprentice to George Lauder, a surgeon there. He was pursuing his medical studies when the highland army under Prince Charles arrived at Edinburgh in September 1745. After the victory at Prestonpans (21 Sept.) his master, Lauder, an ardent Jacobite, became military surgeon to the rebel army, and proceeded to the scene of action with several of his pupils. The house of Colonel Gardiner, near Tranent, was used as a hospital, and Hay tended the wounded there. For the next four months he followed the prince's army, accompanying the highlanders in their march southwards, and in their retreat as far as Ardoch. A severe attack of ague compelled him to return to Edinburgh, where he was detained in the castle. After about three months he was transferred to London, and remained a
