Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 42.djvu/293

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culated as Marquis of Carmarthen on 11 June 1767, and was created M.A. on 30 March 1769, and D.C.L. on 7 July 1778. At a by-election in March 1774 Carmarthen was returned to the House of Commons for the borough of Eve in Suffolk. He voted uniformly with the government, except on the petition from the Massachusetts, when he divided with the minority, as he 'could by no means approve of the rejecting it unheard' (Political Memoranda, p. 3), and on 2 May he spoke in favour of the third reading of the Bill for regulating the Government of Massachusetts Bay. At the general election in October 1774 he was returned for the borough of Helston in Cornwall. He voted against Lord North*s propositions for conciliating the differences with America in February 1776 (Political Memoranda, p. 4), and was unseated on petition in the following month (Commons' Journals, xxxv. 194-5, 196-197). On 16 May 1776 he was called up to the House of Lords in his father's barony, and took his seat on the following day as Baron Osborne of Kiveton in the county of York (Lords' Journals, xxxiv. 732). On the 31st of the same month he was appointed a lord of the bedchamber, an office which he resigned in December 1777, on being appointed lord chamberlain of the queen's household. Carmarthen spoke for the first time in the House of Lords during the debate on the address on 31 Oct. 1776, when he opposed Lord Rockingham's amendment in favour of an inquiry into the American grievances (Parl. Hist. xviii. 1391-2). He supported the address at the opening of parliament in November 1777 (16. xix. 388), and on 24 Dec. in the same year was admitted a member of the privy council (London Gazette, 1777, No. 11834). In March 1778 he spoke in favour of the Conciliatory Bills (Parl. Hist. xix. 849-60), and in July following was appointed lord-lieutenant of the East Riding or Yorkshire. He had, however, 'for some time lamented the notorious want of ability in the ministry,' and at length, finding himself at variance with Lord North on the subject of the York meeting, he resigned his office in the queen's household on 27 Jan. 1780 {Political memoranda, pp. 17-20; Walpole, George III, ii. 263), On 8 Feb. Carmarthen was summarily dismissed from his lord-lieutenancy, and on the same day he supported Lord Shelburne's motion for an inquiry into the public expenditure, when he declared that the ministers' were the curse of this country, and he feared would prove its ruin' (Parl. Hist. 1339-40, 1341-2, 1346). Lord Shelburne's motion in the following month with regard to Carmarthen's dismissal was defeated by ninety-two votes to thirty-two (ib. xxi. 217-28). In March Carmarthen published 'A Letter to the Right Honourable L[or]d Thrurlo]w, L[or]d H[ig]h Ch[ancello]r of E[nglan]d, &c., &c., &c.,' London, 1780, 8vo, in which he advocated a change of government, and particularly the removal of North, Sandwich, and Germain {Political Memoranda, p. 21). At the opening of parliament on 1 Nov. he moved an amendment to the address, but was defeated by a majority of forty-five (Parl. Hist. xxi. 815–16; Political Memoranda, p. 34). On his motion the Earl of Pomfret was committed to the tower for challenging the Duke of Grafton to a duel (Parl. Hist. xxi. 864-866). In March 1781 Carmarthen resigned his commission as captain and keeper of Deal Castle (Political Memoranda, p. 40), and in the same month signed the protest against the third reading of Lord North's Loan Bill (Rogers, Complete Collection of the Protests of the Lords, 1876, ii. 208-10). Early in 1782 he published a small pamphlet entitled 'An Adoress to the independent Members of both Houses of Parliament,' London, 1782, 8vo, in which he urged them to take an active part in the business of the nation (Political Memoranda, p. 51). In February 1782 he unsuccessfully opposed Lord George Germain's promotion to the peerage, as 'derogatory to the honour of the House of Lords' (Parl. Hist. xxii. 999-1023). On the formation of the second Rockingham administration in March 1782 Carmarthen was restored to the post of lord-lieutenant of the East Riding. He moved the address at the opening of parliament on 6 Dec. 1782 (ib. xxiii. 210-11), and on 9 Feb. 1783 was appointed ambassador-extraordinary and minister-plenipotentiary at Paris. On the 17th of that month he seconded the address approving of the preliminary articles of peace, which was only carried by a majority of thirteen (ib. xxiii. 376). Owing to the change of administration, Carmarthen did not proceed to Paris, and in April resigned the post. He was appointed secretary of state for the foreign department in Pitt's ministry on 23 Dec. 1783, and in the following year records that he could not prevail upon the cabinet 'to give that attention to foreign affairs that I thought necessary, and consequently afterwards gave them little trouble on the subject,' adding, 'Mr. Pitt, however, for some time applied himself to the correspondence with great assiduity' (Political Memoranda, p. 101). Jealousy of France seems to have been the keynote of Carmarthen's foreign policy, his chief object at this time being to form an alliance with Russia