Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 2 Vol 2.djvu/517

CAMDEN 501 Brecknock. She d. 10 Dec. 1779. He d. 18 Apr. 1794, in Hill Str., Berkeley Sq., aged 8o.(^) Will pr. Apr. 1794. Both were bur. at Scale. EARLDOM I and 2. John Jeffreys (Pratt), Earl Camden, AND ^c, only s. and h., b. 11 Feb. 1759, in Lincoln's- BARONY. inn-Fields, and bap. 13 Mar. following; ed. at Trin. „ Coll. Cambridge; M.A. 1779; LL.D. 1832; M.P. ■ ^794- (Tory) for Bath 1780-94, being, from 1786, styled lVTARr>TTF<;<^ ATF ViscouxT Bayham. In May 1 780 he became one of ^ ■ the Tellers of the Exchequer,() having been given I. 18 12. the reversion of that office, Aug. 1766, and holding it till its abolition in 1834; a Lord of the Admiralty July 1782 to Apr. 1783, and again Dec. 1783 to Aug. 1789; a Lord of the Treasury Aug. 1789 to May 1794; P.C. 21 June 1793; Lord Lieut. OF Ireland, Mar. 1795 to June 1798. On 27 Apr. 1797, by the death, when aged 83, of his cousin John Pratt, of Bayham Abbey, Sussex, he sue. to that estate and to that of the Wilderness, in Scale, Kent; nom. and inv. K.G. 14 Aug. 1799; F.S.A. 11 Feb. 1802; Secretary of State for War and Colonies, May 1804-05; Lord President of the Council, (^) " Steady, warm, sullen, stained with no reproach, and a uniform Whig." (Walpole, George II, vol. iii, p. 102). " His sentiments are republican in politics, deistical in religion, and if he inherits one half of his father's pride, such principles, with his abilities, may do mischief in so high a station." (T. Falconer, Aug. 1766). No less than 3 medals were struck in his honour, on one of which was inscribed " Camden the Great," apparently to give him preeminence, the famous historian having been held till then the greatest of his name. His fondness for agriculture is referred to in "Amusements of Men of Fashion." See vol. i. Appendix H. V.G. When presiding at the Common Pleas, he decided against the legality of General Warrants, discharging the notorious John Wilkes, who had been thus arrested. When in the Cabinet he was, writes Foss, " in the foremost rank of opposition to the Ministry of Lord North, uniting with the Earl of Chatham in the arraignment of the American war, and, as well in that question as in all others, assailing Lord Mansfield with uniform and somewhat undignified acrimony " ; to the latter he appears to have " evidently felt a deep personal animosity." He was " the main cause of the passage through the House of Lords of Mr. Fox's Libel Bill (1792), which settled the question that juries and not judges should decide what was and what was not a libel." See Howard Evans' Our Old Nobility. Lord Camden, accordingly, adopted as his motto, '■'■'Judicium Parium aut Lex Terr^." As to his disposition "to grimace," see some satirical lines in vol. i. Appendix H. (•>) Although Foss, in his Judges, speaks of "the patriotic and magnanimous self- denial "with which he gave up the income of this sinecure "to relieve the pecuniary pres- sure of the country," it appears that, though eventually, in exchange for ;^3,683 a year, he did so, it was not till five years after the matter had been brought before the House of Commons (18 12) and till the scandal of receiving ^^23,000 a year (such was its value in 1807) for no work, had made it almost untenable. Cobbett, in his Rural Rides, remarks that, "according to Parliamentary accounts," the Marquess "has received of public money little short of a million of guineas." See, also, Carpenter's Peerage for the People.