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VII George III and the Southern Department: Some Unprinted Royal Correspondence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 December 2009

Ian R. Christie
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Extract

The following fragment of George Ill's correspondence once formed part of the archive of Sir Stanier Porten, who served as an undersecretary of state between 1768 and 1782. His papers eventually passed into the possession of the family of Onslow of Ripley Court, Surrey, and were drawn to my attention by a member of that family, Miss Juliana Onslow, later Mackintosh, then a student at University College London. The exact details of how these papers were transmitted to her father, Mr Guy Clevland Onslow, seem to have been lost; but the salient circumstances appear to be, that the Revd. Stanier James Porten, son of the under-secretary, who was rector of Charlwood, Surrey, 1850–1854, was succeeded in that preferment by his son-in-law, the Revd Thomas Burningham, who held it from 1855 till his death in 1883. Burningham was Mr Onslow's maternal grandfather. Of the thirty-five letters of the king in this collection six were addressed to Porten, two to Lord Weymouth, and the remaining twenty-seven to the last of the secretaries of state under whom Porten served, the first Earl of Hillsborough, who was in charge of the southern department from November 1779 till the fall of the North administration in March 1782.

Type
Research Article
Information
Camden Fourth Series , Volume 39: Camden Miscellany XXX , July 1990 , pp. 415 - 439
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1990

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References

1. I gratefully acknowledge the gracious permission of Her Majesty the Queen to publish the following letters of George III in a private archive, of which she possesses the copyright. I also record my grateful acknowledgement for permission given to make use of and publish these letters, in the first place by the late Mr. G. C. Onslow of Ripley Court, and in the second by his son-in-law, Mr. A. S. Mackintosh. Mr. Onslow's descent from Burningham is recorded in Burke's Landed Gentry, and Burningham's marriage to Porten's only daughter in Gentleman's Magazine, 1835, ii, 646.Google Scholar

2. See: Dictionary of National Biography; British Diplomatic Representatives 1689–1789, ed. D.B. Horn, Royal Historical Society, Camden, 3rd series, XLVI (1932), p.23Google Scholar; Sainty, J.C., Officials of the Secretaries of State, 1660–1782 (1973), pp.1Google Scholar on., 49, 96.

3. See for example Brooke, John, King George III (1972), pp.180–2.Google Scholar

4. The Correspondence of King George III, ed. by Sir John Fortescue (6 vols., 1927–1928).Google Scholar

5. Fortescue, , CorrespondenceGoogle Scholar, V, no. 3236.

6. Letters 20, 21, below.

7. Fortescue, , CorrespondenceGoogle Scholar, V, no. 3266.

8. Ibid., nos. 3292, 3293, 3294, 3297; letters 24, 25 below.

9. Letter 33 below.

10. The London magistrate, Sir John Fielding (d. 1780).

11. John Haverfield (c.1694–1784) died at Kew aged go, 21 Nov. 1784 (Gentleman's Magazine, 1784, ii, 799).Google Scholar

12. Armand Vignerot-Duplessis Richelieu, due d'Aiguillon (1720–1780), French secretary of state for foreign affairs.

13. Simon Harcourt, Earl Harcourt (1714–1777), was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland October 1772–January 1777.

14. Charles Gould (1726–1806), judge-advocate general 1769–1806, knighted 1779.

15. Sir John Blaquiere (1732–1812), chief secretary to Harcourt in Ireland 1772–7.

16. David Murray, 7th Viscount Stormont (1727–96), later 2nd Earl of Mansfield, British ambassador at Paris 1772–8, later secretary of state, northern department Oct. 1779–March 1782.

17. Henry Howard, 12th Earl of Suffolk (1739–79), secretary of state, northern department, 12 June 1771 till his death on 7 Mar. 1779.

18. Annual Register, 1778, pp.159–160Google Scholar; Fortescue, Correspondence, IV, no. 2907 (undated and misplaced by the editor), and no. 2216.

19. William Wildman Barrington, 2nd Viscount Barrington (1717–93), M.P., secretary-at-war 1765–1778.

20. Fortescue, , CorrespondenceGoogle Scholar, IV, nos. 2545, 2585.

21. George Lewis Scott (1708–1780), formerly sub-preceptor to the young George III during his ‘teens; a commissioner of excise 1758–80.

22. Gentleman's Magazine, 1780, p. 295.Google Scholar

23. George Onslow (1731–92), M.P. for Guildford, 1760–84.

24. Nathaniel Polhill (1723–82), M.P. for Southwark, 1774–82.

25. Fortescue, , CorrespondenceGoogle Scholar, V, no. 3070.

26. Ibid., no. 3097.

27. Commons Journals, XXXVIII, pp. 74–85.Google Scholar

28. Sir Henry Cavendish (1732–1804), at various times a member of both the British and the Irish parliaments.

29. John Hobart, 2nd Earl of Buckinghamshire, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland January 1777—November 1780. The interpolation of the words in square brackets in place of some inadvertent omission on the king's part appears necessary to establish the sense of the passage.

30. Fortescue, , CorrespondenceGoogle Scholar, V, nos. 3234, 3235, and no. 2982 misplaced and misdated by the editor.

31. Lieut. Colonel Paulus ÆEmilius Irving (d. 1796).

32. On the unused inner page is a draft of Hillsborough's letter to Amherst, dated 10 January 1781; the phrasing very closely follows that of the king's letter.

33. Frederick Howard, 5th Earl of Carlisle (1748–1825), Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, November 1780–April 1782.

34. Sirjohn Irwin (c.1728–1788) was commander-in-chief in Ireland, 1775–82.

35. Burgoyne's offer to raise a regiment was shortly afterwards withdrawn (Fortescue, , CorrespondenceGoogle Scholar, V, nos. 3289, 3290).

36. Cambridge History of India, vol. V, p. 283.Google Scholar

37. Fortescue, , CorrespondenceGoogle Scholar, V, no. 3292; Abergavenny MS. 356. Charles Jenkinson (1727–1808), later Earl of Liverpool, was secretary-at-war 1778–1782.

38. Fortescue, , CorrespondenceGoogle Scholar, V, nos. 3293, 3294, 3297.

39. William Eden (1744–1814), the Lord Lieutenant's chief secretary in Ireland.

40. Recalled from Paris after the breach with France in 1778 (letter VIII above), Stormont had been appointed secretary of state for the northern department on 27 Oct. 1779.

41. See [note 34] above.

42. This letter relays to Hillsborough objections outlined in a letter written to the king by Charles Jenkinson, which is undated but must belong to the few days prior to 6 September (Fortescue, , CorrespondenceGoogle Scholar, III, no. 1628, misplaced by the editor).

43. Christie, Ian R., The End of North's Ministry, 1780–1782 (1958), pp. 291–8Google Scholar; Fortescue, , CorrespondenceGoogle Scholar, V, nos. 3425, 3468.

44. On the unused inner page is a copy in draft of Hillsborough's letter to Carleton, phrased in similar terms.

45. Acknowledging Hillsborough's note of the previous day, Fortescue, Correspondence, V, no. 3559.