Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1889, volume 6).djvu/174

150 delivered numerous lectures and addresses on the subject of the war, including an oration on Memo- rial day, 1885, in Brooklyn, N. Y., on " The Empire State in the Rebellion."

TOWNSEND, Virginia Frances, author, b. in New Haven, Conn., in 1836. She has passed her life in literary pursuits, edited "Arthur's Home Magazine " for several years, and has contributed much to journals and magazines. Her writings in- clude " While it was Morning" (New York, 1859); " Buds from Christmas Boughs " (1859) ; " By and By " (1859) ; " Amy Deane, and other Tales " (1862) ; "The Well in the Rock, and other Tales" (1863); "The Temptation and Triumph, and other Tales" (Cincinnati, 1863) ; " The Battle-Fields of Our Fa- thers" (New York, 1864); "Janet Strong" (Phila- delphia, 1865) ; " Darryl Gap " (Boston, 1866) ; " The Hollands " (1869) ; " Max Meredith's Millennium " (1870) ; " One Woman's Two Lovers " (1872) ; " Eliza- beth Tudor" (1874); "Only Girls" (1876); and " Six in All " (1878).

TOWNSHEND, George, first Marquis, soldier, b. in Norfolk, England, 28 Feb., 1724; d. 14 Sept., 1807. He was the eldest son of the third Viscount Townshend, whom he succeeded in May, 1767. He entered the British army at an early age, and took part in the battles of Dettingen, Fontenoy, Cullo- den, and Laffeldt. In 1747 he entered parliament. He went out to Canada in 1759 as brigadier-gen- eral, and commanded a division under Wolfe, suc- ceeding that officer in command when Wolfe fell at Quebec. Five days later he received the capitu- lation of the city. He then returned to England, was present at the battle of Fellinghausen in 1761, and served in Portugal in 1762. He became a privy councillor after succeeding to the title, and was lord-lieutenant of Ireland from 1767 till 1772. He was master-general of the ordnance in the lat- ter year, and was created Earl of Leicester in 1784 and Marquis Townshend in 1787. He was a man of " quick perception but unsafe judgment." He is said to have received the capitulation of Quebec as though the achievement had been his own, and in his official report of the battle he omitted the name of Wolfe, whom he indirectly censured. Hurrying away from the citadel, which he be- lieved to be untenable, he returned home, and was soon engaged in assisting his brother Charles in the latter's attempt to make the colonies submit to an odious system of taxation. — His brother, Charles, statesman, b. in England, 29 Aug., 1725 ; d. there, 4 Sept., 1767, entered parliament when only twenty-two years old, and soon achieved a brilliant reputation as an orator and a supporter of the Pelham administration. He was appointed a com- missioner of trade and plantations in 1749, and a commissioner for executing the office of lord high admiral in 1751 ; was a lord of the admiralty in .1754, and treasurer of the chamber and member of the privy council in 1756. From 1761 till 1763 he was secretary of war, and in February of the latter year he was made first lord of trade and planta- tions. He was subsequently paymaster of the forces and chancellor of the exchequer. From the period of his introduction to office through the commission for the colonies, Townshend made a special study of American affairs. His plan for f governing the American colonies was to extract as arge a revenue as possible from them by onerous imposts levied without the slightest regard to their rights. In 1765 he had heartily supported Gren- ville's stamp-act, although he subsequently voted for its repeal, and was in favor of burdening the colonies with an expensive civil list and a stand- ing army. He was also of opinion that the various charters that had been granted to them at differ- ent times, and which every ministry of Charles II. had spared, should be annulled, a uniform system of government set up in their stead, and the royal governors, judges, and attorneys made independent of the people. " I would govern the Americans," he said, " as subjects of Great Britain. I would restrain their trade and their manufactures as subordinate to the mother country. These, our children, must not make themselves our allies in time of war and our rivals in peace." The eclipse of Chatham in March, 1767, left Townshend, who had been chancellor of the exchequer since the pre- ceding August, and whom Chatham had vainly en- deavored to have dismissed from office, " lord of the ascendant." From that moment he ruled the ministry in all matters relating to America, and succeeded in carrying through parliament a bill taxing the colonies that was far more burdensome than the stamp-act that had nearly created a revo- lution. Thus the latter left the civil officers de- pendent on the local legislatures, and preserved the proceeds of the American tax in the ex- chequer. The revenue collected under Town- shend's bill, on the other hand, was to be un- der the sign manual at the king's pleasure, and could be burdened at will by pensions to English- men. By providing an independent support for the crown officers, it virtually did away with the necessity for colonial legislatures, as governors would have little inducement to call them, and an angry minister might dissolve them without in- convenience. When it was suggested to Town- shend that the army might perhaps be safely with- drawn from America, in which case expense would cease and no revenue be necessary, he replied: " The moment a resolution shall be taken to with- draw the army, I will resign my office and have no more to do in public affairs. I insist it is abso- lutely necessary to keep up a large army there and here." Townshend only lived a few months after the successful passage of his bill, which, by its tax on tea and similar imports, lost England her colo- nies, and was about to be intrusted with the for- mation of a new ministry, when he was suddenly carried off by a fever at the early age of forty-one. " He was," says Bancroft, " a man of wonderful endowments, dashed with follies and indiscretion. Impatient of waiting, his ruling passion was pres- ent success. ... In the house of commons his brilliant oratory took its inspiration from the pre- vailing opinion ; and, careless of consistency, heed- less of whom he deserted or whom he joined, he followed the floating indications of the loudest cheers." He had been courted by all parties, but never possessed the confidence of any. If his in- discretion forbade esteem, his good humor dis- sipated hate. He had clear conceptions, great knowledge of every branch of administration, and indefatigable assiduity in business. Burke styled him " the delight and ornament of the house of commons, and the charm of every private society that he honored with his presence." Macaulay refers to him as "a man of splendid talents, of lax principles, and of boundless vanity and presump- tion," who " would submit to no control." See his " Essay on the Earl of Chatham " and " Charles Townshend, Wit and Statesman," by Percy Fitz- gerald (London, 1866). — Another brother, Roger, British soldier, b. in England about 1730; d. near Ticonderoga, N. Y., 25 July, 1759, entered the army at an early age, and became a lieutenant-colonel on 1 Feb., 1758. He served as adjutant-general of the expeditionary force that was sent against Louis- burg, was deputy adjutant-general of Gen. Sir