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Campbell into frenzy by the story of ‘Jenkins' ears,’ he won temporary popularity by his speeches in opposition to the ministry against Spain; and during the discontent prevailing in the country in 1740 on account of the failure of the harvest, he attacked the ministry with such virulence, as chiefly responsible for the wretched condition of things, that he was immediately deprived of all his offices. General Keith, brother of the Earl Marischal and a zealous Jacobite, was with him when he received his dismission. ‘Mr. Keith,’ exclaimed the duke, ‘fall flat, fall edge, we must get rid of those people.’ ‘Which,’ says Keith, ‘might imply both man and master, or only the man’ (Letter of the Earl Marischal, 15 June 1740, in Stuart Papers). The factious and persistent opposition which from this time he continued to manifest against Walpole's administration contributed in no small degree to hasten its fall. On the accession of the new ministry he was again made master-general of the ordnance, colonel of the royal regiment of horse guards, and field-marshal and commander-in-chief of all the forces, but in a few weeks he resigned all his offices, the cause being probably that he was not satisfied with the honours he had received. It was said that his ambition was to have the sole command of the army. In reference to this Oxford is said to have exclaimed, ‘Two men wish to have the command of the army, the king and Argyll, but by God neither of them shall have it.’ From this time Argyll ceased to take an active part in politics. The Pretender, supposing that probably he might not be disinclined at last to favour his cause, sent him a letter written with his own hand, but he immediately communicated it to the government. Already a paralytic disorder had begun to incapacitate him for public duties, and he died on 4 Oct. 1743. An elaborate monument in marble was erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey. He was twice married. By his first wife, Mary, daughter of John Brown, and niece of Sir Charles Duncombe, lord mayor of London, he had no issue. By his second wife, Jane, daughter of Thomas Warburton of Winnington, Cheshire, one of the maids of honour of Queen Anne, he had five daughters, the eldest of whom was in 1767 created baroness of Greenwich, but the title became extinct with her death in 1794. To his fifth daughter, Lady Mary Campbell, widow of Edward, viscount Coke, Lord Orford dedicated his romance of the ‘Castle of Otranto.’ The duke having died without male issue, his English titles of duke and earl of Greenwich and viscount Chatham became extinct, while his Scottish titles devolved on his brother, Archibald Campbell, third duke [q. v.]

 CAMPBELL, JOHN, LL.D. (1708–1775), miscellaneous writer, was the son of a Campbell of Glenlyon, captain in a regiment of horse, and born at Edinburgh on 8 March 1708. At the age of five he was taken to Windsor by his mother, originally of that town, and educated under the direction of an uncle, who placed him as a clerk in an attorney's office. Deserting law for literature, he produced about the age of eighteen a ‘Military History of the late Prince Eugene of Savoy and the late John, Duke of Marlborough … illustrated with variety of copper-plates of battles, sieges, plans, &c., carefully engraved by Claude Du Bosc,’ who issued it without the compiler's name in 1721. In compiling it Campbell availed himself largely of the Marquis de Quincy's ‘Histoire Militaire du règne de Louis Quatorze,’ and of the works of Dumont and Rousset on Prince Eugene. In 1734 appeared, with Campbell's name, ‘A View of the Changes to which the Trade of Great Britain to Turkey and Italy will be exposed if Naples and Sicily fall into the hands of the Spaniards.’ Campbell suggested that the Two Sicilies should be handed over to the elector of Bavaria. His first original work of any pretension was ‘The Travels and Adventures of Edward Bevan, Esq., formerly a merchant in London,’ &c., 1739. Here a thread of fictitious autobiography, in Defoe's manner, connects a mass of information respecting the topography, history, natural products, political conditions, and manners and customs of the countries supposed to be visited. The description given in it by three Arab brothers (pp. 327–8) of a strayed camel, which they had never seen, may have suggested to Voltaire the similarly constructive description of the dog and horse of the queen and king of Babylon in ‘Zadig,’ which was written in 1746. In 1739, too, appeared Campbell's ‘Memoirs of the Bashaw Duke de Ripperda’ (second edition 1750). About the same time he began to contribute to the (Ancient) ‘Universal History’ (1740–1744), in which the ‘Cosmogony’ alone is