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 50,000l. when the king came in, and was only 15,000l. better than he was then. ‘I do take him for a most honest man,’ adds the diarist (12 April 1667). He was also a bold man, for he took the liberty of recommending to the king the necessity of preserving at least a show of religion and sobriety (, 27 July 1667). His education was very defective. Marvell sneers at his ‘ill English,’ and Pepys was shocked by his ignorance of the meaning of the device S.P.Q.R., ‘which ignorance is not to be borne in a privy counsellor, methinks, what a schoolboy would be whipped for not knowing’ (Diary, 4 July 1663). Carteret's death is announced in the ‘London Gazette’ of 14 Jan. 1680, where it is stated that he was ‘near eighty years old, of which he had spent fifty-five in the service of his majesty and his royal father.’ At the time of his death the king was about to raise him to the peerage, and consequently granted to his widow, by warrant dated 14 Feb. 1680, the same precedence as if the promised creation had actually taken place (warrant quoted by ).

His eldest son, Philip, whose marriage with Jemima Montague is so amusingly described by Pepys (31 July 1665), had been killed in the battle of Solebay. But George, the son of this marriage, was elevated to the peerage 14 Oct. 1681 as Baron Carteret of Hawnes (, Extinct Peerage).



CARTERET, JOHN, (1690–1763), was eldest surviving son of George, first baron Carteret, by his wife, Lady Grace Granville, youngest daughter of John, first earl of Bath. He was born on 22 April 1690, and when only five years old succeeded to the barony of Carteret on the death of his father on 22 Sept. 1695. He was educated at Westminster School, and Christ Church, Oxford, and was created Doctor of Civil Laws on 26 April 1706. He devoted himself with so much ardour to the pursuit of learning, that Swift humorously asserted that, 'with a singularity scarce to be justified, he carried away more Greek, Latin, and philosophy than properly became a person of his rank; indeed, much more of each than most of those who are forced to live by their learning will be at the unnecessary pains to load their heads with' (, Works, vii. 476). In March 1710 his younger brother Philip, who had obtained his election into college in 1707, died at Westminster School, and was buried in the north aisle of the abbey, where there is a monument to his memory, the epitaph for which was written by Dr. Freind. Carteret took his seat in the House of Lords on 25 May 1711, and soon became known as a staunch supporter of the protestant succession. He was appointed by George I one of the gentlemen of his bedchamber on 18 Oct 1714; in July 1715 bailiff of the island of Jersey; and on 6 July 1716 lord-lieutenant and custos rotulorum of the county of Devon. This last office he held until August 1721, when he resigned it in favour of Hugh, fourteenth baron Clinton. His mother, who had succeeded as coheiress of the great Bath estates on the death of her nephew William, third earl of Bath, without issue in May 1711, was on 1 Jan. 1715 created Viscountess Carteret and Countess Granville, with remainder to her son John and his heirs male and a special remainder of the viscounty in default of his male issue to his uncle Edward Carteret and his heirs male. His first recorded speech in the House of Lords was made on 14 April 1716, when he spoke in favour of the Duke of Devonshire's Septennial Bill (Parl. Hist. vii. 298-9). In the following year, when the great schism among the whigs occurred upon the dismissal of Lord Townshend from office, Carteret joined the Sunderland section of the whig party. On 25 Jan. 1719 he was appointed ambassador extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to the queen of Sweden, but did not leave England until 1 June. He successfully accomplished the objects of his embassy, obtaining both the promise of compensation to all British subjects who had sustained losses in the Baltic, and the right of freedom of trade and navigation in that sea for all British ships in future. His offer, on behalf of the king, to mediate between Sweden and Denmark, and also between the former country and the czar, was readily accepted by the queen. A peace between Sweden, Prussia, and Hanover was concluded through the instrumentality of Carteret, and proclaimed at Stockholm on 9 March 1720. This was a prelude to a reconciliation between Sweden and Denmark. A preliminary treaty between these two countries having been signed, Carteret was appointed, in conjunction with Lord Polwarth, ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary to the congress of Brunswick for the purpose of finally adjusting the differences in the north of Europe. In June 1720 he left Carlberg, and set out for Denmark. Arriving at Fredericksburgh, he had his first audience with the Danish king on the 19th. After a conference