Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 19.djvu/400

Forbes In the end Forbes accepted 6,000l. in lieu of what had promised to prove a large fortune. Full details of the transaction are given in ‘Memoirs of the Earls of Granard,’ pp. 87–93. In January 1711 the Duke of Argyll was appointed to the command in Spain. He set out in the spring, leaving Forbes, who was to serve with him, in London to solicit supplies for the army, which was short of money. Forbes obtained an order for eight hundred thousand dollars of the Genoese treasure, and set off, riding through Holland, Germany, the Tyrol, and Italy to Genoa, where he took ship, with such despatch that he reached Barcelona in twenty-one days from England. He served with the army in Spain during that year, at the head of three hundred cavalrymen drafted from home, whom Argyll purposed to form into a new regiment of horse under Forbes's command. The regiment was never completed, as peace negotiations were too far advanced. A return of the army in Spain, dated 19 Feb. 1712, is in ‘Treasury Papers,’ cxliv. 23, and is the only paper of any interest entered under Forbes's name in the ‘Calendars of State Papers’ for the period. In 1712 Forbes was appointed to the Greenwich of 50 guns, and became cornet and major in his troop of horse-guards. After the peace of Utrecht he commanded a small squadron of vessels in the Mediterranean, and took up his residence with his wife and child in Minorca, whence he returned home in 1716. The year after he was appointed lieutenant-governor of the castle of St. Phillipa, Minorca, and acted as governor of the island during the brief hostilities with Spain in 1718. He introduced better order in the island, and abolished the trials for witchcraft, which had been a source of much misery.

On his return home in 1719 Forbes, at the desire of George I, proceeded to Vienna, to carry into effect a long-cherished project of the emperor Charles VI, of forming a naval power either in Naples and Sicily or on the Adriatic, for which purpose Forbes received the rank of vice-admiral in the imperial service with a salary of twelve thousand florins a year, and unlimited powers of organisation. But the imperialist ministers looked coldly on the scheme, and adopted a policy of tacit obstruction, which at the end of two years led Forbes to resign his appointment in private audience with the emperor, who presented him with a valuable diamond ring in recognition of his services. Forbes joined the king at Hanover, and afterwards returned home. In 1724 he was appointed to command the Canterbury of 60 guns on the Mediterranean station, and was employed on shore at the defence of Gibraltar against the Spaniards in 1726–7. In September 1727 Forbes, who had previously sat in the English House of Commons for the borough of Queenborough, was called to the Irish house of peers under the title of Baron Forbes. In 1729 he was appointed governor and captain-general of the Leeward Islands, a post he resigned at the end of a year. In 1730 he proposed to the government to lead a colony to Lake Erie, where it would form a barrier against French encroachments from Canada. He was to be fettered by ‘no restrictions beyond the ten commandments,’ and was to have an annual grant of 12,000l. for the use of the colony for seven years. If the government at the end of that time was satisfied to take over the settlement, Forbes was to be created an English peer, with a perpetual pension of 1,000l. a year out of the revenues of the post office. If the government were not satisfied to take over the colony, a grant of the sum was to be made to Forbes and his heirs, with a palatinate jurisdiction, similar to that of Lord Baltimore in Maryland, in which case Forbes was to repay the 84,000l. advanced, and pledged his family estates as security for the amount. Sir Robert Walpole, who disliked Forbes as being ‘too busy and curious,’ admitted the fairness of the terms, but the project was not carried out. In 1731 Forbes was appointed to the Cornwall of 80 guns, and commanded that ship in the Mediterranean under Sir Charles Wager. This was the last time he served afloat.

In 1733 Forbes was appointed envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to the Empress Anne of Russia. He negotiated and concluded a treaty—the first entered into by the court of St. Petersburg with any European state—for the better regulation of the customs, and for favouring the introduction of British woollen goods. After his return to England in 1734 the czarina, with whom he was a favourite, offered him supreme command of the imperial Russian navy, which he declined. He obtained his flag rank and succeeded to the title of Earl of Granard on the death of his father the same year.

In 1737 Granard, who was a member of the Irish Linen Company, and took much interest in political economy, was instrumental in introducing improvements in the Irish currency. The details will be found in ‘Memoirs of the Earls of Granard,’ pp. 145–51. When the popular outcry against Spain arose in 1739, he was offered the command of ‘a stout squadron’ for the West Indies, but declined, believing the ministry not to be in earnest; nevertheless when his senior,