Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 23.djvu/125

Grenville noticed. His wife died at Wotton on 5 Dec. 1769. Several pamphlets have been attributed to Grenville without sufficient authority. Three letters addressed to Grenville, and written by Junius in 1768, were published for the first time in the ‘Grenville Papers.’ Junius, who positively asserted that he had no personal knowledge of Grenville, appears to have felt more esteem for him than for any other politician of the day. A portrait of Grenville, painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds in 1764, was exhibited at the second Loan Exhibition of National Portraits in 1867 (Catalogue, No. 465). An earlier portrait of Grenville, by W. Hoare, has been engraved by Houston and James Watson.

[The following authorities, among others, may be consulted : Grenville Papers (1852-3); Chatham Correspondence (1838-40); Correspondence of the Duke of Bedford (1842-6); Walpole's Memoirs of the Reign of George II (1847); Walpole's Memoirs of the Reign of George III (1845); Walpole's Letters (1857); Lord Albemarle's Memoirs of the Marquis of Rockingham (1852); Lord Mahon's History of England (1858), vols. iv. v.; Lecky's History of England (1882), vol. iii.; Lord Macaulay's Essays (1885), pp. 744-91; Collins's Peerage (1812), ii. 410, 415-19; Lipscombe's History of Buckinghamshire (1847), i. 600-1, 614; Haydn's Book of Dignities (1851); Foster's Alumni Oxonienses, pt. ii. p. 562; Official Return of Lists of Members of Parliament, pt. ii. pp. 85, 98, 109, 123, 137; Masters of the Bench of the Inner Temple (1883), p. 78; Lincoln's Inn Registers.]  GRENVILLE, GEORGE NUGENT-TEMPLE-, first (1753–1813), second son of George Grenville [q. v.], by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Sir William Wyndham, bart.,was born on 17 June 1753. He was educated at Eton, and on the death of the Earl of Macclesfield, in March 1764, became one of the tellers of the exchequer, a post of great profit, the reversion of which had been granted him by patent dated 2 May 1763. Grenville matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford, on 20 April 1770, but did not take a degree. At the general election in October 1774 he was elected one of the members for Buckinghamshire. In March 1775 his motion for leave to bring in a bill to enable members of parliament to vacate their seats was negatived by 173 to 126 (Parliamentary Hist. xviii. 421). In February 1776 he supported Lord North in the debate on the German treaties for the hire of troops, asserting that he had ‘no doubt of the right of parliament to tax America, and consequently must concur in the coercive measures’ (ib. 1179). During the debate in February 1778 on Fox's motion on the state of the British forces in America, Grenville in an animated speech condemned the conduct of the American war, and declared for the recall of Chatham (ib. xix. 721-3). In November 1778, while opposing the address of thanks, Grenville insisted that the removal of the ministry was ‘an indispensable preliminary to any overtures for a reconciliation with America’ (ib. 1369). In March 1779 he supported Fox's motion on the state of the navy, and declared that the measures respecting America had been wrong at the outset (ib. xx. 231-2). Grenville succeeded his uncle Richard [q. v.] as second Earl Temple on 11 Sept. 1779, and in the following month obtained the royal license to take ‘the names and arms of Nugent and Temple in addition to his own, and also to subscribe the name of Nugent before all titles of honor’ (London Gazette, 1779, No. 12036). In February 1780 Temple made his maiden speech in the House of Lords in support of Shelburne's motion for a committee of inquiry into the public expenditure, and explained at some length the reasons which had governed his political conduct in the House of Commons (Parl. Hist. xx. 1354-7). On the downfall of Lord North's administration he became lord-lieutenant and custos rotulorum of Buckinghamshire (30 March 1782), and on 31 July 1782 was appointed lord-lieutenant of Ireland in the place of the Duke of Portland, being admitted a member of the English privy council on the same day. It was not, however, until 15 Sept. that Temple took up his duties at Dublin. In his early letters to Shelburne soon after his arrival he expressed the greatest alarm at the state of affairs in Ireland, and urged the government to immediately summon a new parliament, in order to counteract the influence of the volunteers. Though at first Temple emphatically declared that ‘simple repeal comprised complete renunciation, he considered that after Lord Mansfield's decision on an Irish case, which had been removed into the king's bench prior to the passing of the act (22 Geo. III, c. 53), a renunciation bill had become a political necessity. In accordance with his advice the Irish Judicature Bill was introduced into the English parliament early in 1783; it passed without difficulty through both houses, and formed ‘the coping-stone of the constitution of 1782’ (, History of England, vi. 313). On 5 Feb. 1783 a royal warrant was addressed to the lord-lieutenant, authorising him to cause letters patent to be passed under the great seal of Ireland for the creation of the new order of St. Patrick. Though no letters patent appear to have been executed (, History of the Orders of British Knighthood,