Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 25.djvu/124

 Hastings imputation had been thrown on his humanity, I and demanded a public apology from the duke, which after some wrangling was duly given (Parl. Hist. xxii. 966-70n.) On 20 Nov. 1782 Rawdon received the rank of colonel, and was at the same time appointed aide-de-camp to the king. On 5 March 1783 he was created an English peer by the style of Baron Rawdon of Rawdon in the county of York (Journals of the House of Lords, xxxvi. 624), and in December of the same year spoke in opposition to Fox's India Bill (Parl. Hist. xxiv. 176-7). For the next few years he does not appear to have taken much part in the debates, but after 1787, when he quarrelled with Pitt and joined the opposition, he spoke more frequently. In May 1789 he acted as the Duke of York's second in his duel with Lieutenant-colonel Lennox (afterwards fourth Duke of Richmond) on Wimbledon Common (Gent. Mag. vol. lix. pt. i. pp. 463—4, 565), and on 29 Dec. in the same year moved the amendment on the regency question in favour of the Prince of Wales, whose intimate friend he had become (Parl. Hist. xxvii. 858-9). On the death of her brother Francis, tenth earl of Huntingdon, in October 1789, Lady Moira succeeded to the barony of Hastings, while the earldom of Huntingdon remained dormant until 1819, when it, was confirmed to Hans Francis Hastings [q. v.], a descendant, of the second earl. On 10 Feb. 1790 Rawdon, in pursuance of his uncle's will, took the surname of Hastings in addition to his own surname of Rawdon, and on 20 June 1793 succeeded his father as the second Earl of Moira in the peerage of Ireland, he was promoted to the rank of major-general on 12 Oct. 1793, and was appointed, on Cornwallis's recommendation, to the command of an expeditionary force, which in December was sent to aid the insurrection of the royalists in Brittany, but returned without effecting anything. In June 1794 he was despatched with seven thousand men to the assistance of the Duke of York. He landed at Ostend on the very day on which the Prince of Coburg was defeated at Fleurus, and, after a brilliant and rapid march through a country in possession of an enemy vastly superior in numbers, effected a junction with the Duke of York's army at Malines.

In 1797 an abortive scheme was set on foot by certain members of parliament for the formation of a new ministry, at the head of which Moira was to be placed, and from which all 'persons who on either side had made themselves obnoxious to the publick' should be excluded (Gent. Mag. 1798, vol. lxviii. pt. i.p. 228). In March and again in November of this year Moira brought the state of Ireland before the English House of Lords, and declared his conviction that 'these discontents have arisen from too mistaken an application of severities,' and that he had 'seen in Ireland the most absurd, as well as the most disgusting, tyranny that any nation ever groaned under' (Parl. Hist. xxxiii. 1059). On 1 Jan. 1798 he was appointed a lieutenant-general, and on 19 Feb. made another violent attack upon the Irish government in the Irish House of Lords. In March he offered in the English House of Lords to prove by affidavits the statements which he had previously made in both houses with regard to the state of Ireland, but the challenge was not accepted (ib. xxxiii. 1353-4). During the debate on the resolutions relative to a union with Ireland in March 1799 Moira opposed the measure in a speech of considerable power (ib. xxxiv. 696-706). But though he voted by proxy against the union in the Irish House of Lords, he afterwards withdrew his opposition to it in the English house (ib. xxxv. 170-1). In 1801 Moira opposed the Irish Martial Law and Habeas Corpus Suspension Indemnity Bills (ib. 1237-8, 1538). He was appointed commander-in-chief of the forces in Scotland, where he became exceedingly popular, and on 25 Sept. 1803 was promoted to the rank of general. In December 1803 he was proposed for the office of lord-rector of the university of Glasgow, and was defeated by the Lord-chief-baron Dundas by only one vote. On 23 May 1804 he received the colonelcy of the 27th foot. When the ministry of 'All the Talents' was formed in 1806, Moira was admitted to the privy council (5 Feb.), and appointed master of the ordnance (8 Feb.) and constable of the Tower (12 Feb.) He took an active part on behalf of the Prince of Wales in the investigation into the conduct of the princess.

On the accession of the Duke of Portland to power in March 1807, Moira retired from the ordnance office, and was succeeded by John, second earl of Chatham. On the death of his mother on 12 April 1808 Moira succeeded to the English baronies of Botreaux, Hungerford, De Moleyns, and Hastings. In the session of 1810-11 he took a prominent share in the debates on the questions arising out of the king's illness, supporting the interests of the Prince of Wales to the utmost of his power. In January 1812 he both spoke and voted in favour of Lord Fitzwilliam's motion for the consideration of the state of affairs in Ireland (Parl. Debates, xxi. 458-61), and in March, and again in April, of the same year expressed himself strongly in favour of Roman catholic emancipation (ib. xxii. 87-9, 653-