Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 25.djvu/15

 an alliance of England with Holland and Prussia, and, having obtained some support for it in Berlin, and opened it to Lord Carmarthen, he, on 29 May 1787, visited England, and was present at two cabinet meetings to urge it on the ministry. He received 20,000l. of secret service money with which to promote it in Holland. Eventually he succeeded, and having been appointed ambassador on 14 March 1788, he signed the treaty on 15 April. On 19 Sept. he was created Baron Malmesbury, and also received the Prussian order of the Black Eagle.

After a short visit to Switzerland he returned to England in the autumn of 1788, and constantly voted against Pitt in the divisions upon the regency restrictions. Lord Sidney (ib. i. 409) alleges that he had previously made a private offer of his support to Pitt, but the charge seems groundless. Till 1793, except for a short visit to Italy in 1792, he remained in England in close connection with Fox and his political friends, and also in the intimacy of the Prince of Wales, whom, at two interviews, 4 and 7 June 1792, he succeeded in dissuading from his scheme of annoying his father by retiring to the continent. In 1793 he, with the ‘old whigs,’ left Fox, and on 30 Nov. of the same year Pitt sent him to Berlin to impress on King Frederick William his treaty obligations to England in the French war. Although he procured another treaty in 1794 for Prussian aid in men to the allies in return for English payments of money, he failed to keep the Prussian king to his engagements, and was recalled on 24 Oct. He was then employed to solicit for the Prince of Wales the hand of Princess Caroline of Brunswick, acted as the prince's proxy at the ceremony in Germany, and escorted the princess to England. The prince never forgave him even this official share in bringing about the match. At the end of October 1796 he was sent to Paris to negotiate terms of peace, but being instructed to insist on the restoration of the Low Countries to the emperor, he was unsuccessful. The attempt was, however, renewed in 1797, and on 3 July he was sent to Lille, but the occurrences of the 18th Fructidor removed all hopes of peace, and on 18 Sept. he left for England. With this mission, although Pitt offered him another in 1800 which never took place, his public life closed. At that time he was undoubtedly at the head of the diplomatic service, but he considered himself incapacitated by his great and increasing deafness. On 29 Dec. 1800 he was created Earl of Malmesbury and Viscount Fitzharris. He continued in close intimacy with Canning and Pitt, and was often engaged as a negotiator in the political transactions of his time. He was also frequently consulted on questions of foreign policy by them and by the Duke of Portland. He warmly supported and assisted Canning in his plan for requesting Addington in 1802 to give way to Pitt, but on 21 Nov. Pitt came to him at Bath and put an end to the project. In July 1803 he was sounded about entering the cabinet, but he refused to join Addington. There was afterwards some prospect of his succeeding Lord Harrowby at the foreign office. He is said to have encouraged the king in his resistance to Lord Howick's catholic policy, but he now withdrew more and more into private life. In July 1807 he refused the governorship of the Isle of Wight, but accepted the lieutenancy of Hampshire, and was sworn in 12 Aug. From this year until his death he passed his time between London and Park Place, Henley. He died in Hill Street, Mayfair, on 21 Nov. 1820, of old age, and was buried in Salisbury Cathedral, where a monument by Chantrey was subsequently erected. Talleyrand said of him: ‘Je crois que Lord Malmesbury était le plus habile Ministre que vous aviez de son temps; c'était inutile de le devancer; il falloit le suivre de près.’ When young he was very handsome, and his brilliant eyes and white hair gained him in old age the name of ‘The Lion.’ There are portraits of him by Reynolds in middle life, and by Lawrence in 1815, both engraved in the edition of his letters and diaries published by his grandson in 1844, which forms one of the most valuable memoirs of his time. His letters to his family were published in 1870. He himself published an edition of his father's works, with a prefatory memoir in 1801. He married, 28 July 1777, Harriet Mary, youngest daughter of Sir George Amyand, bart., by whom he had two sons, James Edward, second earl (father of James Howard Harris [q. v.], third earl, and of Charles Amyand Harris [q. v.], bishop of Gibraltar), and Thomas Alfred, prebendary of York, and two daughters.

 HARRIS, JAMES HOWARD, third (1807–1889), born on 25 March 1807, was the grandson of James Harris, first earl [q. v.], and the eldest son of James Edward Harris, second earl, by his wife Harriet Susan, daughter of Francis Bateman Dashwood of Well Vale, Lincolnshire. His father, the second earl, was in 1807 under-secretary for foreign affairs under Canning, and subsequently governor of the Isle of 