Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 29.djvu/315

 Frobiser on a second voyage to Cathay, and also as one of the venturers. In 1577 he was sent on a special mission to Embden to treat with the commissioners of the king of Denmark on the right of navigating the northern seas, as well as about the Sound dues. In 1578 he was on the commission to report on the ore brought home by Frobiser. About this time he moved to Sywell, which he had bought from his father-in-law, and there he lived for the next twenty years or more. Somewhere about 1600 he seems to have moved to Ashton in Northamptonshire, and to have died at a very advanced age while on a visit to his friend Sir Philip Sherard of Tighe in Rutland, where he was buried 26 Feb. 1610–11, but no existing monument marks the grave. He had a son and five daughters, all of whom married and had issue; two other daughters and two sons died in childhood. From Anthony Jenkinson was descended Charles Jenkinson, first earl of Liverpool [q. v.] On 14 Feb. 1568–9 Jenkinson received a grant of arms—Azure, a fess wavy argent, in chief three etoiles or; with the crest—a seahorse. The idea of this coat was clearly suggested by the arms of the Muscovy Company, and the charges on the shield are in allusion to his sea service; the preamble of the patent describes him as ‘one who for the service of his prince, weal of his country, and for knowledge sake, hath not feared to adventure and hazard his life, and to wear his body with long and painful travel into divers and sundry countries.’ Jenkinson was the first Englishman who penetrated into Central Asia. His voyages, though undertaken mainly in the interests of commerce, served largely to extend geographical knowledge of districts till then barely known by name. He seems to have been a good observer, so far as was then possible; and many of his determinations of latitude, both in Europe and Asia, are fairly exact; but far more interesting than these are his acute descriptions of his routes and of the people through whose country he passed.

 JENKINSON, CHARLES, first (1727–1808), born on 26 April 1727 at Winchester, was eldest son of Charles Jenkinson (d. 1750) of Burford Lawn Lodge, in the forest of Whichwood, Oxfordshire, colonel of the royal horse guards blue at Dettingen, by his wife Amarantha, daughter of Wolfran Cornewall, a captain in the royal navy. Charles's father was third son of Sir Robert Jenkinson of Walcot, Oxfordshire, and Hawkesbury, Gloucestershire, second baronet. His grandfather, Robert (d. 1677), was created a baronet in 1661. The Jenkinsons descended from Anthony Jenkinson [q. v.], and had been long settled in Oxfordshire, the first four baronets being successively M.P.'s for the county. Charles was educated at Charterhouse and at University College, Oxford, where, after a distinguished career, he graduated M.A. in 1752. He published ‘Verses on the Death of Frederick, Prince of Wales;’ in 1756 a ‘Dissertation on the Establishment of a Natural and Constitutional Force in England independent of a Standing Army;’ and in 1758 a ‘Discourse on the Conduct of Government respecting Neutral Nations;’ and he is also said to have contributed to the magazines. He took an active share in promoting the return of Sir Edward Turner for Oxfordshire in 1760, especially by writing a clever election song. He thus was brought under the notice of Lord Bute, and became his private secretary.

In March 1761 he was appointed an under-secretary of state, and a seat in the House of Commons was found for him at Cockermouth, which he held till 1767; he afterwards represented Appleby, 1767–72; Harwich, 1772–4; Hastings, 1774–80; Saltash, 1780–6. As he rose in favour, not only with Lord Bute but with the king, he was promoted in 1763 to the confidential office of joint secretary to the treasury, and when Lord Bute retired he became leader of the ‘king's friends’ in the House of Commons. Upon the formation of the Rockingham administration in 1765 he resigned, but became auditor of the accounts of the Princess-dowager of Wales. He held this post until her death in 1772. On the suggestion of Lord Chatham he was included in the Grafton administration as a lord of the admiralty, and in September 1767 was made a lord of the treasury; and when, in 1772, it was desired to find room in the ministry for Charles James Fox, he was promoted to be a vice-treasurer of Ireland and a privy councillor. In 1775 he purchased from Fox the valuable patent place of clerk of the pells in Ireland, and succeeded Lord Cadogan as master of the mint. In 1778 he became secretary at war under Lord North, and at the close of the American war had to carry the army estimates through the House of Commons. For a long time he was supposed to possess im-