Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 33.djvu/155

 of censure on the ministers for their conduct towards Ireland, Gower made a violent attack upon the government, and declared that he had 'presided for years at the council table, and had seen such things pass there of late that no man of honour or conscience could any longer sit there' (ib. xx, 1175–6). In March 1783, after the fall of Lord Shelburne's ministry, the post of prime minister was offered to Gower, who had, however, sufficient resolution to refuse it. Upon Pitt's accession to power Gower once more became lord president of the council on 19 Dec. 1783, but was succeeded by Lord Camden in the following year, and appointed lord privy seal on 24 Nov. 1784. On 1 March 1786 he was created Marquis of the county of Stafford, and resigned the office of privy seal in July 1794, upon the Duke of Portland joining the ministry. He died at Trentham Hall, Staffordshire, on 26 Oct. 1803, in his eighty-third year. Gower was a man of considerable parts, great wealth, and much political influence. He was chosen a governor of the Charterhouse on 24 June 1757, and elected F.S.A. on 28 April 1784. During the latter part of his political career he spoke but rarely in the house, 8 Dec. 1788 being the date of his last reported speech (Parl. Hist. xxvii, 6o8). He married, first, on 23 Dec. 1744, Elizabeth, daughter of Nicholas Fazakerly of Frescot. Lancashire, who died of small-pox on 19 May 1745, and whose only child John predeceased her. On 28 March 1748 he married, secondly, the Lady Louisa Egerton, eldest daughter of Scroope, first duke of Bridgewater, by whom he had four children, viz, George Granville, who married 4 Sept. 1785 Elizabeth (1765–1839), countess of Sutherland in her own right, succeeded as the second marquis of Stafford, and was on 28 Jan. 1833 created Duke of Sutherland, and three daughters. Gower's second wife died on 14 March 1761, and on 23 May 1768 he married, thirdly, Lady Susannah Stewart, second daughter of Alexander, sixth earl of Galloway, by whom he had three daughters and one son, Granville Leveon-Gower (1773–1846), who was afterwards created Viscount and Earl Granville, and is separatately noticed. His widow survived him but a short time, and died on 15 Aug. 1806. A full-length portrait of Gower by George Romney belongs to the Duke of Sutherland.

 LEVESON-GOWER, GRANVILLE, first (1773–1846), diplomatist, born on 12 Oct. 1778, was third and youngest son of Granville, first marquis of Stafford [see, first ], by his third wife, Lady Susannah Stewart, second daughter of Alexander, sixth earl of Galloway. He matriculated at Christ Church 29 April 1789, and ten years later became a D.C.L. Pitt early befriended him for his father's sake, and appointed him a lord of the treasury in 1800, in succession to the Hon. J. T. Townshend. He had sat for Lichfield from January 1795 to February 1799, when he resigned his seat to be elected for Staffordshire, which he continued to represent for sixteen years. On 19 July 1804 he was sworn of the privy council, and appointed ambassador extraordinary at St. Petersburg. He concluded a treaty, which, however, proved practically inoperative, and in 1805 returned to England. It was Lord Leveson-Gower that Bellingham, the assassin of Perceval in 1812, had intended to kill in revenge for some fancied ill-treatment in Russia. Upon the reconstruction of the ministry it was proposed that he should be made a peer with a seat in the cabinet. In 1815 he was created Viscount Granville, and subsequently became minister at Brussels. Canning was his intimate friend, and in Canning's favour he, on 24 April 1823, carried an amendment in the House of Lords to Lord Ellenborough's motion for an address of censure. In the autumn of 1824 Canning appointed him to succeed Sir Charles Stewart as ambassador at Paris. He received the grand cross of the Bath, and was invested with it by the king of France at the Tuileries on 9 June 1825. Canning had frequent occasion to find fault with him for indolence in forwarding information, but found him in the main a highly trustworthy representative (see, Letters of George Canning, i. 218, 297). In 1827 he was recalled, but Earl Grey, when he became prime minister, reappointed him, and he continued to be ambassador at Paris, with a short interval in 1834, until the fall of Lord Melbourne's administration in 1841. At one time he was on bad terms with Thiers, but for the most part he was highly popular. He was addicted to play, once losing 23,000l. at a