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 Lennox 420). Richmond refused an invitation to join the coalition ministry (, Journal of the Reign of George III, ii. 589; ''Parl. Hist''. xxiv. 155), and resigned his office on 3 April 1783, but resumed it again on the accession of Pitt to power (27 Dec. 1783). At first he declined a seat in Pitt's cabinet, but was admitted to it a few weeks afterwards at his own request (, Life of William Pitt, i. 165–6). His firmness during the struggle against the opposition in 1784 is said to have prevented Pitt from resigning in despair, and it was on this occasion that George III is reported to have said ‘there was no man in his dominions by whom he had been so much offended, and no man to whom he was so much indebted, as the Duke of Richmond’ (Memorials and Correspondence of C. J. Fox, 1853, i. 455). In spite of many previous declarations Richmond now developed into a zealous courtier, and soon grew disinclined to all measures of reform. He became extremely unpopular, and his domestic parsimony was frequently contrasted with the profusion of the public money at the ordnance office (History and Posthumous Memoirs of Sir N. Wraxall, iv. 104; see also The Rolliad, 1795, pp. 142–63). On 14 March 1785 his plans for the fortification of Portsmouth and Plymouth were violently attacked in the House of Commons. Pitt, while consenting to their delay, defended Richmond's character (''Parl. Hist''. xxv. 390). A board of military and naval officers having pronounced favourably upon the plans, Pitt, on 27 Feb. 1786, moved a resolution in favour of effectually securing the Portsmouth and Plymouth dockyards ‘by a permanent system of fortification founded on the most economical principles,’ which was defeated by the casting-vote of the speaker (ib. xxv. 1096–1156).

In March 1787 an acrimonious discussion took place between Richmond and the Marquis of Lansdowne during the debate upon the treaty of commerce with France (ib. xxvi. 554–66, 572–84, 589–95), which put an end to their friendship, and nearly ended in a duel (, Life of William, Earl of Shelburne, iii. 434; and see Life and Letters of Sir Gilbert Elliot, first Earl Minto, 1874, i. 135).

In November 1790 he remonstrated with Pitt in an able and angry letter on Grenville's promotion to the peerage, and declared that this change, ‘which is avowedly made for the sole purpose of giving the House of Lords another leader,’ added to his desire of retiring from public business, ‘which you know I have long had in view’ (, Life of William Pitt, ii. 75–80). In March 1791 he dissented from Pitt as to the advisability of ‘the Russian armament’ (ib. ii. 112–13). On 31 May 1792, during the debate on the king's proclamation against seditious writings, Richmond was violently attacked by Lord Lauderdale for his apostasy in the cause of reform (Parl. Hist. xxix. 1517–1522). After an altercation Lauderdale challenged the Duke of Richmond, and was himself challenged by General Arnold, but the duel in the former case was averted by the interposition of friends (, Life of William Pitt, ii. 158). In November 1794 Richmond was called as a witness at the trials of Thomas Hardy and John Horne Tooke for high treason, when his letter ‘on the subject of a parliamentary reform,’ addressed to Lieutenant-colonel Sharman, chairman of the committee of correspondence appointed by the Irish volunteer delegates, and dated 15 Aug. 1783, in which he had insisted that universal suffrage, ‘together with annual elections, is the only reform that can be effectual and permanent,’ was read at length (, State Trials, 1818, xxiv. 1047–65, xxv. 344, 375–81). This letter, which became, as Erskine said, ‘the very scripture of all these societies,’ was originally published in 1783 (London, 8vo), and passed through a number of editions. It was reprinted in the twenty-fourth volume of the ‘Pamphleteer’ (London, 1824, 8vo), pp. 351–362, and in ‘The Right of the People to Universal Suffrage,’ with prefatory remarks by Henry Brookes (London, 1859, 8vo). For the sake of concord in the cabinet Richmond was removed from the ordnance office in February 1795, and was succeeded by Charles, marquis Cornwallis. He was, however, allowed to remain on the staff, and continued to give a general support to the administration (, Life of William Pitt, ii. 298; Appendix, p. xxii). From a letter to his sister, Lady Louisa Conolly, dated 27 June 1795, it appears that at this time Richmond had become convinced of the necessity of the speedy enactment of a legislative union with Ireland (, History of England in the Eighteenth Century, vii. 133–6). In 1800 he obtained an annuity of 19,000l., payable out of the consolidated fund, in lieu of ‘a certain duty of twelvepence per chaldron of coals shipped in the river Tyne to be consumed in England,’ granted by Charles II to his son Charles, the first duke of Richmond and Lennox, by letters patent, 18 Dec. 1677 (39 & 40 Geo. III, cap. 43). In May 1802 Richmond characterised the terms of the treaty of peace as humiliating, and condemned the conduct of the war and the lavish expense in subsidising German princes (Parl. Hist. xxxvi. 731).