Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 43.djvu/60

 in Anti-heroics,’ 4to, London, 1737. 3. ‘Some Reflections upon the Administration of Government’ (anon.), 8vo, London, 1740. His writings were collected in a volume entitled ‘Miscellanies in Prose and Verse,’ 8vo, London, 1741, now very scarce (, Royal and Noble Authors, ed. Park, iv. 177–80). Paget's letters to his mother and father are in Addit. MS. 8880, f. 151.

His son, (1719–1769), who succeeded his grandfather in 1743 as second Earl of Uxbridge, was chiefly remarkable for an inordinate love of money. Peter Walter, the notorious usurer, who had been his steward, bequeathed to him in 1746 the principal part of his immense wealth (, Buckinghamshire, ii. 596). Uxbridge is said, however, to have continued to Walter's daughter, Mrs. Bullock, during her life the payment of a very large annuity, instead of availing himself to the full of the letter of her father's will (Monthly Mag. xii. 37). He died unmarried on 16 Nov. 1769, and the earldom became extinct.

But the barony-in-fee of Paget devolved on Henry, son of Sir Nicholas Bayly, by Caroline, great-granddaughter of William, fifth baron Paget [q. v.] Henry Bayly assumed the surname of Paget; was summoned to parliament in 1770 as ninth Baron Paget; was created Earl of Uxbridge in 1784; and by his wife Jane, eldest daughter of Arthur Champagné, dean of Clonmacnoise, was father of Henry William, first marquis of Anglesey [q. v.], Arthur [q. v.], Edward [q. v.], and Charles [q. v.]

[Collins's Peerage, ed. 1812, iii. 207, v. 191–2; Doyle's Official Baronage, iii. 548.]  PAGET, HENRY WILLIAM, first (1768–1854), was eldest son of Henry Paget, earl of Uxbridge, who died in 1812 [see under, first , ad fin.] His younger brothers Arthur [q. v.], Charles [q. v.], and Edward [q. v.] are noticed separately. Born in London on 17 May 1768, he was educated at Westminster School and at Christ Church, Oxford. In 1790 he entered parliament as member for the Carnarvon boroughs, which he represented till 1796; he was afterwards M.P. for Milborne Port in 1796, 1802–4, 1806, and 1807–10. He served in the Staffordshire militia, which was commanded by his father; and in September 1793 he raised a regiment of infantry, the Staffordshire volunteers, chiefly from his father's tenantry. This was one of twelve regiments added to the establishment on the outbreak of the war with France, and became the 80th of the line. He was given the temporary rank of lieutenant-colonel 12 Sept. 1793. Three months afterwards he took his regiment to Guernsey, and in June 1794 they joined the army under the Duke of York in Flanders.

The success of Jourdan at Fleurus and Charleroi in that month obliged the allies to evacuate the Netherlands. The British army fell back before Pichegru from Tournay to the Dutch frontier; it eventually had to cross the Rhine, and embarked for England at Bremen in the following spring. For a considerable part of this time Lord Paget (as he then was), though a soldier of only twelve months' service, was in command of a brigade. Sir Harry Calvert, who was on the Duke of York's staff, says that in the autumn there was only one major-general available for five brigades of infantry, and this was particularly detrimental to the service, because ‘the field officers are many of them boys, and have attained their rank by means suggested by government at home’ (Journals and Correspondence, p. 385).

In 1795, to give him a permanent position in the army, Paget was commissioned as lieutenant in the 7th royal fusiliers on 11 March, captain in the 23rd fusiliers on 25 March, major in the 65th foot on 20 May, and lieutenant-colonel of the 16th light dragoons on 15 June. He was made colonel in the army on 3 May 1796, and on 6 April of the following year he became lieutenant-colonel of the 7th light dragoons.

In the expeditionary force—half English, half Russian—which was sent to Holland in 1799 under the Duke of York, he had command of the cavalry brigade, which consisted of his own and three other regiments. The operations were confined to the promontory north of Amsterdam, which did not give much scope for cavalry action; but in the battle of Bergen, 2 Oct., he made good use of an opportunity. Vandamme, who was engaged with Abercromby's division on the sandhills by the coast, seeing that some British guns were unsupported, charged at the head of his cavalry and captured them just before nightfall; but he was charged in his turn by Paget with the 15th light dragoons, the guns were recovered, and he was pursued for nearly a mile to Egmont-op-Zee. Four days afterwards, in the affair at Kastricum, the British cavalry again distinguished itself, and took five hundred prisoners. But the expedition had proved a failure. On 18 Oct. hostilities ceased, and the army re-embarked for England.

Paget now devoted himself to his regiment, of which he became colonel on 16 May 1801, and made it one of the best in the army.