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 that Rockingham should form an administration on a comprehensive basis, but they failed to agree with reference to the American colonies, and Bedford refused to assent to the demand of the marquis that Conway should be secretary of state and leader of the House of Commons. Accordingly the negotiations fell through (Correspondence, u.s. pp. 365–88; Memoirs of Rockingham, ii. 46–59). In December Grafton again negotiated with him, and this time successfully. Bedford brought his political connection with Grenville to an end. He refused to accept office for himself; his eyesight was bad. But he accepted Grafton's offers for his friends, who were styled ‘the Bloomsbury gang;’ some of them received office, and the party gave its adhesion to the ministry (, u.s. iii. 100). It was this arrangement that drew from ‘Junius’ his ‘Letter to the Duke of Bedford,’ perhaps the most malignant of the whole series of his letters (, Sketches of Statesmen, i. 162 seq.).

On the 20th Bedford underwent an operation for cataract, attended apparently with only partial success. From that time he took comparatively little part in public affairs. His health was not strong, but he did not allow it to seclude him either from business or amusement; he attended the House of Lords, the council, and the court, went to the opera, of which he was fond, and to public and private entertainments, and was active, as he had always been, in the management of his estates. While visiting Devonshire, where he was lord-lieutenant and had large estates, in July 1769, he was set upon by a Wilkite mob at Honiton, and pelted with stones, having a narrow escape from serious injury (Correspondence, iii. Introd. p. lxxx; cf., u.s. pp. 251–2). In the spring of 1770 he had a severe illness, and appears to have become partially paralysed, but retained his mental faculties; he visited Bath later in the year, and returned thence to Woburn in December in a very enfeebled state. He died on 15 Jan. 1771, and was buried at Chenies.

In private life Bedford was affectionate and warm-hearted, fond of sport, and the ordinary avocations of a landed proprietor. The accusations of parsimony brought against him appear to have been unfair; though prudent in business and not given to extravagance, he was not deficient in liberality, nor even in magnificence when occasion demanded, as during his residence in Ireland. Hot-tempered, proud, and with an inordinately high opinion of himself, he sometimes spoke without regard for the feelings of others. He was thoroughly honest, high-spirited, and courageous. His intellect was good, and he had plenty of common-sense. His speeches, so far as they are extant, though seldom eloquent and often wrongheaded, show knowledge and apprehension of the subjects under debate. But he owed his influence in politics rather to his rank and vast wealth than to any personal qualities. In several of the political negotiations into which he entered he appears as offering his support at the price of places and honours. This was characteristic of the time and of the great whig families, among whom politics were matters of party and connection rather than of principle. His demands were on behalf of his party, who urged their claims upon him. Obstinate and ungovernable as his temper was, he was constantly governed by others, by his wife, his friends, and his followers, and, unfortunately for his reputation, he chose his friends badly, and was surrounded by a group of greedy and unscrupulous political adherents.

By his first wife, Lady Diana Spencer, who died on 27 Sept. 1735, he had one son, who died on the day of his birth. He married his second wife, Gertrude Leveson-Gower, eldest daughter of John, earl Gower, in April 1737; she died on 1 July 1794. By her the duke had two sons and a daughter. The younger son died in infancy, and the daughter, Caroline, born on 6 Jan. 1743, married, on 23 Aug. 1762, George Spencer, duke of Marlborough. The elder son, Francis, styled Marquis of Tavistock, born 26 Sept. 1739, married, in 1764, Elizabeth, youngest daughter of William Keppel, second earl of Albemarle, and died 22 March 1767, leaving issue, of whom the eldest son, Francis [q. v.], succeeded his grandfather as fifth Duke of Bedford.

Jervis and Gainsborough painted the duke's portrait. That by Gainsborough, dated 1764, was copied by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and engraved in his ‘Correspondence,’ vol. i., and by S. W. Reynolds.

[Correspondence of John, fourth duke of Bedford, ed. Lord John Russell, cited as ‘Correspondence’; Wiffen's Hist. Memoirs of the House of Russell; Hervey's Memoirs, ed. 1884; Barrow's Life of Anson; Ballantyne's Life of Carteret; Coxe's Pelham Administration; Chatham Corr.; Albemarle's Memoirs of Rockingham; Hume's Private Corresp. ed. 1820; Junius's Letters (Bohn); Brougham's Sketches of Statesmen, ed. 1845; Parl. Hist.; Annual Register; Almon's Political Register; Lecky's Hist. of England; Adolphus's Hist. of England; Collins's Peerage, ed. Brydges; Doyle's Official Baronage; Walpole's Memoirs of Geo. II, ed. 1822, of Geo. III, ed. Barker, and Letters, ed. 1880; Chester-