Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 49.djvu/54

 coalition of France and Bavaria with Prussia, Robinson at length induced Maria Theresa to consent to an accommodation with Frederick, who had invaded Silesia. On 7 Aug. 1741 he had an interview with Frederick at Strehlen. Frederick, according to Carlyle, complained that Robinson ‘negotiated in a wordy, high droning way, as if he were speaking in parliament.’ Frederick demanded the cession of Breslau and Lower Silesia, and the negotiation was consequently futile. Robinson left Strehlen on the 9th. Carlyle, who founds his account of the negotiation on Robinson's despatch to Harrington of 9 Aug., dubs the document the ‘Robinsoniad’ (see Frederick the Great, v. 42–8).

On 29 Aug. Robinson reappeared at Breslau with new concessions wrung from the reluctant Maria Theresa; but Frederick refused to negotiate. When, a week later, Lower Silesia was offered, Frederick found the new propositions of ‘l'infatigable Robinson’ as chimerical as the old (, v. 70). Subsequently Robinson urgently appealed to Maria Theresa, whom, according to Sir Luke Schaub, he sometimes moved to tears, to give Frederick better terms. Although he promised her subsidies, he informed her on 2 Aug. 1745, ‘in a copious, sonorous speech,’ that in view of the ineffective assistance she had rendered to England against France, the former power must make peace with Prussia (ib. vi. 112–14; cf. Marchmont Papers, i. 217). On 18 July 1748 Robinson received a peremptory despatch from Newcastle, now secretary of state, demanding the concurrence of Maria Theresa in a general pacification. In case of refusal or delay, Robinson was to leave Vienna within forty-eight hours. Robinson believed Maria Theresa ready to negotiate in due course, but she made no sign within the stipulated period, and on 26 July Robinson left Vienna for Hanover. He was now appointed joint plenipotentiary of England with Sandwich in the peace negotiations of Aix-la-Chapelle (, Pelham Administration, i. 451–2). He left Hanover for the scene of negotiations on 13 Aug., being secretly entrusted by both the king and Newcastle with the principal direction of affairs (ib. i. 465, 466, ii. 7, 8). Sandwich had tried to conclude the negotiations before Robinson's arrival (Newcastle to H. Pelham, 25 Aug.;, ii. 10); but the two plenipotentiaries subsequently worked in harmony (Bedford Corresp. i. 502). Kaunitz, the Austrian representative, at first ‘went with them in nothing;’ but the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was finally signed on 18 Oct. 1748.

Soon after Robinson's return to England he was made one of the lords commissioners of trade—‘a scurvy reward after making the peace,’ wrote Walpole to Mann on 26 Dec. 1748. Robinson, who had held a seat in parliament for Thirsk from 1727 to 1734, was on 30 Dec. 1748 elected for Christchurch. He continued to represent that borough till 1761. In 1749 he was appointed master of the great wardrobe, and was next year sworn of the privy council. On the death of Henry Pelham in 1754, Newcastle, at the king's suggestion, appointed Robinson, who was a favourite at court, secretary of state for the southern department, with the leadership of the House of Commons (cf., Diary, 2 Sept. 1755). He accepted the seals with great reluctance, and stipulated for a brief tenure of them (Chesterfield Corresp. ed. Mahon, iv. 119). Newcastle tried to persuade Pitt, then a member of the ministry as paymaster-general, that the appointment was favourable to his interests, for Robinson had no parliamentary talents which could give rise to jealousy (Chatham Corresp. i. 96). Pitt's own view of Robinson's qualifications was expressed in his remark to Fox, ‘The duke might as well have sent us his jackboot to lead us’ (, Hist. of England, 1846, iv. 60, from Memoirs, ii. 101). To Temple, however, he described Robinson as ‘a very worthy gentleman’ (Grenville Papers, i. 120). Robinson's colleagues combined against him, and rendered his position impossible; Pitt openly attacked him, and the war secretary (Henry Fox) ironically defended him. On 1 Dec. Walpole wrote that ‘Pitt and Fox have already mumbled Sir T. Robinson cruelly.’ Murray, the attorney-general, was Robinson's only faithful ally in the House of Commons. The government majority was, says Waldegrave, largely composed of ‘laughers.’ While in office Robinson, according to Bancroft, told the American agents ‘they must fight for their own altars and firesides’ (Hist. United States, iii. 117). From April to September 1755 he acted as a lord justice during George II's absence from England. In November 1755 Robinson ‘cheerfully gave up the seals’ to Fox, and was reappointed master of the wardrobe. That office he reformed and retained during the rest of the reign. He also received a pension on the Irish establishment. The king would have preferred to retain Robinson as secretary of state; for besides sympathising with the king's German interests, his experience gave him a wide knowledge of foreign affairs, and he was a capable man of business. Robinson, however, well knew his own deficiencies; and when in the spring of 1757 George II, through Waldegrave, again offered him the