Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 60.djvu/264

 stately oak which still grows hard by the mansion at Toddington (for a view of the Monmouth Oak in 1890, see Wentworth Family, p. 130). The barony passed to Henrietta's aunt, Anne, lady Lovelace (the poet's Lucasta), only surviving daughter of the Earl of Cleveland, and on her death, 7 May 1697, it was transmitted to her granddaughter Martha, only surviving child of John Lovelace, third lord Lovelace of Hurley.

A fine portrait by Kneller was engraved by R. Williams, and is reproduced in Rutton's ‘Wentworth Family’ (p. 102; cf. Notes and Queries, 9th ser. ii. 12). A very dissimilar portrait was engraved by W. Richardson after an original dated 1675, and ascribed to Lely.

[Rutton's Family of Wentworth, London, 1891, pp. 102 sq.; Wentworth's Wentworth Genealogy, Boston, 1878, i. 43; Miscellanea Genealog. et Herald. 1884, new ser. iv. 341; Burnet's Own Time, i. 630, 645; Evelyn's Diary, 15 July 1685; Sidney's Diary, ed. Blencowe; Fox's Life of James II, 1808, p. 266; Roberts's Life of Monmouth, i. 177, ii. 339; Welwood's Memoirs, 1702, p. 377; Cartwright's Sacharissa, pp. 233, 273; Macaulay's Hist. of England 1858, i. 535, 625; Granger's Biogr. Hist. of England, iii. 347; Hist. MSS. Comm. 7th Rep. App. pp. 264 seq.]  WENTWORTH, JOHN (1737–1820), successively governor of New Hampshire and Nova Scotia, baptised on 14 Aug. 1737, was the son of Mark Hunking Wentworth (1709–1785), a wealthy merchant of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of John Rindge of Portsmouth.

The New Hampshire family of Wentworth was derived from William Wentworth (1616–1697), baptised at Alford, Lincolnshire, on 15 March 1615–16. He was the eldest son of William Wentworth of Rigsby in the same county, by his wife Susannah, daughter of Edward Carter and widow of Uther Fleming. He held strong puritan views, and was a firm friend of John Wheelwright, the vicar of Bilsby, a neighbouring village, who was a man of like beliefs. To avoid persecution, they emigrated to Boston together in 1636. But even there they failed to find toleration, for Wheelwright embraced the opinions of his sister-in-law, Anne Hutchinson [q. v.], and was banished from the town in November 1637. In the following year Wentworth joined him in founding the settlement of Exeter in New Hampshire on lands purchased from the Indians. In 1641, however, Exeter was included in the Massachusetts territory, and Wheelwright was obliged to remove to Wells in Maine, whither his faithful friend Wentworth accompanied him. In 1649 Wentworth again removed to Dover, a place then in Massachusetts, but afterwards transferred to New Hampshire, which he made his permanent abode. He became ruling elder in the church there. In 1689, when an old man, he saved Heard's garrison from a massacre planned by the natives. Discovering that Indians were being admitted by treachery during the darkness of night, he drove them back single-handed, and held the door of the fort till assistance came. He died at Dover on 16 March 1696–7, leaving a numerous family.

His descendant, John Wentworth, graduated B.A. at Harvard College in 1755, proceeding M.A. in 1758, and became early associated in his father's business at Portsmouth. Before 1765 he was sent to England to look after the interests of the firm, and on the passage of the Stamp Act in that year he and the agent for the province, Barlow Trecothick, were instructed to use their influence for its repeal. On 11 Aug. 1766 he was nominated governor of New Hampshire, in place of his uncle, Benning Wentworth (1696–1770), and also ‘surveyor of the king's woods’ for all North America. Before embarking to take up his governorship he received the honorary degree of D.C.L. from Oxford University on 12 Aug. 1766. He landed at Charlestown in South Carolina in March 1767, and travelled through the continent, registering his commission as surveyor in each of the colonies, and reaching Portsmouth in June.

In face of the widespread disaffection Wentworth found his office of governor very arduous; the discontent of the colonists grew more acute, and his difficulties increased. Although he considered the taxes imposed by the home government impolitic and oppressive, and did all in his power to obtain their repeal, he wished to preserve the colony in loyalty to the crown. He wrote urgent remonstrances to the home government, and endeavoured to maintain internal tranquillity. His popularity was great in the early stages of the revolution, and after the imposition of the duties on paper, glass, painters' colours, red and white lead, and tea by Townshend in 1767, he had sufficient influence to prevent the adoption of a non-importation agreement in Portsmouth until 1770, when the merchants of the other colonies threatened to cease trade unless an association were formed. Wentworth even found time for improving the internal administration, dividing the province into counties in 1771, and abolishing the paper currency, a relic of the French war. When the final