Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 63.djvu/265

 and was enabled to get himself returned in 1747 for the family borough of Taunton. He was elected at the same time for Cockermouth, but preferred the Somerset seat. From this time he drew closer and closer to the whigs, allying himself more especially with the Duke of Newcastle.

In February 1750 Wyndham inherited the Cumberland and Sussex estates of his maternal uncle, Algernon, seventh duke of Somerset. Somerset had been created Earl of Egremont and Baron Cockermouth, and according to the terms of the patent his nephew succeeded to these titles.

On 22 March 1751 Egremont moved in the House of Lords the address of condolence with the king on the death of Frederick, prince of Wales. In the same year he was appointed lord-lieutenant of Cumberland. But he neglected his northern estates, and lived almost entirely at Petworth House in Sussex.

Though he rarely took part in debates, Egremont's political reputation steadily increased. Earl Temple, on 8 April 1757, declared him destined to be another Pitt (Grenville Papers, i. 193). In the course of the same summer Egremont, who was now closely connected with Fox, was approached with the view of his becoming secretary of state in the ministry which James Waldegrave, second earl Waldegrave [q. v.], attempted to form (ib. i. 190; Waldegrave Memoirs, p. 120). He at first accepted, but afterwards withdrew his consent. He finally left town, declaring he knew nothing of the matter (Walpole to Mann, 20 April, 9 June 1757). In the spring of 1761 he was named one of the British representatives at Augsburg, where a congress was to meet to arrange terms of peace with France. Both Pitt and Newcastle had recommended him for this employment (Chatham Corresp. ii. 115, Bute to Pitt). The congress never took place; but when in the following October Pitt resigned the seals, Egremont succeeded him as secretary of state for the southern department. He had two months before (8 July) been sworn of the privy council. He remained in office for the rest of his life, serving successively under Newcastle, Bute, and George Grenville, who had married his sister Elizabeth. With the last-named he allied himself closely, and, like him, never thoroughly identified himself with the ‘king's friends.’ He maintained relations with Newcastle and the Yorkes; and the staunch whig Hardwicke, writing to Lord Lyttelton when Egremont took office, expressed the esteem and honour he felt for him, adding that he feared nothing in his case but precarious health (Hardwicke to Lyttelton, 17 Oct. 1761). During his first three months of office Egremont was engaged in negotiations with Spain, occasioned by the news of the Bourbon family compact. His first official act was to instruct George William Hervey, second Earl of Bristol [q. v.] (the British envoy at Madrid), to make pacific assurances, but to demand proof that the Spanish understanding with France contained nothing hostile to English interests. This despatch appears to have been concocted between the king and Egremont, even Bute being kept in ignorance of it (Newcastle to Hardwicke, 20 Oct. 1761). In the abortive negotiations which followed, the object of which was to show Spain that the rejection of Pitt's advice to declare war was not due to timidity or division of counsels, Egremont, according to Newcastle's secretary, Hugh Jones, was ‘opposed to any softening.’ On 19 Nov. he instructed Bristol to demand an immediate clear explanation from Spain on the subject of the family compact, and in a ‘most secret’ letter of the same date ordered him instantly to quit Madrid, ‘if either directly or by implication any agreement to join France, or any intention to, should be acknowledged’ by the Spanish court. His reply to the memorial of Fuentes, the Spanish ambassador in London (issued on Christmas day 1761), has been called a masterly state paper, and his declaration of war (4 Jan. 1762) put the Spaniards completely in the wrong. In the following March Egremont was reported to be dying of an apoplectic seizure (Walpole to Mann, 22 March 1762), but he soon recovered, and was engaged throughout the year in conducting negotiations for peace with France. With Grenville and Mansfield he opposed the peace-at-any-price views of Bute, more particularly insisting from the first upon some equivalent being given for the Havannah. But Bedford, who was negotiating the treaty at Paris, declared that the French recovered in London the ground they lost in Paris, owing to the conferences Egremont had with the Duc de Nivernais, in which he allowed certain questions to be reopened [see, fourth ]. Bedford himself complained to Bute that Egremont put him ‘on a worse footing than he would put one of the clerks in his own office,’ because the cabinet had been induced by him to agree that the preliminaries should be submitted to the king before being signed. Bute prevailed upon the king to interfere on behalf of Bedford; but in the interview Egremont remained firm, though George III ‘spoke daggers’ to him and