Page:Life of William Shelburne (vol 1).djvu/487

Rh hating the Scotch. James Townshend was member for West Looe and a landowner in Hertfordshire. He is described as a man of great resolution and firmness. On one occasion it is said that a highway robbery having been committed in his neighbourhood, he disguised himself as a countryman, set out in search of the offender, and much to the astonishment of the latter, overpowered and apprehended him. "He was a firm and steady friend," says one who knew him, "and so tenacious of his promise that he would leave the remotest part of the kingdom and the most delightful society, to attend and give his vote at the Guildhall, though for the meanest individual and the lowest office. He was proud and tenacious of his dignity among the great, and of the most conciliatory affability with his inferiors. He would travel from one end of the kingdom to the other with a small change of linen behind his saddle." With commerce he had no connection, but it was far more usual in the eighteenth century than at the present day, for comparative strangers to the City to stand for the highest municipal offices on purely political grounds. His friendship with Shelburne was of long standing, and for some time past he had lived at Shelburne House during the Parliamentary session. His chief fault was a violent temper. "Je respecte Townshend," the abbé Morellet wrote to Shelburne, "et je l'aimerais probablement pour peu que je vécusse avec lui, malgré sa grande chaleur, qui m'a paru quelquefois aller jusqu'à la brûlure, mais qui est peut-être celle qu'il faut avoir dans le pays que vous habitez."

The struggle between Wilkes and Townshend began in 1770 on the question of the Durham Yard Embankment Bill, but soon extended to the whole management of the Whig party in the City. In the ready tongue and pen of the celebrated John Home, generally known as Parson Home, Townshend found a valuable coadjutor. The notorious faults of Wilkes were now unsparingly exposed, but the majority of the Livery still clung to him, and