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 io8 DE BLAQUIERE aged 77), by Mary Elizabeth, da. ot Pierre de Varennes, a Frenchman (a bookseller in the Strand), (^) was b. 15 May 1732; was sometime in a London merchant's office; afterwards joined the Army, becoming Lieut. Col. 17th Dragoons; was Sec. of Legation in France, 1771-72; Chief Sec. to [Earl Harcourt] the Lord Lieut, of Ireland, 1772-77; M.P. for Old Leighlin, 1773-83; for Carlingford, i783-90;('') for Charleville, 1790-97, and for Newtownards, i 797, till the Union. P.C. [L] 30 Nov. 1772; K.B., 3 Aua;. 1774; received a grant of the office of Alnager [I.] Aug. i775;(') cr. a Baronet [I.], 16 Julv 1784. Finally, for his support of the Union, he was cr., 30 July i8oo,'BARON DE BLAQUIERE OF ARDKILL, CO. Londonderr)- [LJ-C"*) M.P. for Rye (Tory), 1 801-02, and for Downton, 1803-06; F.R.S. and F.S.A., both 13 Jan. 1803. He w., 24 Dec. 1775, at Sir "William Montgomery's house in Mary Str., Dublin, Eleanor,^) da. of Robert Dobson, of Anne's Grove, co. Cork, by Maria, 3rd da. and coh. of Alexander Tompkins, of Prehen, co. Londonderry. He ^Z. 27 Aug. 1 8 12, at Bray, co. Wicklow, aged So.Q His widow d. 20 Dec. 1833, aged 77, in Regent's Park, Marylebone. (•) See Protestant Exiles from France, by the Rev. D. C. Agnew, 1866. ('') He was also elected for Enniskillen in 1783. V.G. C^) In 1797 he obtained a grant to himself, his heirs and assigns, for 48 years, and thereupon surrendered the office to his son, receiving, in lieu thereof, ;^I,000 a year. These Lords are frequently (but erroneously) described as Hereditary Great Alnagers of Ireland, but the office was never hereditary. It was abolished in 1 81 7, when the 2nd Lord received a pension in compensation. V.G. C^) He was just in time to take his seat with the other newly created peers, for on 3 Aug. following the Parliament [I.] was prorogued never to meet again. For the profuse creations and promotions in the Irish Peerage at this date, see vol. iii, Appendix H. V.G. (') He acquired by this marriage the estate of Ardkill. V.G. (*) A favourable but wordy account of him, from which the following sentences are drawn, is given in A Review of the Irish House of Commons, I 789, by a Whig writer. " In his public speaking he is but poorly assisted by his voice which is weak, thin, and low . . . His language is mostly well chosen . . . His action is very faulty . . . and he has contracted a mode of twisting and writhing his body into a tortuosity of shape painful to look at ... As he inherits from nature a masculine understanding and sound good sense, and has taken pains to store his mind with useful and various knowledge the matter of his speeches has real merit." In 1773, as M.P. for Old Leighlin, he advocated a tax on absentee landlords. " He was trustworthy and adroit, well skilled in the management of men, convivial in his tastes, and a good public speaker." (W. Hunt). Horace Walpole, unfairly depreciating his ability, which of a sort was considerable, writes in his Journals, that he was "a frank, good humoured, but weak, and conceited man." Lord Charlemont, in his Memoirs, contemptuously describes him as " A man of low birth, no property, and of weak genius, yet possessing in an eminent degree those inferior abilities which are more prized by, and perhaps more useful to, an evil Government, than the greatest mental powers, the sublime faculty of exciting venality and of making proselytes to their country's ruin by corrupting individuals with the public treasure . . . Cajoling and jobbing were this