Townshend

Townshend, CHARLES, wit, orator, and statesman, was second son of the third Viscount Townshend, and grandson of the foregoing. He was born 29th August 1725, and entered the House of Commons in 1747 as a supporter of the Pelham (Whig) administration. His first great speech was against the Marriage Bill in 1753. Upon the dissolution of the Whig government the Earl of Bute gained him by the offer of the post of Secretary at War; but on Bute's resignation in 1763 he was appointed First Lord of Trade and the Plantations—the versatility of his political career obtaining for him the appellation of 'the Weathercock.' In the Chatham ministry of 1766 he accepted the post of Chancellor of the Exchequer and leader of the House of Commons. When Lord Chatham in a distempered state of mind abdicated the post of first minister, Townshend manifested the greatest vanity, ambition, and arrogance. Finding the notion of an American revenue agreeable to the court, and not unpalatable to the House of Commons, he proposed and carried those measures of taxation of commodities in America that led to the separation of the American colonies. Townshend's wife was created a peeress, and he was about to be entrusted with the formation of a ministry when he was carried off by a putrid fever, 4th September 1767. The difference between his contemporary reputation and his fame is very striking. He was ranked as an orator with Pitt. Burke called him 'the delight and ornament of the House of Commons,' Macanlay speaks of him as 'the most brilliant and versatile of mankind,' who had 'belonged to every party and cared for none.' Earl Russell describes him as 'a man utterly without principle, whose brilliant talents only made more prominent his want of truth, honour, and consistency.' See his Life by P. Fitzgerald (1866).