Pulteney, WILLIAM

Pulteney, WILLIAM, Earl of Bath. This statesman, descended from a Whig family, was born in 1684, the son of Sir William Pulteney, member of parliament for Westminster. He was a student of Christ Church College, Oxford, where his oratorical power was early displayed. He entered parliament as member for Heydon, Yorkshire, and was a most graceful and brilliant speaker, full of epigram, and a master of all the arts of parliamentary attack. At first, and for many years, the friend and colleague of Walpole, he finally became so disgusted with that minister's indifference to his claims that in 1728 he placed himself at the head of a small group of malecontent Whigs styled the 'Patriots,' and was henceforth Walpole's bitterest and perhaps most formidable opponent, being the leader of the coalition against him in the Commons as Carteret was in the House of Lords. He was Bolingbroke's chief assistant in the paper called the Craftsman, which involved him in many political controversies, and called forth some of his finest pamphlets. In 1731 he wrongly ascribed to Lord Hervey the authorship of a scurrilous pamphlet; a duel was the consequence, fought with swords in St James's Park, when both combatants were slightly wounded. On the resignation of Walpole in 1741 Pulteney was sworn of the Privy-council, and soon afterwards created Earl of Bath; and from that time his popularity was gone. Horace Walpole places him amongst his Royal and Noble Authors, but though his prose was effective and his verse graceful, he was probably still better known as the author of a once popular political song, 'The Honest Jury, or Caleb Triumphant,' than by his more serious writings. He died in 1764, a wealthy but disappointed man. See Lecky, History of England, ii. 417 et seq., and Walpole, by John Morley.