[408] General A’Court, M.P. for Heytesbury, was Colonel of the 11th Dragoons. He did not long remain an object of compassion, for he recovered his rank and regiment, and afterwards inherited a large estate and the borough of Heytesbury, from his uncle, Mr. Ash. He died in 1781. The present Lord Heytesbury is his grandson and lineal representative.—E.
[409] General Henry Seymour Conway, only brother of Francis Earl of Hertford.
[410] Thomas Pitt of Boconnock, only son of Thomas Pitt, elder brother of the famous William Pitt, by the eldest sister of George Lord Lyttelton. [He inherited from his father the borough of Old Sarum, for which he brought himself into Parliament in 1761. In 1763 he was made a Lord of the Admiralty. In 1784 created Lord Camelford. He went abroad for his health in 1787, and died at Florence in 1793. The letters addressed to him when a student at Cambridge, by Lord Chatham, have attached an interest to his name beyond what belongs to his political career; and it is singular that he should, at the very outset of his public life, have abruptly separated from one whose opinions up to that time he seems to have entirely shared. Their connection was not afterwards resumed, though, as Lord Chatham’s relative, he returned thanks (rather coldly) to the House for the marks of distinction conferred on that great man’s memory. He is described by his son-in-law, Lord Grenville, “as combining a steadiness of principle and a correctness of judgment with an integrity of heart, which produced the affectionate attachment from those who knew him that has followed him beyond the grave.” Many of his letters during his residence abroad are printed in Nichols’s Illustrations of Literary History, vol. vi. p. 75; they show more amiability of disposition than power of mind, and were scarcely worth being preserved. On the death of his only son the title became extinct.—E.]
[411] Charles Lenox, third Duke of Richmond, had married Lady Mary Bruce, daughter of the last Earl of Ailesbury by his third wife, Caroline Campbell, afterwards married to General Conway.
[412] Elizabeth, only daughter of Sir William Windham, a lady highly respected for her virtues as a wife and mother; and whose death, not long after, her husband never recovered.—E.
[413] Augusta, eldest daughter of Frederick Prince of Wales.
[414] Anne, eldest daughter of King George the Second.
[415] Mary, fourth daughter of George the Second, married to the Prince of Hesse; and Louisa, his fifth, married to the King of Denmark.
[416] The Prince visited Mr. Pitt on the 22nd of January, and passed two hours with him. On the 14th, the Prince had addressed him a very complimentary letter. Chatham Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 272, and note.—E.
[417] The Prince succeeded to the Dukedom on the death of his father in 1780, and for some years after resided at Brunswick, where the Princess, who was throughout life deservedly esteemed, made his Court very agreeable. In 1787 he commanded the Prussian forces which took possession of Amsterdam, and put down the republican party in Holland. His campaigns against the French republicans were less successful, and his well-known manifesto rendered his failure more glaring. He was mortally wounded at Auerstadt, and expired at Altona on the 10th of November, 1806, leaving behind him the reputation of a bold and enterprising, rather than of an able general. His Duchess took refuge in England, where she died at an advanced age. They were not happy in their family: of their two daughters, the eldest married the late King of Wirtemberg, and came to a miserable end in Russia; the younger was the unfortunate Queen Caroline. Their eldest son was of a weak understanding, and the younger, “Brunswick’s fated Chieftain,” a Prince of moderate abilities but signal courage, fell in middle life at Waterloo.—E.