While commanding the same vessel in the Channel, Montagu fell in with a fleet of outward bound Dutch merchantmen, to whom he gave chase and overtook. Having done so, he ordered two boats to be manned, and sent a carpenter’s mate in each, desiring them to cut off the heads of twelve—not of the ship’s company, but of the ugliest of the grotesque ornaments with which the Dutch usually decorated the extremity of their rudders. When brought back to him, he arranged them, in as ridiculous a position, as he could devise round his cabin, and inscribed them with the names of the twelve Cæsars. A jest of a more ghastly nature, is recorded of Mad Montagu. Landing one day at Portsmouth, just after a Dutch vessel had been wrecked, he perceived about a dozen of her crew lying dead, on the shore. He immediately ordered his men to put all the poor fellows’ hands, into their pockets. He then proceeded to the coffee-house, where he found the Dutch captain, with whom every one was condoling. “D—— the idle lubbers!” said Montagu, “they were too lazy to take their hands out of their breeches pockets, even to save their lives.”
The Dutch captain was naturally indignant, when Montagu proposed to bet him six dozen of wine, that if any of the crew chanced to be washed on shore, his words would be proved. The waiter was despatched to reconnoitre; the result of course, was in the English captain’s favour, and not only had the poor foreigner to pay the forfeit, but the laugh on a most melancholy matter was turned against him. Captain Montagu sat in Parliament for a borough in Cornwall. He married Charlotte, daughter of Francis Nailor, of Offord, Huntingdonshire, but died in 1757, without issue.
John, fourth Earl of Sandwich:
By ZOFFANY.
Three-quarter Length.
(In a Plum-coloured Court Suit, embroidered in Gold. Seated by a Table, on which he rests his Arm. In his Right Hand a Letter directed to himself.)
Edward Richard, Viscount Hinchingbrook:
By KNELLER.