Sir Harry Clinton. Sir Henry Clinton (1738?-1795), K.B.; Major-General; succeeded Sir William Howe as Commander-in-Chief in America, May 1778.
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Mr. Vyner. Robert Vyner (1717-1799), M.P. for Lincoln. He was, said Nathaniel Wraxall, a gentleman of large property in Lincolnshire, whose person suggested “the portraits of ‘Hudibras’” (Historical and Posthumous Memoirs ... 1772-1784, ed. H. B. Wheatley, 1884, V, 203).
his offer of fifteen shillings in the pound. In a debate on the budget, 3 May 1775, Vyner defended the motives of the country gentlemen in supporting the ministers’ coercive American policy. He said, in part:
In support of such a cause ... he was willing to pay not only 4s. but 14s. in the pound: and as he entertained not a single doubt but we should prevail in the contest, we ought to oblige America to pay the expence she had wantonly put us to, and which would likewise enable us to bring back our quondam peace establishment, that of a land-tax of 2s. in the pound (Parliamentary History, XVIII, 625).
a great statesman had once boasted, &c. William Pitt the elder, during the Seven Years’ War.
Mr. Van. Charles Van, prior to his death, in April 1778, M.P. for Brecon.
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Hon. T. Luttrel. Temple Simon Luttrell (d. 1803), third son of the first Earl of Carhampton; M.P. for Milborne Port. A florid orator, Luttrell was always pertinacious in debates on naval affairs. Tickell’s parody perhaps reflects an interminable speech on the state of the navy, 11 March 1778, in which Luttrell described the timber used for ship-repairs as so “singularly spungy and porous” that “your seamen ... are frequently set afloat in their hammocks, from the water soaking in, over-head, through the planks,” related an instance of a seaman’s driving his fist, “without much pain to his knuckles,” through the hull of a man-of-war, and entered into a detail of the twenty-four invasions of Great Britain and Ireland since the Norman Conquest (Parliamentary History, XIX, 874-892).