'Ah, William! till thy hapless hour
Shall fade on mem'ry's pensive eye
The muse on Fate shall curses shower,
That doomed a youth like thee to die.
'Though lost, alas! thy lovely name
With incense shall the skies perfume;
And ev'ry flower of fairest fame
Shall wish where William sleeps, to bloom.
'Till Virtue seek her native sphere,
Till honour cease below to shine,
For thee shall Virtue drop the tear,
And Honour's envied praise be thine.'
There can, however, be little doubt that it was a mother's pen which described him, on his cenotaph, as that 'most lovely, most beloved youth.'
But to return to the surviving and youngest brother, George Evelyn, who was destined to perpetuate the title. He is said to have been very like his mother, who describes herself as 'a little personage;' and he must have inherited the talents of both his parents, for he did remarkably well at Winchester, and very early showed a determination to follow in his illustrious father's footsteps by fighting against the enemies of his country, notwithstanding the wishes of his family to the contrary. For the sum of £400 his mother at last unwillingly procured for her 'poor little soldier,' as she termed him, an ensigncy in the 4th or King's Own Regiment of Foot; and he, proceeding forthwith to America, was soon after present at the battle of Lexington. When Prince William Henry, afterwards William IV., came into Falmouth harbour in the Hebe in 1785, he was entertained at Tregothnan, and thence, under Viscount Falmouth's guidance, visited all the Cornish 'lions.' On 25th October, 1787, Mrs. Boscawen writes thus to Mrs. Delany: 'My son has been a peacemaker in Cornwall, and was happy enough to pacify near a thousand angry miners, who were marching into Truro to pull their houses about their ears;' and here it may be noted that one of his ancestors had performed a similar valuable public service when the Hon. Hugh Boscawen, Lord Warden of the Stannaries of Cornwall and Devon, presided over the Convocation of the twenty-four Stannators, 20th February to 20th April, 1710, held in the Coinage Hall, Truro; on which occasion, by a judicious speech, he dispersed a mob of some 5,000 or 6,000 men, tinners and others, led by one Charles Tregea, who had assembled to intimidate the Convocation, and 'force them to a farm.' The object of this Convocation was 'to keep up the price of tin, and to confirm the laws, customs, and constitutions of the Stannaries;' but it led to no satisfactory result.
The third Viscount's two sisters married well—one, Frances, gained for her husband the Hon. John Leveson Gower, Secretary to the Admiralty; and the other, Elizabeth, secured Henry, fifth Duke of Beaufort—an affair which does not seem to have altogether satisfied that family. Her mother writes to Mrs. Delany, that the Beauforts were not particularly well pleased with the match;—'And yet, my dear madam,' says the sprightly Admiral's widow, 'does not Admiral Boscawen's daughter, with £10,000 now, and at least 5 (i.e. £5,000) more by-and-by, with many excellent wife-like qualities, and no faults that ever they heard of, deserve some gentler welcome, especially as nobody asks anything of them?' The Duke seems to have made the Cornish lassie a most devoted and affectionate husband.
George Evelyn Boscawen was succeeded in the title by his son, Edward, fourth Viscount and first Earl of Falmouth. He was an officer in the Coldstream Guards, and, like so many other members of his family, Recorder of Truro—the last who filled that office. He was the second of Lord Winchelsea in his famous duel with the Duke of Wellington, fought on Wimbledon Common in March, 1829, when the Duke fired and missed, and Lord Winchelsea then fired in the air and apologized. This nobleman rebuilt Tregothnan House, near the site of an older and picturesque mansion, in which might have been seen many carved stones from the old tower and chapel at Fentongollan; and he made the famous drive to it from Tresilian Bridge, an undertaking the result of which he is said to have always contemplated with much satisfaction. His son, George Henry, fifth Viscount, and second and last Earl, died unmarried in 1852, fourteen years after his father. He was a man of considerable ability, taking, in 1832, a first-class at Oxford; and he was one of the best amateur violinists of his day. As we have said, with him the earldom lapsed. His cousin Evelyn succeeded him as sixth Viscount, and has been one of the most distinguished patrons of the turf, as well as a most fortunate owner of race-horses, having, as I am informed, won the Derby, the St. Leger, and the Two Thousand Guineas twice, and the Oaks and the One Thousand Guineas four times each; besides other important races.