LEVESON GOWER, Lord Granville (1773-1846), of Stone Park, Staffs.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1790-1820, ed. R. Thorne, 1986
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

14 Jan. 1795 - Feb. 1799
8 Mar. 1799 - July 1815

Family and Education

b. 12 Oct. 1773, 2nd surv. s. of Granville Leveson Gower, 1st Mq. of Stafford, by 3rd w. Lady Susanna Stewart, da. of Alexander, 6th Earl of Galloway [S]; half-bro. of George Granville Leveson Gower I, Earl Gower*. educ. Dr Kyle’s sch. Hammersmith 1781; privately by Rev. J. C. Woodhouse at Donnington 1784; Christ Church, Oxf. 1789; European tour 1792-3, 1793-4. m. 24 Dec. 1809, Lady Harriet Elizabeth Cavendish, da. of William, 5th Duke of Devonshire, 3s. 2da. cr. Visct. Granville 12 Aug. 1815; Earl Granville 10 May 1833; GCB 9 June 1825.

Offices Held

Attached to Ld. Malmesbury’s missions to France Oct. 1796-June 1797; envoy extraordinary to Prussia Jan.-Mar. 1798; ld. of Treasury July 1800-Mar. 1801; ambassador to Russia July 1804-6, Apr.-Nov. 1807; PC 19 July 1804; sec. at war (with a cabinet seat) July-Oct. 1809; minister at Brussels 1815; ambassador to Holland 1823-24, to France 1824-28, 1831-34, 1835-41.

Capt. Staffs. militia 1792, col. (supp.) 1797-9.

Biography

Leveson’s parents, who intended their cosseted youngest child for public life, urged on him a ‘proper emulation’ of the younger Pitt to exalt his mind. His tutor commended his intelligence and character, save for the faults of natural indolence and lack of compassion for others. His great asset was his personal attractiveness:

a person of strikingly handsome face and figure, above six feet high, very well made, with regular features and light complexion, and with manners more dignified and courtly than are ordinarily found with an extraordinary placidity, wearing some appearance of indolence. He had no brilliant qualities of mind, but sufficient penetration and excellent judgment. These qualities of person and character admirably fitted him for diplomacy, for which profession his high rank by birth and family alliances gave him also considerable advantage. There was a charm about his manner that was quite singular.1

At Oxford he was one of the Christ Church set and charmed Canning, but for whose tenacious and ambitious friendship for this son of one of Pitt’s cabinet ministers, his apathy might have had the worst consequences: witness the ease with which he acquired the arts of gambling and gallantry from his sister-in-law and self-styled fairy godmother Lady Sutherland during a visit to Paris, where his half-brother was ambassador, in 1791. Nevertheless, he lost in all something like £100,000 at play, and was something of a Don Juan. His liaison with Lady Bessborough, whom he met at Naples in 1794, produced two children and two volumes of surviving correspondence; and this, with his membership of Brooks’s Club (from 1795), and his eventual marriage in 1809 to Lady Harriet Cavendish gave him a foot in both camps and made him a potential intermediary between the Whigs and their opponents.2

Leveson entered Parliament, on coming of age, for the family borough of Lichfield. Canning introduced him to Pitt, who had already promised Lord Stafford to find some employment for him, such as private secretary to himself or lord comptroller of the Household (which he disliked); but it was as an élève diplomatique that Leveson was first employed, in 1796-7, on Lord Malmesbury’s peace missions to Paris and Lille. In May 1797 he was thought to be a candidate for the Berne legation, but was next unwillingly sent, his kinsman Lord Morpeth having made way for him, to Berlin to congratulate Frederick William III on his accession, in January 1798, after being requested to wait to give his vote to government on the final reading of the assessed taxes bill, 4 Jan. In the Commons, Canning could vouch for Leveson’s support of government; though on the non-party issue of the slave trade abolition he took his father’s line, as opposed to Canning’s, in voting against it, 15 Mar. 1796.3

Ever a reluctant speaker in the House, Leveson, having funked a chance to speak on parliamentary reform in May 1797, nevertheless moved the address ably in his maiden speech, 20 Nov. 1798. Canning, who had coached him for it, described the performance as ‘modest—temperate—manly—embarrassed now and then, but never perplexed—and full of good sense and good taste throughout’. Charles Abbot thought it ‘a very sensible and impressive speech upon the state of the country; and the impossibility of looking to peace whilst France preserved her present temper and system such as they appeared to be in their conduct towards America and Switzerland’. On 14 Feb. 1799, in his ‘second successful exertion’, he went on to defend the Irish union and the concession of Catholic relief. Canning commented, ‘it must be his own fault if he does not become a very valuable man of business in Parliament’.4

Leveson came in unopposed for Staffordshire in March 1799 in the place of his half-brother Lord Gower, who took office with a barony. Canning hoped to obtain a place for him at the Admiralty before long or, if he was sent abroad, to take him with him, but Leveson had his own notion of seeing active service. He had long been dissatisfied with his militia colonelcy which precluded foreign service and in March 1797 had applied to become an aide-de-camp to the King. In October 1799, through Henry Dundas*, he was given the command of a battalion to be raised by him from the Staffordshire volunteers for service abroad and added to the 52nd regiment; but the King, who had not been consulted, was encouraged by the Duke of York to quash the project, after a violent row with Dundas. Leveson was left with no prospect, except a lieutenant-colonelcy of the Staffordshire militia, which he declined. His brother, for a time, declined the lord lieutenancy of the county in protest.5 He himself voted with the minority for a call of the House, 22 Jan. 1800. Meanwhile, Canning secured Pitt’s assurance that Leveson, who was not interested in becoming comptroller of the Household, had ‘the first claim’ on a vacancy at the Treasury board, if it occurred about the time of the general election: for his family would not chance a contested re-election and he was prepared to sacrifice a place at the Admiralty rather than incur this risk. In June 1800, despite Canning’s plea that he should take the Admiralty and learn ‘official habits’, Leveson made the sacrifice to William Eliot, provided that his right to the next Treasury vacancy was guaranteed. In July he obtained it, his father being now confident of his unopposed re-election for the county. He was anxious that Canning should maintain his influence over Pitt and in September remonstrated with him for being out of humour with Pitt and sulking, which must diminish the prospect of promoting ‘great reforms’ under Pitt’s aegis.6

In February 1801, Leveson followed Canning in resigning and remaining out of office, finding it impossible ‘to join or belong to a government whose only claim to support is opposition to the measure on account of which the former administration have been obliged to resign’. He explained to his mother:

Pitt is the object of my political idolatry, and it is impossible to have any opinion of any government of which he is not at the head, and more especially when everything like ability withdraws with him—in short the dregs of government cannot make a respectable administration.

He did not consult Pitt, for fear of being pressed to remain in office, but he did not intend to oppose Addington. His father warned him against Canning’s lead in this respect: ‘the being supposed to be even the echo of even a clever man in prejudices does no credit to the understanding of that echo’. Throughout that year, however, he was anxious to prevent Canning from considering office under Addington to please Pitt. On 3 Nov. 1801 he spoke against the peace preliminaries ‘with great animation and expressed himself remarkably well ... but ... came rather to an abrupt conclusion that as the country and especially his constituents rejoiced in the peace he should vote for it and indeed almost any peace’. He had at first thought of not voting at all, but doubtless feared the risk of being challenged for his county seat, hence what Canning called ‘the healing part of your speech’. It was ‘the ground of county popularity’ too that made him anxious to see the bill against bull baiting carried, May 1802, and to stay away on a specious pretext from the debate on the Treaty of Amiens in that month, for which Canning rebuked him: ‘staying away’ was not as good as ‘going away’, since Leveson’s speech of November 1801 made it clear that he thought the peace ‘execrable’. In fact, Leveson’s seat proved secure. Canning made him a steward of Pitt’s birthday celebration in 1802, a rallying point for those Pittites hostile to Addington’s ministry that year.7 He intended to visit France during the peace, but did not do so.

In November 1802 it was reported that Leveson, who wished to see Pitt at the helm again, was ‘to come forward with a specific motion for the dismission of His Majesty’s ministers’, to be supported by the Canning and Grenville groups in opposition, but nothing came of it. He voted in the minority for Calcraft’s motion on the Prince of Wales’s debts, 4 Mar. 1803, and on 13 May, with Fox and Sheridan, opposed Addington over the adjournment. When war was declared, Canning joined him at his house in Whitehall and encouraged him to give two political dinners, 16 and 18 May, the first for the Canningites and their prospective converts and the second for the Grenvilles and other anti-Addingtonians: he was present on 19 and 20 May at Huskisson’s and Peel’s dinners for the purpose of rallying support for Patten’s censure motion, and voted for it on 3 June. He questioned the subsidization of the House of Orange, 25 July, and on 2 Aug. voted for Fox’s amendment in favour of a council of general officers. At this time Fox was eager to draw Leveson, with his Devonshire House connexions, into the Whig orbit, while Canning made him his emissary to Pitt to draw him into combined opposition to Addington. He complained of the shortage of arms for the volunteers, 13 Dec. 1803, and voted with the minority in the divisions of 7, 14 and 15 Mar., 10, 13, 16, 23 and 25 Apr. 1804 that heralded Addington’s downfall. He acted as Pitt’s go-between with Fox in April and May 1804, when the possibility of a coalition administration (which his brother Lord Stafford favoured) was mooted. It was he who informed Fox of its failure. He then decided, like his brother, to support Pitt out of office.8

Despite his reservations about ‘the principle of exclusion’, Leveson, at this time in the toils of Pitt’s niece Lady Hester Stanhope, agreed, at Canning’s instigation, to accept the embassy to St. Petersburg in July 1804. His objective was to secure a treaty of alliance, which he effected in April 1805, without conceding the Emperor’s more ambitious requirements. ‘Everybody acknowledges his services’, wrote Canning as Leveson prepared to come home. He had been dismayed at Pitt’s alliance with Addington which had alienated his brother from the minister and, when that failed, by Pitt’s inability to treat with Fox.9 His own ambition was now a peerage, which Pitt might obtain for him. Pitt’s death prevented this, but Canning, urging him to come home, wrote ‘I will connect myself with no government, without stipulating for you’. He was outbid by Fox, now Foreign secretary, who thought highly of him and was prepared to continue him at St. Petersburg with a salary of £10,000 and promise a peerage. Leveson accepted and Canning, who was excluded by the new government, was estranged from him. He became a firm admirer of Fox, but returned home in August 1806 to find Fox dying and his ambition thwarted: so his future allegiance became uncertain. He declined Lord Howick’s offer of a mission to Berlin and hankered after a reconciliation with Canning, who however regarded him as ‘a political enemy’ and warned him that public and private friendship could not be separated. Thus their friendship of 17 years was temporarily dissolved in December 1806; the circumstances were the more embarrassing for Leveson in that Canning was in negotiation with Lord Grenville for admission to office.10

At the general election of 1806, Leveson had paid lip-service to his constituents’ hostility to the iron duties, but had resisted a temptation ‘to declare whether I was with government or in opposition’ and ‘abstained from saying anything which could give you the most remote idea upon the subject’. He was suspected in February 1807 of shirking debates and divisions and on 15 Feb. he and Canning failed to come to terms, though a month later he was the ministers’ ambassador to Canning. The crisis came when Leveson voted with the outgoing ministers on Brand’s and Lyttelton’s motions on 9 and 15 Apr. 1807, to honour a promise he conceived that he had made them, after he had on 7 Apr. accepted Canning’s offer of 1 Apr. to return to the St. Petersburg embassy, without pledging himself on domestic politics. Canning tried to induce him not to vote with the Whigs on the second occasion, but when Leveson, who was in consultation with Lord Howick, felt obliged to do so, persuaded the cabinet and the King not to accept his proffered resignation of his embassy, 18 Apr. In return for this gage of renewed friendship, Leveson agreed to ‘state distinctly’ to his Whig friends that he was in no way pledged to them in domestic politics. He privately regretted that there had been ‘no junction of parties’, considering the Portland administration very insecure. Canning thought he should have learned his lesson: ‘by attempting to stand on too high ground, he is put on much lower than I had put him on originally’.11

This time Leveson’s embassy to Russia was not a happy one: the Emperor, defeated in battle, had come to terms with Buonaparte at Tilsit on 8 July and his task was to obtain the secret terms. An Anglo-Russian commercial treaty had to be foregone and on 31 Oct. 1807 Russia declared war. He arrived home in January 1808. Canning informed Lord Harrowby that he felt unable to apply for a peerage for him: the Portland administration had behaved sufficiently handsomely to him not to have to purchase his neutrality by a peerage. He had advised Leveson, on his going abroad, to give up his county seat and have his pension to look forward to on his return; but that had gone unheeded.12

Leveson now had to expect abuse from inveterate Whigs, though their leaders, according to John William Ward* were indulgent:

When Lord Granville Leveson, who had not only supported their government, but who had been present at all those private meetings of their particular friends which took place at Lord Grey’s just after their dismission from office, and the object of which was to pave the way to their return to it—deserted them at the very first division, and afterwards went as Canning’s ambassador to St. Petersburg, no cry was raised against him; on the contrary, they interposed the influence of their own character and authority to screen him. Lord Grey kindly consented to ease him of that load of blame which many people were inclined to heap upon him, and [he] was sent off to Russia as great as a Tory ministry could make him, and as white as a Whig opposition could wash him. The fact is that he had no talents that could alarm them—to his political profligacy they were perfectly indifferent, or perhaps applauded it in their hearts, whilst they laughed at the dupery of their more implicit and consistent followers. They therefore were ready enough to protect him, and disregarded all the ill-effects that might arise from the success of his apostasy.

Lord Grey nevertheless thought privately that Leveson had ‘behaved as shabbily as need be’ in leaving the Whigs. On 3 Feb. 1808 he felt obliged to make ‘a very good speech’ in defence of the Copenhagen expedition, denying that it was the cause of Russian hostility. Whitbread was ready enough to impugn his diplomatic conduct in debate, 16 Feb. 1808, against which Leveson, helped by Canning, defended himself and thwarted the production of a private dispatch on Lord Hutchinson’s interviews with the Russian emperor. On 21 Mar. he again defended the Copenhagen expedition, pointing out that the Danes would certainly have been obliged to fight for France: but saw no reason to congratulate ministers on the occasion. On 8 Apr. when Whitbread moved for papers to prove that Leveson had sacrificed British maritime rights in treating with Russia, he assured the House that the papers would disprove this; on Whitbread’s moving for a private letter from Leveson to Canning, the House negatived it by 115 votes to 50.13

In April 1809 Leveson was regarded as ‘an embryo minister’ when Canning had consultations both with Grey and with the Duke of Portland with a view to remodelling the government. On 25 Apr. he voted with opposition on the charge of corruption against Castlereagh. On 18 June Portland informed the King that in a reshuffle Leveson was intended to be either secretary at war or president of the Board of Control, but as Sir John Anstruther had accepted the latter office, Leveson should have the former. He was also awarded a cabinet seat. In May, Portland had declined to bring Leveson into office, because he knew that Canning insisted on a cabinet seat for him; now he gave in and the sop to Canning was made known in ‘a way quite new’, by the duke’s circular: this evidently ‘set the whole cabinet by the ears’ and, so Tierney thought, ‘laid the foundation’ of schism in the government in September: it was in fact the new division of power that Canning insisted on as a prerequisite to Leveson’s taking office that did so. As secretary at war, he was not taken seriously. Lord Sidmouth reported that ‘he was so devoted to piquet ... that it was necessary to find him some other employment to save him from ruin’, and Thomas Grenville* that the appointment gave ‘great scandal from Granville having sat up 36 hours a week ago to lose £20,000 at piquet, which does not teach John Bull to form great expectations of his diligence and activity in office’. Grey and Tierney thought the appointment must be, for Leveson, a mere stepping stone. Lords Lonsdale and Melville thought his seat in the cabinet ‘incompatible with the duties of his office’ and ‘called for by no public occasion’. All agreed that his promotion was ‘an addition to the weight of Mr Canning who has already either too much or too little’. When the cabinet broke up in September, Leveson, who had been absent from the scene, resigned with Canning, Huskisson and Sturges Bourne, after a ‘very short’ reign. He assured the King that he could do no good by remaining in office and that he could do nothing to prevent Canning’s quarrel with Castlereagh, though he ‘did not mean to say that he approved of every part of his conduct’. The King was reported not to like Leveson, as he thought him ‘so extremely sly’.14

Canning’s subsequent flirtation with the Whigs was reinforced by Leveson’s marriage to Lady Harriet Cavendish in December 1809, though Canning was amused at Lady Holland’s allegation that it was a device of his to win over the young Cavendishes to his banner. Leveson’s mediation was in any case not successful and Canning saw that he was not interested in office for himself at the risk of his county seat. On 23 Jan. 1810 he arrived too late to take his seat and vote on the address. Three days later he joined the Canningites in voting in the minority for the previous question against an inquiry into the Scheldt expedition, but only pro tem.; on 5 Feb. he desired that the committee should have Castlereagh’s brief, only to be informed that Robinson, Castlereagh’s secretary, was already named for that purpose. On 23 Feb. Canning described him as one of his ‘little senate’ of nine who had helped to defeat government and secure the production of Lord Chatham’s report to the King on the expedition. He again voted with opposition on 5 Mar. On the censure motion of 30 Mar. Canning set his friends free, expecting Leveson, who sided with government on the first, to go away on the final division—but like Ellis and Binning he found himself locked in and ‘came back and voted against government’.15 He had also been a critic of the army estimates on 26 Feb., calling for their reduction. He was in the minorities on the questions of (Sir) Francis Burdett* and Gale Jones, 5, 16 Apr., and on 17 May voted for sinecure reform, but he voted against parliamentary reform on 21 May.

When the Regency was mooted in November 1810, Canning was alarmed to find Leveson, who was thought by some to have too much influence over him, keen to join with opposition in attacking government proposals: he did not wish to make a bid for office and persuaded Leveson not to vote against government, noting that his ardour was in any case cooled by the restraint of opposition. He nevertheless voted on 1 Jan. 1811 for his nephew Lord Gower’s successful amendment to the Regency proposals and on 21 Jan. for Ponsonby’s amendment to the Household clause. He was regarded as Canning’s representative at the Whig conference at Holland House the week before, though he denied it. Subsequently he spent much of his time sulking and shooting at Tixall, which he rented in 1811. Canning dissuaded him from voting with opposition and in January 1812 rebuffed an overture from them, made to Leveson by George Granville Venables Vernon*; but on 27 Feb. he and Canning joined them on Turton’s censure motion, as also, 3 Mar., on the orders in council. On the same day he complained that he was unable to present a Staffordshire manufacturers’ petition complaining of their distress to the Regent owing to the lapse of levees. Robert Ward* commented, ‘None is yet appointed, and it was made a personal crime to the Regent’. Leveson’s conduct certainly annoyed the Regent: his language had earlier been reported to be ‘very violent ... against Carlton House’, doubtless due to his joining Canning in his association with the Princess of Wales. The antipathy was mutual. On 14 Apr. and 11 May 1812 Leveson presented Staffordshire petitions against the orders in council. On the former day he voted against McMahon’s appointment as private secretary to the Regent and on 24 Apr. for Catholic relief, but he voted against parliamentary reform on 8 May.16

Leveson was perhaps the intended victim of the paranoid assassin of Perceval in May 1812, Bellingham conceiving himself to have been thwarted in some of his commercial schemes in Russia by the then ambassador. He was subpoenaed to attend the trial, but not called on to testify: he did however exonerate himself in the House, 20 May, before which he laid a copy of his explanatory letter on the subject to Castlereagh. In the subsequent negotiations for a coalition government involving Canning, Wellesley and the Whigs, he was thought of for the Board of Trade on Canning’s stipulation, though the War Office remained a possibility. He voted for Stuart Wortley’s motion for a stronger administration, 21 May, unlike his leader and some other Canningites. In Lord Moira’s projected government, he was proposed for the Foreign Office. When Canning subsequently negotiated with the new minister Lord Liverpool, he stipulated that Leveson should go to the Lords with cabinet office.17 The Prince Regent insisted that Leveson was the prompter of Canning’s refusal to come to terms with administration.

Leveson’s relations with Canning were certainly strained after this, and especially after the latter’s fierce contest against the Whigs at Liverpool at the election of 1812. The disbanding of his party by Canning in July 1813 dismayed him.18 He had voted with opposition on the vice-chancellor bill, 11 Feb. 1813; for the sinecure bill, 29 Mar.; for Catholic relief, 2 Mar., 24 May, and for Christian missions to India, 22 June, but his only contributions to debate after 1812 were prompted by his constituents. On their behalf he opposed the firearms bill, 16 Mar. 1813, and presented a petition for peace, 2 Apr., though he could not concur with it. He had more sympathy for another against the Corn Laws, 6 June 1814. Early in 1814, Canning was still hoping to obtain office for him, possibly the duchy of Lancaster, but when he finally came to terms with Lord Liverpool on 29 July 1814, he obtained the promise of a viscountcy without office at the first opportunity. The creation did not take place until August 1815, by which time Leveson, who had gone to France and whose last known votes were for the civil list, 8 May, and for the Duke of Cumberland’s establishment bill, 3 July 1815, was again estranged from Canning. He spent some time abroad and kept predominantly Whig company for several years thereafter, though he was reported to be ambitious of the lord lieutenancy of Ireland in 1817 and was in favour of repression at home in 1819.19 Subsequently he renewed his diplomatic career under Canning, from whom he refused the Foreign Office in 1827. On Canning’s death he reverted to the Whigs, who made him an earl after further diplomatic service. He retired in 1841 and died 8 Jan. 1846.

It remains to be seen whether the man whom the Prince Regent described as the Alcibiades of his age, and Lady Bessborough hailed as its Antinous, had, as Fox put it, ‘good qualities enough not to want his beauty’. The diarist Greville gives a dusty answer in his obituary notice:

his life was long and prosperous beyond that of most men; he never made an enemy, and had the art of making more and warmer friends than any man I have known, which, as he was reserved in his manners, is a proof of the excellence and the attractive qualities of his character. This is really the amount of what is to be said of him, for he was not concerned in any great events, or even took an active part in party politics.20

Ref Volumes: 1790-1820

Author: R. G. Thorne

Notes

  • 1. Countess Granville, Lord Granville Leveson Gower Priv. Corresp. 1781-1821 (2 vols. 1916) which has been used throughout; PRO (Granville mss) 30/29/6/2, f. 210; Staffs. RO, Hatherton diary, 7 Feb. 1846.
  • 2. Add. 48219, f. 11; Jnl. of Lady Holland, i. 116; Hatherton diary, 22 Feb. 1818; Lady Bessborough and her Family Circle, 8, 16.
  • 3. Minto, ii. 409; The Times, 23, 26 May 1797; Harewood mss, Canning jnl. 26 Feb. 1795; Canning to Rev. Leigh, 4 Mar., 25 Dec. 1797; PRO 30/29/4/10, ff. 1528, 1534.
  • 4. Add. 48222, f. 100; Jnl. of Lady Holland, i. 213; Harewood mss, Canning to Rev. Leigh, 21 Nov. 1798, 15 Feb. 1799; Colchester, i. 163; PRO 30/29/4/10, f. 1544.
  • 5. Harewood mss, Canning to Rev. Leigh, 9 Feb. 1799; PRO 30/29/9/3, f. 1; Jnl. of Lady Holland, ii. 32; Geo. III Corresp. iii. 2067-8; PRO 30/8/152, f. 19; ‘Some Letters of Geo. III’ ed. Hamilton, The S. Atlantic Quarterly (1969), lxviii. 422; Add. 38833, f. 122; Glenbervie Diaries, i. 181, 202.
  • 6. PRO 30/29/8/1, f. 100; 30/29/8/2, ff. 144, 146, 148; Geo. III Corresp. iii. 2180, 2192; PRO, Dacres Adams mss 3/40; Add. 48222, ff. 125, 127.
  • 7. Add. 48222, ff. 130, 134, 136; PRO 30/29/8/2, ff. 165, 222; 30/29/8/3, ff. 232, 241, 243; 30/29/9/1, ff. 141, 147; Chatsworth mss, Duchess of Devonshire jnl. 5 Nov. 1801; Windham Pprs. ii. 189; The Times, 21 May 1802.
  • 8. Prince of Wales Corresp. iv. 1690; Colchester, i. 412, 419; Harewood mss, Canning to Rev. Leigh, 7 May, to his wife, 20, 21 May; Chatsworth mss, Fox to Duchess of Devonshire, Thurs. evening [1803]; Rose Diaries, ii. 124-5, 132; PRO 30/29/8/3, f. 274; Add. 47565 f. 123; 51598, Leveson’s memo (unsigned and n.d.); Malmesbury mss, memo 19 Feb. 1804; HMC Bathurst, 39.
  • 9. Add. 48219, f. 140; 48222, f. 167; Geo. III Corresp. iv. 2913; Prince of Wales Corresp. v. 2031; Granville mss, Pitt to Leveson Gower, 21 Jan., Leveson Gower to Morpeth, Apr.; PRO 30/29/6/5, f. 915; 30/29/11/5, f. 755; Malmesbury mss, Malmesbury to FitzHarris, 14 Sept. 1805.
  • 10. PRO 30/29/6/5, f. 934; 30/29/8/3, ff. 374, 382, 384, 390; Add. 48219, ff. 157, 159, 165, 171, 176; Harrowby mss, Lady Bathurst to Lady Harrowby, Sat. [c.Sept.]; Grey mss, Howick to Holland, 23 Sept. 1806.
  • 11. Harewood mss, Canning to his wife, 4, 16 Feb., 21 Apr. 1807; PRO 30/29/6/3, f. 264; 30/29/8/4, ff. 394, 396, 398, 400, 402, 404, 406; 30/29/11/5, ff. 759, 761; Jnl. of Lady Holland, ii. 222; Geo. III Corresp. iv. 3445; Add. 48222, f. 183.
  • 12. PRO 30/29/8/4, ff. 426, 428, 438, 460; Geo. III Corresp. iv. 3518, 3535; Corresp. of Lady Lyttelton, 5; Harrowby mss, Canning to Harrowby, 29 Dec. 1808.
  • 13. Ward, Letters to ‘Ivy’, 83; Grey mss, Grey to his wife, 4 Mar. 1808; Geo. III Corresp. v. 3594, 3640; Bulwer, Palmerston, i. 80-81.
  • 14. PRO 30/29/9/1, ff. 204, 220; Morley mss, Leveson Gower to Boringdon, 10 Apr. [1809]; Perceval (Holland) mss 22, f. 83; Geo. III Corresp. v. 3906; HMC Bathurst, 114; Sidmouth mss, Sidmouth to Bragge Bathurst, 7 July 1809; HMC Fortescue, ix. 311; Hants RO, Tierney mss 33 h; Grey mss, Tierney to Grey, 18, 20 June, 7 July, 14 Sept.; SRO GD51/1/141/2; Add. 48222, f. 200; Lonsdale mss, Melville to Lonsdale, 15 July, Long to same, 22 Oct. 1809.
  • 15. Lonsdale mss, Ward to Lonsdale, 27 Sept. 1809, 31 Mar. [1810]; Add. 51576, Whitbread to Lady Holland, 20 Nov.; Harewood mss, Canning to his wife, 17 Nov. 1809, 27 Jan., 23 Feb., 20, 24, 28, 31 Mar., 1 Apr. 1810; Jnl. of Lady Holland, ii. 253; Glenbervie Diaries, ii. 55; NLI, Richmond mss 73/1697.
  • 16. Harewood mss, Canning to his wife, 12, 13, 24 Nov. 1810; Malmesbury mss, Palmerston to Malmesbury, 1 Dec. 1810; PRO 30/29/8/5, ff. 531, 539, 549, 572; Add. 38738, f. 92; Phipps, Plumer Ward Mems. i. 332, 354, 359, 448; Lonsdale mss, Ward to Lonsdale, 7 Mar. 1812; Lansdowne mss, Lady Holland to Lansdowne [post May 1811]; Glenbervie Diaries, ii. 64, 117; Letters of Countess Granville, 33.
  • 17. Malmesbury Letters, ii. 274; Add. 37297, ff. 166-70; 38738, f. 258; Malmesbury mss, Malmesbury to FitzHarris [c. 12 June 1812]; Colchester, ii. 398.
  • 18. PRO 30/29/11/5, ff. 783, 784; Fortescue mss, Holland to Grenville, 26 July 1813.
  • 19. Colchester, ii. 472; PRO 30/29/8/5, f. 671; 30/29/9/5, f. 23; Harewood mss, Canning to his wife, 14 July, to Sturges Bourne, 19 July 1814; HMC Fortescue, x. 427; Hatherton diary, 22 Feb. 1818; Add. 48223, f. 129.
  • 20. Greville Mems. ed. Strachey and Fulford, v. 284; Leveson Gower, i. 476; ii. 206.