TOWNSHEND, CHARLES (1725-1767), English politi cian, the second son of Charles, 3rd Viscount Townshend, was born on Aug. 29, 1725, and was educated at Leiden and Oxford. He represented Great Yarmouth in parliament from 1747 to 1761, when he found a seat for the treasury borough of Harwich. After holding minor offices he was summoned to the privy council.
With the accession of George III. in 176o Townshend trans ferred his support from Pitt to the young king's favourite, Bute, and in 1761, at the latter's instance, was promoted to the post of secretary-at-war, which he did not throw up until Dec. 1762. In the dying days of Grenville's cabinet, and throughout Rock ingham's administration he held the post of paymaster-general, refusing to identify himself more closely with its fortunes as chan cellor of the exchequer. He accepted the latter position from Pitt in 1766, and was admitted to the inner circle of the cabinet.
The defeat of his proposal to continue the land tax at four shillings in the pound, by William Dowdeswell and the landed gentry caused Lord Chatham to meditate Townshend's removal, but before this could be accomplished Chatham's mind became impaired, and Townshend, who was the most determined and influential of his colleagues, swayed the ministry as he liked, pledging himself to find a revenue in America with which to meet the deficiency caused by the reduction in the land tax. His wife
was created (August, 1767) baroness of Greenwich, and his elder brother George, the 4th viscount, was made lord-lieutenant of Ireland. He himself delivered in the House of Commons many speeches unrivalled in parliamentary history for wit and reckless hess; and one of them still lives in history as the "champagne speech." His last official act was to carry out his intention by passing through parliament resolutions, which even his colleagues deprecated in the cabinet, for taxing several articles, such as glass, paper and tea, on their importation into America, which he estimated would produce the insignificant sum of £40,000 for the English treasury, and which shrewder observers prophesied would lead to the loss of the American colonies. Soon after this event he died somewhat suddenly on Sept. 4, 1767.
The universal tribute of Townshend's colleagues allows him the possession of boundless wit and ready eloquence, marred by an unexampled lack of judgment and discretion.