TOWNSHEND, The Right. Hon. CHARLES, English orator and statesman, was second son of the third viscount Townshend, and grandson of the foregoing. He was born in 1725, and entered the house of commons in 1747, as a supporter of the Pelham (whig) administration. His first great speech was against the marriage bill in 1753, which gained him a great reputation for eloquence. Upon the dissolution of the whig gov ernment, the earl of Bute gained him by the offer of the post of secretary at war. On Bute's resignation in 1763, he was appointed first lord of trade and the plantations. By this time, the versatility of his political career had obtained him the appellation of " the Weathercock." In the Chatham ministry of 1766, he accepted the post of chancellor of the exchequer, and leader of the house of commons. When lord Chatham, in a distemp ered state of mind, abdicated the post of first minister, Townshend broke loose from all restraint, and manifested the greatest vanity, ambition, and arrogance. George Gren ville, smlirting under the defeat of his favorite scheme of taxing America, on one occa sion, in the middle of his harangue, turned to the ministers: "You are cowards," he said; " you are afraid of the Americans; you dare not tax America." Townshend's fiery temper was kindled, and he exclaimed: " Dare not tax America ! I dare tax America." Grenville retorted: "I wish to God I could see it!" and Townshend replied: "I will, I will."' He was not allowed to forget his pledge; and finding the
notion of an American revenue agreeable to the court, and not unpalatable to the house of commons, he proposed and carried those measures that led to the separation of the American colonies. Townshend's wife was created a peeress, and he was about to be intrusted with the formation of a ministry, when he was carried away by a putrid fever (Sept. 1767) in this 42d year. The difference between his contemporary reputation and his fame is very striking. He was ranked as an orator with Pitt. He was far more popular than the great commoner with the house of commons; yet his name will not go down to posterity, save in the annals of his time. Burke called him " the delight and ornament of the house of commons." Macaulay speaks of him as " the most brill iant and versatile of mankind," who had "belonged to every party, and cared for none." Earl Russell describes him as a man utterly without principle, whose brilliant talents only made more prominent his want of truth, honor, and consistency." He mar ried Caroline, daughter and heiress of John, second duke of Argyll and Greenwich, and widow of the curl of Dalkeith, and had the discrimination to select Adam Smith as the tutor and traveling companion of his step-son, the youthful duke of Buccleuch.