GRANARD', GEORGE FORBES, Earl of (1685 (1765). An English sailor and diplomat, born in Ireland, son of Arthur Forbes, second Earl of Granard, and Mary Rawdon. He entered the navy when he was seventeen, and was under Rooke at the taking of Gibraltar. After serving at Malaga (1704), in the Channel, capturing French privateers (1705), and at the siege of Ostend (1706), he was transferred to the cavalry, but left it after a year (1708). On the recom mendation of Queen Anne he was put in command of the Grafton (1709). After a splendid, half piratical encounter with the Genoese, he joined the Allies and was slightly wounded at Villa viciosa (1710). His capture of the Genoese fleet was disowned by the British Government, but Forbes received £6000 for his share of the booty. After the Peace of Utrecht he commanded a fleet in the Mediterranean, and in 1719 was sent to Vienna to carry out the scheme of Charles VI. to establish a great naval power in Naples or Sicily or on the Adriatic, but this came to nothing. He defended Gibraltar (1727) ;
became Governor of the Leeward Islands (1729) ; and in 1730 had a mad scheme to lead a col ony to Lake Erie to act as a block against French invasion or encroachment from Canada. His last naval service was in 1731 in the Mediter ranean. Two years later he was sent as Minister to Russia, and made a commercial treaty with that power. In 1742 he retired from the navy because of a quarrel with the Ministry. In 1714 he had entered the House of Commons and had led the opposition to Robert Walpole; but he soon after wards retired to private life. He married, in 1709, Mary, daughter of William Stewart; and on his death left a daughter and two sons, John (1714-96) and George, who succeeded him in the earldom. Consult Forbes, Memoirs of the Earls of Granard (London, 1858).