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Kay's Originals Vol. 2

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24 BI 0 GRAPH I C AL SI< ETCHES, Camp, and created (5th March 1783) an English Peer by the title of Baron Rawdon of Rawdon. On the King’s illness, having formed ail intimacy with his late Majesty George IV., then Prince of Wales, he became a zealous adherent of his Royal Highness, and was the mover of the amendment in favour of the Prince in the House of Lords. He was equally intimate with the Duke of York, and acted as his second in the duel with Colonel Lennox. In 1791 Lord Rawdon succeeded to the bulk of the property of his maternal uncle, the Earl of Huntingdon, while his mother obtained the barony of Hastings, and the other baronies in fee possessed by her brother.’ In 1793 he succeeded his father as second Earl of Moira. The same year he obtained the rank of Major-General, and was appointed Commander-in-Chief of an army intended to co-operate with the Royalists in Brittany; but before any effective movement could be made the Republicans had triumphed. The Earl was despatched in 1794 with ten thousand men to relieve the Duke of York, then retreating through Holland, and nearly surrounded with hostile forces. This difficult task he successfully accomplished. On returning to England, he was appointed to a command at Southampton. Politics now became his chief study. He was regular in his parliamentary duties; and, being generally in the opposition, became very popular. One of his speeches, delivered in the House of Ijords in 1797, on the threatening aspect of affairs in Ireland, excited considerable interest, and was aftervards printed and circulated throughout the country. The year following, several members of the House of Commons having met to consider the practicability of forming a new administration, on the principle of excluding all who had rendered themselves obnoxious on either side, his lordship was proposed as the leader. The scheme, however, was abandoned. The Earl, having been appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Forces in Scotland in 1803, arrived at Dumbreck’s Hotel, St. Andrew Square, on the 24th October of that year, accompanied by Sir William Keir, one of his Aides-de- Camp, and afterwards took up his residence in Queen Street. In 1804 his lordship was married by Dr. Porteous, the Bishop of London, to Flora Muir Campbell (in her bwn right), Countess of Loudon. The ceremony took place at the house of Lady Perth, Grosvenor Square, London. The Prince of Wales gave the bride away. The title of the Earl of Huntingdon remained dormant until claimed by and allowed to the late Earl in 1819. An account of the proceedinp adopted towards recovering the dormant honours was published by Mr. Nugent Bell, to whose extraordinary exertions the success of the noble claimant wa8 almost entirely attributable. It is one of the most amusing works of the kind ever written : and the interest is kept up to the last.
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