Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. A Memoir

The family of Yorke first came into prominence with the great Chancellor Philip Yorke, first Earl of Hardwicke. This remarkable man, who was the son of an attorney at Dover, descended, it is claimed, from the Yorkes of Hannington in North Wiltshire, a family of some consequence in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, was born in that town in the year 1690, and rose from a comparatively humble station to the commanding position he held so long in English public life.

My object in this chapter is to recall some of the incidents of his career and of those of his immediate successors and descendants.

Philip Yorke was called to the bar in 1715, became Solicitor-General only five years later, and was promoted to be Attorney-General in 1723. In 1733 he was appointed Lord Chief Justice of England, and received the Great Seal as Lord Chancellor in 1737, and when his life closed his political career had extended over a period of fifty years.

Lord Campbell, the author of the 'Lives of the Chancellors,' 'that extraordinary work which was held to have added a new terror to death, and a fear of which was said to have kept at least one Lord Chancellor alive,' claimed to lay bare the shortcomings of the subjects of his memoirs with the same impartiality with which he pointed out their excellences. He mentions only two failings of Lord Chancellor Hardwicke: one, that he was fond of acquiring wealth, the other, that he was of an overweening pride to those whom he considered beneath him. Neither of these is a very serious charge, and as both are insufficiently corroborated, one may let them pass. He acquired immense wealth in the course of his professional career, but in an age of corruption he was remarked for his integrity, and was never suspected or accused of prostituting his public position for private ends. In his capacity of Attorney-General Lord Campbell remarks of him:

'This situation he held above thirteen years, exhibiting a model of perfection to other law officers of the Crown. He was punctual and conscientious in the discharge of his public duty, never neglecting it that he might undertake private causes, although fees were supposed to be particularly sweet to him.'

But it was as a judge that he won imperishable fame, and one of his biographers observes: [Footnote: See Dictionary of National Biography.] 'It is hardly too much to say that during his prolonged tenure of the Great Seal (from 1737 to 1755) he transformed equity from a chaos of precedents into a scientific system.' Lord Campbell states that 'his decisions have been, and ever will continue to be, appealed to as fixing the limits and establishing the principles of that great juridical system called Equity, which now, not only in this country and in our colonies, but over the whole extent of the United States of America, regulates property and personal rights more than ancient Common Law.'

He had a 'passion to do justice, and displayed the strictest impartiality; and his chancellorship' is 'looked back upon as the golden age of equity.' The Chancellor is said to have been one of the handsomest men of his day, and 'his personal advantages, which included a musical voice, enhanced the effect of his eloquence, which by its stately character was peculiarly adapted to the House of Lords.' [Footnote: Ibid.]

This is not the place for an estimate of Lord Hardwicke's political career, which extended over the whole period from the reign of Queen Anne to that of George III, and brought him into intimate association with all the statesmen of his age. It was more especially as the supporter of the Pelham interest and the confidant and mentor of the Duke of Newcastle that he exercised for many years a predominant influence on the course of national affairs both at home and abroad. During the absence of George II from the realm in 1740 and subsequently he was a member, and by no means the least important member, of the Council of Regency. 'He was,' writes Campbell, 'mainly instrumental in keeping the reigning dynasty of the Brunswicks on the throne'; he was the adviser of the measures for suppressing the Jacobite rebellion in 1745, he presided as Lord High Steward with judicial impartiality at the famous trial of the rebel Lords, and was chiefly responsible for the means taken in the pacification of Scotland, the most questionable of which was the suppression of the tartan! Good fortune, as is usually the case when a man rises to great eminence, played its part in his career. He had friends who early recognised his ability and gave him the opportunities of which he was quick to avail himself. He took the tide at its flood and was led on to fortune; but, as Campbell justly observes, 'along with that good luck such results required lofty aspirations, great ability, consummate prudence, rigid self-denial, and unwearied industry.' His rise in his profession had undoubtedly been facilitated by his marriage to Margaret Cocks, a favourite niece of Lord Chancellor Somers, himself one of the greatest of England's lawyer-statesmen. There is a story that when asked by Lord Somers what settlement he could make on his wife, he answered proudly, 'Nothing but the foot of ground I stand on in Westminster Hall.' Never was the self-confidence of genius more signally justified than in his case. Not only was his own rise to fame and fortune unprecedently rapid, but he became the founder of a family many of whose members have since played a distinguished part in the public and social life of the country. By Margaret Cocks he had, with two daughters, five sons, the eldest of whom enhanced the fortunes of the family by his marriage with Jemima, daughter of the Earl of Breadalbane, heiress of Wrest and the other possessions of the extinct Dukedom of Kent, and afterwards Marchioness Grey and Baroness Lucas of Grudwell in her own right. Of his next son Charles, the second Chancellor, something will presently be said. Another son, Joseph, was a soldier and diplomatist. He was aide-de-camp to the Duke of Cumberland at Fontenoy; and afterwards, as Sir Joseph Yorke, Ambassador at the Hague. He died Lord Dover. A fourth son, John, married Miss Elizabeth Lygon, of Madresfield. The fifth son, James, entered the Church, became Bishop of Ely, and was the ancestor of the Yorkes of Forthampton. I had the luck many years ago to have a talk with an old verger in Ely Cathedral who remembered Bishop Yorke, and who told me that he used to draw such congregations by the power of his oratory and the breadth of his teaching, that when he preached, all the dissenting chapels in the neighbourhood were closed!

It was in 1770, only six years after Lord Hardwicke's death which occurred in London on March 6, 1764, that his second son Charles (born in 1722) was sworn in as Lord Chancellor. His brilliant career ended in a tragedy which makes it one of the most pathetic in our political history. Although unlike his father in person he was intellectually his equal, and might have rivalled his renown had he possessed his firmness and resolution of character. He was educated at Cambridge, and before the age of twenty had given evidence of his precocity as the principal author (after his brother Philip) of the 'Athenian Letters,' a supposed correspondence between Cleander, an agent of the King of Persia resident in Athens, and his brother and friends in Persia. Destined to the law from his childhood, Charles Yorke was called to the bar in 1743, and rapidly advanced in his profession. Entering the House of Commons as member for Reigate in 1747, he later succeeded his brother as member for Cambridge, and one of his best speeches in the House was made in defence of his father against an onslaught by Henry Fox. But in spite of his brilliant prospects and great reputation he always envied those who were able to lead a quiet life, and he thus wrote to his friend Warburton, afterwards Bishop of Gloucester:

'I endeavour to convince myself it is dangerous to converse with you, for you show me so much more happiness in the quiet pursuits of knowledge and enjoyments of friendship than is to be found in lucre or ambition, that I go back into the world with regret, where few things are to be obtained without more agitation both of reason and the passions, than either moderate parts or a benevolent mind can support.'

Charles Yorke was an intimate friend of Montesquieu, the famous author of the 'Esprit des Lois' and the most far-seeing of those whose writings preceded and presaged the French Revolution, who wrote, 'Mes sentiments pour vous sont gravés dans mon c?ur et dans mon esprit d'une manière à ne s'effacer jamais.'

On the formation of a government by the Duke of Devonshire in 1756, Charles Yorke was sworn in, at the early age of thirty-three, as Solicitor-General, and retained that office through the elder Pitt's glorious administration. In 1762 he accepted from Lord Bute the Attorney-Generalship, in which position he had to deal with the difficult questions of constitutional law raised by the publication of John Wilkes's North Briton. In November of that year, however, he resigned office in consequence of the strong pressure put upon him by Pitt, and took leave of the King in tears. Pitt failed in his object of enlisting Yorke's services on behalf of Wilkes in the coming parliamentary campaign, and the crisis ended in an estrangement between the two, which drove Yorke into a loose alliance with the Rockingham Whigs, a group of statesmen who were determined to free English politics from the trammels of court influence and the baser traditions of the party system. When, however, this party came into power in 1765, Yorke was disappointed of the anticipated offer of the Great Seal, and only reluctantly accepted the Attorney-Generalship. The ministry fell in the following year, partly in consequence of Pitt's reappearance in the House of Commons and his disastrous refusal of Rockingham's invitation to join his Government, though they were agreed on most of the important questions of the day, including that of American taxation and the repeal of the Stamp Act; and Pitt, who then (August 1766) became Lord Chatham, was commissioned to form a new government in which, to Yorke's mortification, he offered the Lord Chancellorship to Camden. Yorke thereupon resigned the Attorney-Generalship, and during the devious course of the ill-starred combination under Chatham's nominal leadership-for during the next two years Chatham was absolutely incapacitated from all attention to business, his policy was reversed by his colleagues, and America taxed by Charles Townshend-he maintained an 'attitude of saturnine reserve,' amusing himself with landscape gardening at his villa at Highgate, doing its honours to Warburton, Hurd, Garrick and other friends, and corresponding among others with Stanislas Augustus, King of Poland, to whom he had been introduced by his brother Sir Joseph. Gradually, however, Chatham made a recovery from the mental disease under which he had been labouring, and in January 1770 he returned to the political arena with two vigorous speeches in the House of Lords. His first speech spread consternation among the members of the Government and the King's party, led by the Duke of Grafton, who had assumed the duties of Prime Minister; and one of the first effects of his intervention was the resignation of Lord Camden, who had adhered to Chatham, and openly denounced the Duke of Grafton's arbitrary measures. This event placed the Court party in the utmost difficulty, and no lawyer of sufficient eminence was available for the post but Charles Yorke, who thus suddenly found within his reach the high office which had been the ambition of his life. The crisis was his undoing, and the whole story is of such interest from a family point of view, that, although it is well known from the brilliant pages of Sir George Trevelyan's 'Life of Fox,' I may be excused for telling it again, mainly in the words of two important memoranda preserved at the British Museum.

One of these was written by Charles Yorke's brother, the second Lord Hardwicke, and dated nearly a year later, December 30, 1770; the other, dated October 20, 1772, by his widow Agneta Yorke; and the effect of them, to my mind, is not only to discredit the widely believed story of Charles Yorke's suicide, which is not even alluded to, but also to place his action from a public and political point of view in a more favourable light than that in which it is sometimes presented.

Both the 'Memorials' to which I have alluded give a most vivid and painful account of the struggle between ambition and political consistency which followed upon the offer of the Chancellorship by the Duke of Grafton to one who was pledged by his previous action to the Rockingham party. Lord Hardwicke wrote:

'I shall set down on this paper the extraordinary and melancholy circumstances which attended the offer of the Great Seal to my brother in January last. On the 12th of that month he received on his return from Tittenhanger a note from the Duke of Grafton desiring to see him. He sent it immediately to me and I went to Bloomsbury Square where I met my brother John and we had a long consultation with Mr. Yorke. He saw the Duke of Grafton by appointment in the evening and his grace made him in form and without personal cordiality an offer of the Great Seal, complaining heavily of Lord Camden's conduct, particularly his hostile speech in the House of Lords the first day of the Session. My brother desired a little time to consider of so momentous an affair and stated to the Duke the difficulties it laid him under, his grace gave him till Sunday in the forenoon. He, Mr. Y., called on me that morning, the 14th, and seemed in great perplexity and agitation. I asked him if he saw his way through the clamorous and difficult points upon which it would be immediately expected he should give his opinion, viz. the Middlesex Election, America and the state of Ireland, where the parliament had just been prorogued on a popular point. He seriously declared that he did not, and that he might be called upon to advise measures of a higher and more dangerous nature than he should choose to be responsible for. He was clearly of opinion that he was not sent for at the present juncture from predilection, but necessity, and how much soever the Great Seal had been justly the object of his ambition, he was now afraid of accepting it.

'Seeing him in so low and fluttered a state of spirits and knowing how much the times called for a higher, I did not venture to push him on, and gave in to the idea he himself started, of advising to put the Great Seal in commission, by which time would be gained. He went from me to the Duke of Grafton, repeated his declining answer, and proposed a commission for the present, for which precedents of various times were not wanting. The Duke of Grafton expressed a more earnest desire that my brother should accept than he did at the first interview, and pressed his seeing the King before he took a final resolution. I saw him again in Montague House garden, on Monday the 15th, and he then seemed determined to decline, said a particular friend of his in the law, Mr. W. had rather discouraged him, and that nothing affected him with concern but the uneasiness which it might give to Mrs. Yorke.

'On Tuesday forenoon the 16th, he called upon me in great agitation and talked of accepting. He changed his mind again by the evening when he saw the King at the Queen's Palace, and finally declined. He told me just after the audience that the King had not pressed him so strongly as he had expected, that he had not held forth much prospect of stability in administration, and that he had not talked so well to him as he did when he accepted the office of Attorney-General in 1765; his Majesty however ended the conversation very humanely and prettily, that "after what he had said to excuse himself, it would be cruelty to press his acceptance." I must here solemnly declare that my brother was all along in such agitation of mind that he never told me all the particulars which passed in the different conversations, and many material things may have been said to him which I am ignorant of. He left me soon after to call on Mr. Anson and Lord Rockingham, authorising me to acquaint everybody that he had absolutely declined, adding discontentedly that "It was the confusion of the times which occasioned his having taken that resolution." He appeared to me very much ruffled and disturbed, but I made myself easy on being informed that he would be quiet next day and take physic. He wanted both that and bleeding, for his spirits were in a fever.'

Up to this point Mrs. Yorke's account, written apparently to explain and vindicate her own share in the transaction, tallies with that of her brother-in-law, except that she states that Lord Hardwicke had been much more favourable to the idea of Charles Yorke's acceptance than the above narrative leads one to suppose; according to her the family felt 'it was too great a thing to refuse.' Lord Hardwicke's wife, the Marchioness Grey, indeed, had called upon Mrs. Yorke to urge it, saying among other things that 'the great office to which Mr. Yorke was invited was in the line of his profession, that though it was intimately connected with state affairs, yet it had not that absolute and servile dependance on the Court which the other ministerial offices had; that Mr. Yorke had already seen how vain it was to depend on the friendship of Lord Rockingham and his party; that the part he had acted had always been separate and uninfluenced, and therefore she thought he was quite at liberty to make choice for himself, and by taking the seals he would perhaps have it in his power to reconcile the different views of people and form an administration which might be permanent and lasting; that if he now refused the seals they would probably never be offered a second time ... and that these were Lord Hardwicke's sentiments as well as her own.'

Lord Mansfield's advice had been more emphatic still. 'He had no doubt of the propriety of his accepting the Great Seal, indeed was so positive that Mr. Yorke told me he would hear no reason against it.' Mrs. Yorke herself was at first opposed to the idea; but influenced by such opinions and by her husband's extreme dejection after refusing the offer, she ended by strongly urging him to accept, and was afterwards blamed for having encouraged his fatal ambition. Lord Rockingham alone, who had been greatly dependent upon the advice and assistance of Mr. Yorke, 'to whom,' as Mrs. Yorke remarks, 'he could apply every moment,' and 'without whom he would have made no figure at all in his administration,' put the strongest pressure on him to decline, for selfish reasons as appears from Mrs. Yorke's story. It was therefore against the advice of his own family and 'the generality of his friends,' including Lord Chief Justice Wilmot, that Charles Yorke, in obedience to his own high sense of political honour, at first refused the dazzling promotion, and this fact must be recorded to his credit.

The decision, however, brought no peace to his mind, and ambition immediately began to resume its sway. He passed a restless night, and said in the morning to his wife 'that he would not think of it, for he found whenever he was inclined to consent he could get no rest, and want of rest would kill him.' But after another day, Tuesday, spent in conference 'I believe with Lords Rockingham and Hardwicke,' he was persuaded, by what means does not appear, to go again to Court. Lord Hardwicke, who, as Sir George Trevelyan observes, played a true brother's part throughout the wretched business, thus continues:

'Instead of taking his physic, he left it on the table after a broken night's rest, and went to the levée, was called into the closet, and in a manner compelled by the King to accept the Great Seal with expressions like these: "My sleep has been disturbed by your declining; do you mean to declare yourself unfit for it?" and still stronger afterwards, "If you will not comply, it must make an eternal break betwixt us." At his return from Court about three o'clock, he broke in unexpectedly on me, who was talking with Lord Rockingham, and gave us this account.

We were both astounded, to use an obsolete but strong word, at so sudden an event, and I was particularly shocked at his being so overborne in a manner I had never heard of, nor could imagine possible between Prince and subject. I was hurt personally at the figure I had been making for a day before, telling everybody by his authority that he was determined to decline, and I was vexed at his taking no notice of me or the rest of the family when he accepted. All these considerations working on my mind at this distracting moment induced me, Lord Rockingham joining in it, to press him to return forthwith to the King, and entreat his Majesty either to allow him time till next morning to recollect himself, or to put the Great Seal in commission, as had been resolved upon. We could not prevail; he said he could not in honour do it, he had given his word, had been wished joy, &c. Mr. John Yorke came in during this conversation, and did not take much part in it, but seemed quite astounded. After a long altercating conversation, Mr. Yorke, unhappily then Lord Chancellor, departed, and I went to dinner.

'In the evening, about eight o'clock, he called on me again, and acquainted me with his having been sworn in at the Queen's house, and that he had then the Great Seal in the coach. He talked to me of the title he intended to take, that of Morden, which is part of the Wimple estate, asked my forgiveness if he had acted improperly. We kissed and parted friends. A warm word did not escape either of us. When he took leave he seemed more composed, but unhappy. Had I been quite cool when he entered my room so abruptly at three o'clock I should have said little-wished him joy, and reserved expostulation for a calmer moment.'

Mrs. Yorke's account of these 'altercating conversations' between the brothers, at the second of which, on the evening of the 17th, she was herself present, is naturally much more highly coloured. Charles Yorke was evidently terribly discomposed by it, speaking of Lord Hardwicke's language as 'exceeding all bounds of temper, reason, and even common civility.' 'I hope,' he said to his wife, 'he will in cooler moments think better of it, and my brother John also, for if I lose the support of my family, I shall be undone.'

I need not pursue the subject of this distressing difference between the brothers, which no doubt assumed an altogether exaggerated importance in the sensitive and affectionate, but self-centred, mind of poor Charles Yorke, shaken as he was by the strain and struggle of these days, but which was probably the immediate cause of his fatal illness.

'We returned home' (from St. James's Square), writes Mrs. Yorke, 'and Mr. Woodcock followed in the chariot with the Great Seal. The King had given it in his closet, and at the same time Mr. Yorke kissed his Majesty's hand on being made Baron of Morden in the county of Cambridge. Not once did Mr. Yorke close his eyes, though at my entreaty he took composing medicines.... Before morning he was determined to return the Great Seal, for he said if he kept it he could not live. I know not what I said, for I was terrified almost to death. At six o'clock I found him so ill that I sent for Dr. Watson, who ought immediately to have bled him, instead of which he contented himself with talking to him. He ordered him some medicine and was to see him again in the evening. In the meantime Mr. Yorke was obliged to rise to receive the different people who would crowd to him on this occasion, but before he left me, he assured me that when the Duke of Grafton came to him at night, he would resign the seals. When his company had left him, he came up to me, and even then, death was upon his face. He said he had settled all his affairs, that he should retire absolutely from business, and would go to Highgate the next day, and that he was resolved to meddle no more with public affairs. I was myself so ill with fatigue and anxiety that I was not able to dine with him, but Dr. Plumptre did; when I went to them after dinner I found Mr. Yorke in a state of fixed melancholy. He neither spoke to me nor to Dr. Plumptre; I tried every method to wake and amuse him, but in vain. I could support it no longer, I fell upon my knees before him and begged of him not to affect himself so much-that he would resume his fortitude and trust to his own judgment-in short, I said a great deal which I remember now no more; my sensations were little short of distraction at that time. In an hour or two after he grew much worse, and Dr. Watson coming in persuaded him to go to bed, and giving him a strong opiate, he fell asleep.

But his rest was no refreshment; about the middle of the night he awaked in a delirium, when I again sent for Dr. Watson; towards the morning he was more composed, and at noon got up. In about an hour after he was up, he was seized with a vomiting of blood. I was not with him at the instant, but was soon called to him. He was almost speechless, but on my taking his hand in an agony of silent grief he looked tenderly on me, and said, "How can I repay your kindness, my dear love; God will reward you, I cannot; be comforted." These were the last words I heard him speak, for my nerves were too weak to support such affliction. I was therefore prevented from being in his room, and indeed I was incapable of giving him assistance. He lived till the next day, when at five o'clock in the afternoon, he changed this life for a better.'

Lord Hardwicke meanwhile had decided to follow the very friendly and right opinion of Dr. Jeffreys, 'that he would do his best to support the part which his brother had taken,' and came to town with that resolution on 'Friday in the forenoon' but he found that Charles Yorke had been taken very ill that morning.

'When I saw him on the evening of the 19th he was in bed and too much disordered to be talked with. There was a glimmering of hope on the 20th in the morning, but he died that day about five in the evening. The patent of peerage had passed all the forms except the Great Seal, and when my poor brother was asked if the seal should be put to it, he waived it, and said "he hoped it was no longer in his custody." I can solemnly declare that except what passed at my house on the Wednesday forenoon, I had not the least difference with him throughout the whole transaction, not a sharp or even a warm expression passed, but we reasoned over the subject like friends and brothers.... In short, the usage he met with in 1766 when faith was broke with him, had greatly impaired his judgment, dejected his spirits, and made him act below his superior knowledge and abilities. He would seldom explain himself, or let his opinion be known in time to those who were ready to have acted with him in the utmost confidence. After the menacing language used in the closet to compel Mr. Yorke's acceptance and the loss which the King sustained by his death at that critical juncture, the most unprejudiced and dispassionate were surprised at the little, or rather no notice which was taken of his family; the not making an offer to complete the peerage was neither to be palliated nor justified in their opinion. It was due to the Manes of the departed from every motive of humanity and decorum. Lord Hillsborough told a friend of mine, indeed, that the King had soon after his death spoke of him with tears in his eyes and enquired after the family, but it would surely not have misbecome his Majesty conscious of the whole of his behaviour to an able, faithful, and despairing subject, to have expressed that concern in a more particular manner, and to those who were so deeply affected by the melancholy event.

'A worthier and better man there never was, no more learned and accomplished in his own profession, as well as out of it. What he wanted was the calm, firm judgment of his father, and he had the misfortune to live in times which required a double portion of it. Every precaution was taken by me to prepare him for the offer, and to persuade him to form some previous plan of conduct, but all in vain. He would never explain himself clearly, and left everything to chance, till we were all overborne, perplexed and confounded in that fatal interval which opened and closed the negotiation with my brother. With him the Somers line of the law seems to be at an end, I mean of that set in the profession who, mixing principles of liberty with those proper to monarchy, have conducted and guided that great body of men ever since the Revolution.'

Fever, complicated by colic and the rupture of a blood-vessel, caused Charles Yorke's death, the consequence of the extreme nervous tension which he had undergone, of which his widow has left a most touching and graphic description. I wish I could have found room for the whole of her account of those days. The circumstances of his physical constitution and the mental struggle he had suffered are quite sufficient to account for his death without the gratuitous assumption of suicide, which there is nothing in the family papers to support. There is no doubt that this idea was prevalent at the time, and allusions to it are to be found in many subsequent accounts, down to that in Sir George Trevelyan's 'Life of Fox.' Perhaps it is not too much to hope that this allegation may be at last disposed of in the light of the papers by his brother and his wife. We have two clear and positive declarations in these papers: first, that in the beginning of his illness he declined his physic, and afterwards took an opiate; second, that there followed the rupture of a blood-vessel. When Lord Hardwicke saw him for the last time on the 19th he was 'extremely ill'; 'there was a glimmering of hope on the 20th in the morning, but he died that day about five in the evening.'

This is the summary of the evidence, which to my mind is conclusive. Unless one assumes a conspiracy of silence between Lord Hardwicke and Mrs. Yorke, I do not see that I can reasonably admit any other hypothesis. I therefore claim that phrase of his brother's as a solution of the supposed mystery of Charles Yorke's death.

If hereafter the vague rumours which have so long been current should be supported by any real evidence, my judgment will be disputed, but I am glad to have this opportunity of asserting my own firm conviction that the version of the unhappy affair given in the family papers is correct, and that Charles Yorke's death was due to natural causes.

Charles Yorke was twice married. His first wife was a daughter of Williams Freeman, Esq., of Aspeden, Hertfordshire, by whom he had a son Philip. This son succeeded his uncle as third Earl of Hardwicke, he inherited the Tittenhanger and other estates (which passed away to his daughters on his death in 1834) from his mother, and he is still remembered for his wise and liberal administration as the first Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland after the Union (from 1801 to 1806), the irritation and unrest caused by which measure he did much to allay. [Footnote: A recent publication, The Viceroy's Post Bag, by Mr. MacDonagh, gives some curious details of his correspondence from the Hardwicke Papers at the British Museum.] As a Whig he had always been in favour of Catholic Emancipation in Ireland, and though he agreed to postpone it on joining Addington's Administration, he adhered to the cause till its triumph in 1829; and he gave a qualified support to the Parliamentary Reform Bill in 1831. He was created a Knight of the Garter in 1803, [Footnote: Lord Hardwicke married in 1782 Elizabeth, daughter of James, fifth Earl of Balcarres, the sister of Lady Anne Barnard, the authoress of Auld Robin Gray.] and had the misfortune to lose the only son who survived infancy in a storm at sea off Lübeck in 1808 at the age of twenty-four. The succession to the peerage was thus opened up to his half-brothers, the sons of Charles Yorke's second wife, Agneta, daughter of Henry Johnston of Great Berkhampsted: Charles Philip (1764-1834) who left no heir, and Joseph Sydney (1768-1831), father of the subject of this memoir. I have already alluded to the public career of their half-brother, the third Lord Hardwicke; and it is interesting to see how the tradition of political and public work was maintained by the two younger brothers, who both, and especially the younger of the two, added fresh laurels to the distinguished record held by so many of the descendants of the great Chancellor. The Right Honourable Charles Yorke represented the county of Cambridge in Parliament from 1790 to 1810, and joined Addington's Government at the same time as Lord Hardwicke, first as Secretary at War in 1801, and then as Secretary of State for the Home Department, till the return to office of William Pitt (to whom he was politically opposed) in 1804. In 1810 he became first Lord of the Admiralty under Spencer Perceval, with his younger brother Joseph as one of the Sea Lords, and retained office till Perceval's assassination broke up the ministry; and when in 1812 Lord Liverpool became Prime Minister he left the Admiralty and never afterwards returned to office, retiring from public life in 1818. The splendid breakwater at Plymouth was decided on and commenced while he was at the Admiralty, and a slab of its marble marks his tomb in Wimpole Church.

With Joseph Sydney Yorke, afterwards Admiral and a K.C.B., opens a chapter of family history with which this volume will be mainly concerned; and the navy rather than the law or politics henceforth becomes the chief interest of the story in its public aspect. Sir Joseph, indeed, may be looked upon as a sort of second founder of the family. Although Wimpole in Cambridgeshire, which the Chancellor purchased from the Harleys, Earls of Oxford, was for many generations the principal seat of the family, Sydney Lodge, on Southampton Water, [Footnote: Attached to Sydney Lodge on the shore of Southampton Water is a white battery containing guns taken from a French frigate and bearing an inscription, written by my father, commemorating his last parting with my grandfather, Sir Joseph. The battery encloses a well, known as 'Agneta's Well,' which has refreshed many a thirsty fisherman. The inscription is as follows:-

IN MEMORIAM

THESE GUNS WERE THE FORECASTLE ARMAMENT OF THE DUTCH FRIGATE 'ALLIANCE'

OF 36 GUNS

CAPTURED ON THE COAST OF NORWAY IN 1795

AFTER A CLOSE ACTION WITH H.M.S. 'STAG' OF 32 GUNS

COMMANDED BY CAPTAIN YORKE

OF SYDNEY LODGE

THE FATHER OF THE FOURTH EARL OF HARDWICKE WHO ON THIS SPOT IN 1829

PARTED FROM HIS BELOVED PARENT FOR THE LAST TIME

AND SAILED IN COMMAND OF H.M.S. 'ALLIGATOR'

FOR THE MEDITERRANEAN.

HE PLACES THIS STONE TO HIS FATHER'S MEMORY

September 4th, 1871] the charming house which Sir Joseph built out of prize-money earned during the French wars, has all the associations of a home for our branch of the family, and the love of the sea is an inheritance which we all derive from him. His professional ability is shown by the position he won in the service. Entering the navy in 1780 when he was fourteen, he had plenty of opportunity of active service in those stirring times. After serving on board one or two other vessels, Joseph Yorke joined the Duke commanded by Sir Charles Douglas, whom he followed to the Formidable. That vessel was one of Rodney's fleet in the West Indies, and the boy fought in her at the famous action of April 12, 1782 in which that admiral completely defeated the French under De Grasse. He remained in the Formidable until she paid off in 1783, and spent the years 1784-1789 on the Halifax station. In the latter year he was promoted Lieutenant in the Thisbe under Captain Sir Samuel Hood and returned in her to England. Promotion followed rapidly. Yorke became a Commander in 1790 and Captain in 1793, in which capacity he served continuously on the home station, taking part in the blockade of Brest, until the Peace of Amiens.

During this time he had the good fortune to capture several large privateers from the enemy; he also took the Espiégle, a French corvette, close to Brest harbour and in sight of a very superior French squadron. In 1794 Captain Yorke was given command of the Stag, 32, and cruised in the Channel later off the coast of Ireland, and later still, with the North Sea Fleet under Lord Duncan.

'On the 22nd of August 1795, Captain Yorke being in company with a light squadron under the orders of Captain James Alms, gave chase to two large ships and a cutter. At 4.15 P.M. the Stag brought the sternmost ship to close action, which continued with much spirit for about half an hour, when the enemy struck, and proved to be the Alliance, Batavian frigate of 36 guns and 240 men. Her consorts the Argo 36, and Nelly cutter, 16, effected their escape after sustaining a running fight with the other ships of the British squadron. In this spirited action, the Stag had 4 men slain and 13 wounded, and the enemy between 40 and 50 killed and wounded.'

He was at the Nore during the dangerous mutiny of 1798, and he left among his papers a very stirring address made to his crew on the day that the mutineers were hung at the yard-arm. When the war broke out again in 1803 he was again employed in the Channel, and after commanding the Barfleur and the Christian VII he was appointed a junior Sea Lord in May 1810, when his brother was First Lord. In this year he was knighted when acting as proxy for Lord Hardwicke at his installation as a Knight of the Garter; on July 31 he was promoted to the rank of Rear-Admiral; and in the following January, with his flag in the Vengeur, he was sent out with reinforcements for Wellington to Lisbon. These were landed on March 4, 1811, and on the news being received, Massena broke up his camp in front of the lines of Torres Vedras and began his retreat. This was Sir Joseph's last service afloat. In 1814, while still a member of the Board, he was appointed First Sea Lord under Lord Melville as First Lord, and held that high post till 1818, a period of office which covered Lord Exmouth's expedition against Algiers in 1816. He became Vice-Admiral and Knight Commander of the Bath on January 2, 1815, when he also received the freedom of the borough of Plymouth, and he was made a full Admiral on July 22, 1830. He had been member for Reigate since 1790, with an interval as member for Sandwich, from 1812 to 1818.

Sir Joseph married in 1798 Elizabeth Weake Rattray and had a family of four sons and one daughter, afterwards Lady Agneta Bevan. Lady Yorke died in 1812, and in 1815 he married Urania, Dowager Marchioness of Clanricarde and daughter of the twelfth Lord Winchester, who survived him. During his later years he lived mostly at Sydney Lodge, occupied with family interests, and in the administration of various charities, naval and other. My grandfather was a fine type of English sailor, very handsome in his youth, as Romney's portraits show, affectionate and high-spirited; altogether one of the most attractive figures in our family history. Some following chapters will show him in his relations with his son, and mention the peculiar circumstances attending his accidental death by drowning.