Contents
-BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD
S.A. Bent, comp. Familiar Short Sayings of Great Men. 1887.
Charles Townshend
[An English politician, born 1725; entered the House of Commons, 1747; secretary at war, 1761; chancellor of the exchequer, 1766; proposed the tax of the American Colonies on tea and other articles; died 1767.]
Sooner than make our colonies our allies, I should wish to see them returned to their primitive deserts.
Speech in the House of Commons, December, 1765, approving the Stamp Act.When told that a newly elected member of Parliament had written on logic and grammar; “Why does he come here,” asked Townshend, “where he will hear nothing of either?”His brother, the first Marquis Townshend, was superseded as lord lieutenant of Ireland by Lord Harcourt, who, arriving unexpectedly in Dublin at three o’clock in the morning, found Townshend at a drinking-party with some friends. Nothing abashed, the marquis received his successor with the words, “Your lordship has certainly come among us rather unexpectedly, but you must admit that you did not find us napping.”Burke said in a eulogy of the Right Hon. Charles Townshend, “Great men are the guide-posts and landmarks of the state.”
