Townshend, Charles

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Townshend, Charles

TOWNSHEND, CHARLES. (1725–1767). British politician. Second son of the third Viscount Townshend, he was educated at Clare College, Cambridge, Leiden University, and Lincoln's Inn, and was called to the bar in 1747. In the same year he was elected to Parliament for Great Yarmouth, and in 1748 he became a member of the Board of Trade. Here he impressed the president, Lord Halifax, whose intelligence and energy had considerable influence on colonial policy, and under him acquired considerable knowledge of imperial affairs. By 1753 he was thinking in terms of giving governors and other officials permanent financial independence of the colonial assemblies. At about this time he began to emerge as an impressive debater in the House of Commons, and in 1754 he moved to the Admiralty.

In 1755 he married the wealthy and influential widow of the earl of Dalkeith, so achieving considerable political independence. He now declared his opposition to the Duke of Newcastle's Europe-centered foreign policy and what he saw as neglect of American defense. He remained out of office from the formation of the first ministry of William Pitt, earl of Chatham, in 1756 until after George III's accession in 1760, partly because he was distrusted, partly because he was too clever for comfort. In March 1761 he became secretary at war but complained that he was not made leader of the House of Commons as well. Having now, like Pitt, reversed his earlier position, he urged the government to remain involved in the war in Germany: a commitment Lord Bute and George III were anxious to end. In December he resigned, apparently in protest over the terms of the Peace of Paris, which, to general confusion, he then defended in debate.

In March 1763, having at last obtained the presidency of the Board of Trade, he unsuccessfully proposed a measure that anticipated the Sugar Act of 1764. Although initially excluded from George Grenville's ministry, he supported the Stamp Act in February 1765 and was rewarded with the office of paymaster on 24 May. The following year he opposed the repeal of the Stamp Act. In 1766 he became Chatham's chancellor of the exchequer. Townshend then took advantage of Chatham's illness to prevent a government takeover of Bengal, while at the same time speculating with government money in East India stock.

He also carried the most moderate of the three suggested punishments for New York's defiance of the 1765 Mutiny Act: a temporary suspension of the colonial assembly's right to legislate. The cabinet, already committed to colonial taxation for military purposes, was now considering ways and means. Townshend persuaded ministers to widen the aim to giving colonial officials financial independence of the assemblies, the idea he had first proposed in 1753. By selecting customs duties he exploited the American distinction between internal and external taxes, not realizing that the real objection was any revenue-raising measure, as opposed to one designed to manage trade. A deficit arising from a ministerial defeat on the land tax was made up by thorough auditing and had nothing to do with the Townshend duties.

Townshend died suddenly on 4 September 1767. Although a brilliant speaker, he had never inspired confidence, and his frequent changes of allegiance deservedly earned him the nickname "the shuttlecock," or, as he expressed it in his "Champagne speech" on the East India Company measures, "the weathercock." He spent years in relatively minor offices and was chancellor only for a matter of months. Yet in that office he was assiduous and able, and his attitude toward American problems remained consistent and sincere from 1753 to his death.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Christie, I. R. Wars and Revolutions: Britain 1760–1815. London: Edward Arnold, 1982.

Namier, Lewis, and John Brooke. Charles Townshend. London: Macmillan, 1964.

Thomas, Peter D. G. British Politics and the Stamp Act Crisis: The First Phase of the American Revolution, 1763–1769. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975.

revised by John Oliphant

Encyclopedia of the American Revolution: Library of Military History