delivered numerous lectures and addresses on the subject of the war, including an oration on Memo- rial day, 1885, in Brooklyn, N. Y., on " The Empire State in the Rebellion."
TOWNSEND, Virginia Frances, author, b. in
New Haven, Conn., in 1836. She has passed her
life in literary pursuits, edited "Arthur's Home
Magazine " for several years, and has contributed
much to journals and magazines. Her writings in-
clude " While it was Morning" (New York, 1859);
" Buds from Christmas Boughs " (1859) ; " By and
By " (1859) ; " Amy Deane, and other Tales " (1862) ;
"The Well in the Rock, and other Tales" (1863);
"The Temptation and Triumph, and other Tales"
(Cincinnati, 1863) ; " The Battle-Fields of Our Fa-
thers" (New York, 1864); "Janet Strong" (Phila-
delphia, 1865) ; " Darryl Gap " (Boston, 1866) ; " The
Hollands " (1869) ; " Max Meredith's Millennium "
(1870) ; " One Woman's Two Lovers " (1872) ; " Eliza-
beth Tudor" (1874); "Only Girls" (1876); and
" Six in All " (1878).
TOWNSHEND, George, first Marquis, soldier,
b. in Norfolk, England, 28 Feb., 1724; d. 14 Sept.,
1807. He was the eldest son of the third Viscount
Townshend, whom he succeeded in May, 1767. He
entered the British army at an early age, and took
part in the battles of Dettingen, Fontenoy, Cullo-
den, and Laffeldt. In 1747 he entered parliament.
He went out to Canada in 1759 as brigadier-gen-
eral, and commanded a division under Wolfe, suc-
ceeding that officer in command when Wolfe fell
at Quebec. Five days later he received the capitu-
lation of the city. He then returned to England,
was present at the battle of Fellinghausen in 1761,
and served in Portugal in 1762. He became a
privy councillor after succeeding to the title, and
was lord-lieutenant of Ireland from 1767 till 1772.
He was master-general of the ordnance in the lat-
ter year, and was created Earl of Leicester in 1784
and Marquis Townshend in 1787. He was a man
of " quick perception but unsafe judgment." He
is said to have received the capitulation of Quebec
as though the achievement had been his own, and
in his official report of the battle he omitted the
name of Wolfe, whom he indirectly censured.
Hurrying away from the citadel, which he be-
lieved to be untenable, he returned home, and was
soon engaged in assisting his brother Charles in
the latter's attempt to make the colonies submit
to an odious system of taxation. — His brother,
Charles, statesman, b. in England, 29 Aug., 1725 ;
d. there, 4 Sept., 1767, entered parliament when only
twenty-two years old, and soon achieved a brilliant
reputation as an orator and a supporter of the
Pelham administration. He was appointed a com-
missioner of trade and plantations in 1749, and a
commissioner for executing the office of lord high
admiral in 1751 ; was a lord of the admiralty in
.1754, and treasurer of the chamber and member of
the privy council in 1756. From 1761 till 1763 he
was secretary of war, and in February of the latter
year he was made first lord of trade and planta-
tions. He was subsequently paymaster of the
forces and chancellor of the exchequer. From the
period of his introduction to office through the
commission for the colonies, Townshend made a
special study of American affairs. His plan for
f governing the American colonies was to extract as
arge a revenue as possible from them by onerous
imposts levied without the slightest regard to their
rights. In 1765 he had heartily supported Gren-
ville's stamp-act, although he subsequently voted
for its repeal, and was in favor of burdening the
colonies with an expensive civil list and a stand-
ing army. He was also of opinion that the various
charters that had been granted to them at differ-
ent times, and which every ministry of Charles II.
had spared, should be annulled, a uniform system
of government set up in their stead, and the royal
governors, judges, and attorneys made independent
of the people. " I would govern the Americans,"
he said, " as subjects of Great Britain. I would
restrain their trade and their manufactures as
subordinate to the mother country. These, our
children, must not make themselves our allies in
time of war and our rivals in peace." The eclipse
of Chatham in March, 1767, left Townshend, who
had been chancellor of the exchequer since the pre-
ceding August, and whom Chatham had vainly en-
deavored to have dismissed from office, " lord of
the ascendant." From that moment he ruled the
ministry in all matters relating to America, and
succeeded in carrying through parliament a bill
taxing the colonies that was far more burdensome
than the stamp-act that had nearly created a revo-
lution. Thus the latter left the civil officers de-
pendent on the local legislatures, and preserved
the proceeds of the American tax in the ex-
chequer. The revenue collected under Town-
shend's bill, on the other hand, was to be un-
der the sign manual at the king's pleasure, and
could be burdened at will by pensions to English-
men. By providing an independent support for
the crown officers, it virtually did away with the
necessity for colonial legislatures, as governors
would have little inducement to call them, and an
angry minister might dissolve them without in-
convenience. When it was suggested to Town-
shend that the army might perhaps be safely with-
drawn from America, in which case expense would
cease and no revenue be necessary, he replied:
" The moment a resolution shall be taken to with-
draw the army, I will resign my office and have no
more to do in public affairs. I insist it is abso-
lutely necessary to keep up a large army there and
here." Townshend only lived a few months after
the successful passage of his bill, which, by its tax
on tea and similar imports, lost England her colo-
nies, and was about to be intrusted with the for-
mation of a new ministry, when he was suddenly
carried off by a fever at the early age of forty-one.
" He was," says Bancroft, " a man of wonderful
endowments, dashed with follies and indiscretion.
Impatient of waiting, his ruling passion was pres-
ent success. ... In the house of commons his
brilliant oratory took its inspiration from the pre-
vailing opinion ; and, careless of consistency, heed-
less of whom he deserted or whom he joined, he
followed the floating indications of the loudest
cheers." He had been courted by all parties, but
never possessed the confidence of any. If his in-
discretion forbade esteem, his good humor dis-
sipated hate. He had clear conceptions, great
knowledge of every branch of administration, and
indefatigable assiduity in business. Burke styled
him " the delight and ornament of the house of
commons, and the charm of every private society
that he honored with his presence." Macaulay
refers to him as "a man of splendid talents, of lax
principles, and of boundless vanity and presump-
tion," who " would submit to no control." See his
" Essay on the Earl of Chatham " and " Charles
Townshend, Wit and Statesman," by Percy Fitz-
gerald (London, 1866). — Another brother, Roger,
British soldier, b. in England about 1730; d. near
Ticonderoga, N. Y., 25 July, 1759, entered the army
at an early age, and became a lieutenant-colonel on
1 Feb., 1758. He served as adjutant-general of the
expeditionary force that was sent against Louis-
burg, was deputy adjutant-general of Gen. Sir