In October, some reinforcements which had been long detained by adverse winds, arrived from England, and Rear-Admiral Baker sent to Lord Galway for instructions as to the landing of the troops. Galway having destined them for Catalonia, persuaded the king that this was the best measure to save Portugal from invasion. With the king’s consent, the fleet conveyed them to Barcelona, but they arrived too late for the design upon Cadiz. The king having at first been very desirous to retain them on Portuguese territory, his Lordship took occasion to complain to his Majesty of the bad provision made for the subsistence and accommodation of the British troops in Portugal. He at the same time represented that Queen Anne would recruit her regiments, on condition that the king would order the levy of Portuguese cavalry which her Majesty had engaged to keep in pay. To give the Portuguese horse a chance of gaining laurels, Lord Galway had obtained the permission of the British Government to form them into six dragoon regiments to be paid by Queen Anne, and to be commanded by French Refugee and British officers. This was carried out, and it was his last piece of service in Portugal. In mentioning that Marlborough looked upon it as waste of money, on account of the hopeless pusillanimity of the natives, especially after so many defeats, Coxe takes the opportunity of testifying that Lord Galway, “with great military spirit and perseverance,” suffered in reputation chiefly from the faults of others. It may here be noted that in August of this year, that malcontent officer, the Earl of Rivers (alias Tyburn Dick), giving trouble in England, Godolphin proposed to Marlborough “to send him out of the way where Lord Galway is now, and has pressed this good while for his return, so that Lord Galway would like it. And Lord Rivers nor nobody else could ever get credit there.” The proposal fell to the ground.
During 1710, the Portuguese, under the influence of the Duke of Cadaval, refused to allow any troops to cross the frontier. Lieutenant-General Stanhope had brilliant success in Spain. In the end of August, after the victory of Saragossa, letters from the Portuguese ambassador in Spain to his court, accompanied with letters from Stanhope to Galway, urged that the Portuguese troops must join the allies at Almaraz without the smallest delay. This the Portuguese Government refused. Lord Galway was now a martyr to gout and general bodily indisposition.
All his requests to be recalled had been refused; but his self-denial could be taxed no longer, and he was now expecting that his successor would be sent out. He was quite unable to be present at any conference to counteract Cadaval. A last appeal for succour was made by Stanhope, in a letter dated in October, asking only for such forces in Portugal as were in the pay of the Queen of Great Britain. But neither would the Portuguese Government part with those; and their infatuated conduct issued in Stanhope being taken prisoner, his army having been surrounded by the enemy. Before the latter correspondence, Lord Galway had sailed for England, oppressed with vexations, broken health, and advancing years. Luttrell gives the following details:— “News from Gibraltar, received on Thursday, July 11th. — There has been a great tumult in that garrison, occasioned by the governor stopping their pay for bread, which was always allowed them. It grew to such a head that some officers and soldiers were killed. The Lord Galway, being informed thereof, sent to the governor not to do the like for the future, and a general pardon to all the mutineers, which quieted the commotion. Thursday, 21st September. — A Lisbon mail of the 16th says, the Lord Galway had taken his audience of leave of the King of Portugal, and appointed Major-General Newton commander of the British forces in that country till the arrival of the Earl of Portmore. Saturday, 21st October. — Lord Henry Powlett, second son of the Duke of Bolton, is landed at Falmouth with the Earl of Galway, who, it’s said, has brought with him £200,000 in gold and silver, belonging to our merchants, as part of their effects on board the Portuguese Brazil fleet.”
The winter of 1710 was in a twofold sense a cold and tempestuous time for Lord Galway to come home. The triumph of the anti-government party had been accelerated by the prosecution of the High Church divine, Dr. Henry Sacheverell, for seditious language regarding the Revolution settlement. Stanhope, who was member for Cockermouth, had, before the opening of the campaign, been one of the managers appointed by the Commons for the Doctor’s trial at the bar of the House of Lords. On the 20th of March Sacheverell had been voted guilty by a majority of sixty-nine to fifty-two, and had been sentenced to a three years' suspension from clerical functions. The appearance of persecution, the insignificance of the culprit, and the weakness of the sentence, had given a mortal wound to the Government. Lord Sunderland had been dismissed from the Secretaryship of State on June 14th.
