Family and Education

b. ?1731, s. of John Price of Knighton by Elizabeth, da. of William Chase.  educ. Westminster May 1745, aged 13; Ch. Ch. Oxf. 24 May 1749, aged 18; I. Temple 1751, called 1757, proposed for reader 1764.  m. 21 Mar. 1766, Sarah, da. of William Glanville by his 2nd w. and sis. of William Evelyn (d.1813), 1da. Sarah who in 1794 m. Bamber Gascoyne jun.

Offices Held

Receiver of fines and forfeitures in the customs 1767-8, held for him by his bro. Richard 1768-77.

Biography

A contemporary thus described him in a ‘footnote to verses written after Chase Price’s death’:1

This gentleman was one of the most extraordinary persons who have lived in the present age. He possessed considerable abilities, his mind was not unadorned with useful and polite information, and he was remarkable for a great share of that lively humour ... so essential to the character of ... a boon companion; but his peculiar and distinguishing characteristic was a perfect knowledge of mankind ... he acquired a supreme insight into human weaknesses, and was, thereby, enabled so to apply the humorous flexibility of his own character as to lead them to his purpose ... By this talent ... he was enabled ... to humbug all kinds of persons, from a peer of the realm to the waiter of a bawdy-house, and ... to gain his point with them all. By the same means, without having ever possessed any considerable fortune, he contrived, for many years, to bear himself upon a footing with the richest men in the kingdom, indulged himself in all the expensive turns of the Man of Taste, and in all the luxury of the Man of Pleasure; left his family in a state of opulence, though he continually lived, as he died, in a state of insolvency.

A great deal about him can be gleaned from his lively, discursive letters; egocentric, he frequently speaks about himself. Impetuous, resourceful, and passionately persevering, he was buzzing round, gathering information and retailing it, constantly scheming, and seeking great patrons under whom to act. The need of protection seems connected with his aggressive hatreds: he repeatedly names revenge as his motive, and boils over with hostility and contempt (see his descriptions of Charles Vernon, Thomas Lewis, or John Bindley, sufficiently accurate to be worth quoting, yet each, in its way, a projection of his own personality). He saw enemies everywhere: they were of his own making, or even imaginary; but to fight them he wanted superior strength. He swore fealty to the mighty, and merely asked to be trusted; and where accepted was loyal. His letters to his earliest patrons, Lords Carnarvon and Bath, are not extant. To the Duke of Portland he wrote, 11 July 1765:2

I come ... to offer myself most sincerely to you, as a follower of your political fortune; ... nor will I expect or accept any reward but your confidence.

To Lord Clive, 17 Oct. 1767:3

I owe [Lord] Bateman every return that political revenge can suggest to me; but my affection or hatred in politics, as far as it relates to all my connections in your part of the world, shall for my future life be regulated by your family convenience and interest.

And on 21 Oct.: ‘Your friendship and protection is the only return that I ever will take.’ He unduly belittled himself: to Portland, c.1765, he wrote of ‘the inferior situation I am in’; to Clive, 21 Oct. 1767, about ‘my little situation in life’. Genuine sympathy for the under-dog was the counterpart to his feeling oppressed and in need of protection; and may have been the source of his undoubted popularity among the smaller people in Radnorshire. His letters to his wife4 are brief and affectionate; but only the desire for affection is clear. He may have been skilful in human relations, but was not at ease.

How Price first established his interest at Leominster is uncertain; he ranked as a Tory, and may have had the support of the Harleys; and his election address5 suggests that he was already at loggerheads with Lord Bateman who had a strong interest in the borough—addressing the ‘honest and independent electors’ Price declared: ‘I shall always be ready to support your oppressed liberties: to face the prodigality of power.’ He was returned unopposed. In 1761 Price plunged passionately into the struggle which developed in Shropshire and Radnorshire between Lord Powis, Howell Gwynne, Thomas Lewis, and other old Pelhamites on the one side, and Bath and Carnarvon, supported by Bute and joined to Lord Oxford and the Tories, on the other. At the Radnorshire county meeting, Price proposed Carnarvon for Member; and in the borough pressed the attack against Thomas Lewis even after a compromise had been concluded for the county. He boasted to Portland, 15 Sept. 1765:

At the last general election I brought a foreigner, who never had seen the county or been seen by it, into Radnorshire; I picked him up upon the Exchange of London; I polled the borough against Tom Lewis ... and my friend is the sitting Member.

As for Thomas Lewis:

It is fortunate for any one to call him an enemy and it has been my good fortune to do so from my cradle; my father has fought him for forty years and I have beat him!

At Montgomery Price set up an East Indian, Governor Roberts, against Powis’s candidate, Richard Clive:

Great pains were taken till the night before the election [wrote Powis to Newcastle on 1 Apr. 1761] to bring matters to a contest. So far indeed, they took effect as to create some trouble and expense, of which I never had any in this borough before; and which, on this occasion, arose entirely from the resentment of a famous attorney in this neighbourhood.6

Price himself was re-elected without opposition at Leominster, together with Bateman’s candidate, which may be the reason why Newcastle in October 1761 placed him among the Members whose attendance at the opening of the session was to be secured by Bateman. But usually Newcastle classed Price as Tory; as such he is also marked in Bute’s list of December 1761, with the remark: ‘clever and attention is required’; and early in December 1762 Fox included him among the Members supporting the peace preliminaries.

Price’s chief connexion at that time was with Lord Bath, which he thus explained to Portland on 1 Oct. 1762:

A similitude of disposition united us, as nearly as it is possible two people could be, whose rank, fortune, and abilities are so widely distant. It was flattering in some measure to gain the confidence of a man formerly so famous and whose intelligence and sagacity might direct and assist the future prospects of my life. But his declared and open war with my avowed and personal enemy Lord Powis, certainly countenanced me in any junction I could make with him.

Unpopularity in Shropshire threatened to defeat Bath when he tried to put the militia law in execution: ‘Powis’s friends in London laughed’, and the King was told that Bath was the only lord lieutenant ‘incapable of raising his militia’. ‘I felt for him ... I pitied him! Cannot I feel the exultation of his enemies, and this concluded to determine me in his favour.’ Asked by Bath for his ‘views in life’, Price claims to have replied that he was not in a condition to accept

any employment or emolument from the Crown ... for though I was too inconsiderable to have any notice taken of me by the King in an independent manner, I was of too much consequence to be crammed as a make weight into the first hole, and fed only for my servility.

But to assist Bath he accepted a commission in the Shropshire militia.7 At Bath’s funeral on 17 July 1764, Price was a pall-bearer, and there was surprise at his not being mentioned in Bath’s will. ‘I cannot forgive his brutal insincerity to Mr. C. Price, to whom he had great obligations, and whose circumstances in life he knew’, wrote Charles Townshend to his mother.8

By then Price was apparently a close friend of Townshend’s, a welcome visitor at Adderbury, a recipient of Townshend’s long political epistles,9 and one of the financial schemers and plungers with whom Townshend associated, sometimes joining them in their ventures. Politically Price adhered to the Grenville Administration: on 22 Nov. 1763 Charles Jenkinson sent him a very appreciative reply to two (untraced) letters suggesting how to proceed against Wilkes;10 on 6 Feb. 1764, Price voted with Administration; and when on 18 Feb. he voted with the Opposition, Jenkinson listed him among those normally friends of the Government. Though only two speeches by Price are known,11 he seems to have made his mark in the House. In a list by Rockingham, June 1765, of men to be considered for office, his name occurs but with ‘Query, his conduct’ against it.12 And on 18 July, the day of Rockingham’s first levee, Grenville asked Price for the next day—‘this letter’ wrote Price to Portland,13 ‘comes rather ministerially and seems calculated to prevent my attendance there’. But he was anyhow not going to the levee.

For my own part [he wrote to Portland a week earlier] though I have been a lost sheep in your Grace’s ward, and without that pale which surrounded the faithful, I neither court opinion, or fear censure; I have no political claim; on the contrary I have a most equitable right to political vengeance; I deserve it and am prepared for it.

Yet in that same letter he offered himself to Portland as a follower of his political fortune—‘every other fortune’, he wrote, ‘I have already shared’.

The origin of Price’s connexion with Portland does not appear in the extant correspondence—it may have been through the Herefordshire estates and Harley connexions of Portland’s mother. The earliest letter from him to Portland, of 31 July 1762 (and the Duke had but recently returned from his Grand Tour) starts in a rather familiar style:

My dear Lord, I believe you did not intend to be pestered every post when you gave the commission to write to you; if I exceed your Grace’s orders blame yourself; a hint however, shall silence me.

But a good many letters follow: some containing valuable information, others fit to conclude as does that of 24 Sept. 1765: ‘Excuse this nonsense which was told me in great secrecy ...’ Besides, Price seems to have transacted financial and estate business for Portland, already in money difficulties. And then, on 20 May 1765:

I know not how to go on with what I have to say but my situation must plead my excuse.

I have been prosecuted at law for some money and which I cannot procure in London notwithstanding my repeated endeavours; my mind is worn down by it; and every pursuit and hope in life overthrown; Lord William Manners offers the money upon a joint bond; I have tried every friend on earth besides yourself, and though I ought to be ashamed to apply to your Grace, the inevitable ruin which hangs over me obliges me to solicit the loan of your credit for a year, long before the expiration of which term I shall be capable of repaying it and lending you ten times the sum.

The whole of my necessities fall under £2,000; I have a little estate which I will make over to you as a counter security, very sufficient to indemnify you at all events; save me for God sake if you can. But if you feel it inconvenient to you, leave me to a fate I deserve, which my own inattention and credulity have unfortunately occasioned.

Portland came to his rescue.

When I reflect upon your Grace’s behaviour to me [wrote Price on 1 July] my life and the service of it will be too short and too trifling to make you the least amends.

And with typical resilience he was developing schemes: one, concerned with Radnorshire, has produced in Price’s letters of 12 and 15 Sept. 1765 perhaps the best exposé; record of the social and political structure of that county and its boroughs in the eighteenth century. The Maeslough (Maesllwch) estate, which was for sale, had decisive voting strength in county elections, especially if combined with the stewardry of the King’s manors; this, moreover, dominated three contributory boroughs, while the fourth, Knighton, was in Price’s own hands. He therefore urged Portland to buy the estate and obtain the stewardry through his friends in office.

The Maeslough estate, and the power of the Crown in Radnorshire, grafted one upon t’other, are in my opinion equal to a peerage. I can be answerable for it only with my life, and that I declare is devoted to you. Adieu—come to a resolution as soon as possible, my dear Lord, time is short and if you are inattentive to it, my strength may fail, and my hopes diminish. Again, adieu ...

And in a previous letter, 13 Aug.:

I vow to God I have no earthly consideration equal to the idea of being useful to you. I have credit enough, I can procure money enough, and I want only a name to muster my friends under, and that it is in your power to give me.

£30,000 was required for Maeslough; vested interests had to be overridden to obtain the stewardry; and nothing came of the proposals.

The other scheme was concerned with America—land grants, Indian trade, mining adventures are mentioned in Price’s correspondence14 on ‘our grand purpose’—and ‘a moral certainty of making an amazing sum’ provided the matter is rightly handled. About the two schemes he wrote to Portland, 27 Sept. 1765:15‘The first will extend greatly your parliamentary influence; and the last find you a constant resource, beyond your most sanguine expectations, of maintaining that influence in every part of the kingdom that you think proper.’

The letter concludes: ‘My marriage goes on swimmingly—God assist and help me!’ The next day William Glanville wrote to Price that his daughter Sarah had informed him of their conversation.

In general terms I agree to all your proposals ... and will do all in my power to make you easy and happy which I suppose may be obtained with £12,000, which I will give her as a mark of my esteem for you and affection for her.

They were married on 21 Mar. 1766.

Although closely connected with Portland, Price was in July 1765 classed by Rockingham as ‘doubtful’. On 31 Jan. 1766 he voted against the Government on the Anstruther election, and was mentioned by Conway in a list sent to the King ‘of those who were particularly remarked on this occasion’—obviously for their supposed connexion with Bute.16 But Price did not vote against the repeal of the Stamp Act.

With the Rockinghams out of office, Price could no longer hope to secure through Portland the stewardry, now contended for by Lord Oxford. He therefore turned to Grafton, and on 1 Oct. 1766, addressed to him a paper on ‘the natural interest and power of the Crown in the county of Radnor’.17

As no minister hath understood it since the last four years of Queen Anne ... it has continued ... an object of private ambition ... politically jobbed through this or that great family ...

The waste lands and manors of the Crown in Radnorshire comprehend two thirds of the whole county. To this weighty command over a multitude of small tenants and cottagers, the King’s steward joins an exclusive civil jurisdiction ... many trifling disputes are amenable at his courts; the steward therefore has it in his power not only to administer justice, but to afford great protection and assistance to the poor.

The power in the contributory boroughs of ‘making an indefinite number of burgesses or voters’ was originally meant to embrace the tenants or freeholders on the Crown manors, who by their numbers could decide any election; but now strangers were put in their place.

The present steward [Henry Lewis, brother of Thomas Lewis] acts without any legal authority; he ever winks at the encroachments that are daily making upon the lands of the Crown ...

I hope therefore in the name of my country ... that his Majesty will vouchsafe to take this great power of doing good into his own direction; that he will appoint his first lord of the Treasury for the time being the steward of his wastes in Radnorshire.

In a private postscript Price offered to return a Government nominee for Radnor at the general election; but burgesses would have to be made this Michaelmas; and he suggested his brother for deputy steward.

The scheme appealed to Grafton who on 4 Oct. wrote to Chatham:18

Mr. Chase Price has represented the affair regarding the Radnorshire stewardries in so very different a light from that in which I had before considered it, that I sounded yesterday his Majesty’s inclinations upon it, and found that the proposal mentioned in Mr. Price’s letter would be perfectly agreeable, and I received also orders to acquaint Lord Oxford with it by letter ... There is no time to be lost upon the business ... I should only beg to know your Lordship’s opinion whether I should hold the stewardries whilst I hold the Treasury or not.

But Chatham was ‘not without doubts’—19

as borough considerations are mixed in it, in which he is never fond of meddling ... the holding the stewardries in question, attended with electioneering circumstances, does not seem advisable for the first lord of the Treasury.

Grafton hastened to endorse these doubts,20 yet thought that no time should be lost in putting the stewardry ‘into such hands as may prevent the territorial command of the Crown being turned to support the private influence of any particular family’. But nothing was done, and when Henry Lewis died on 18 Jan. 1768, Oxford was appointed King’s steward in Radnorshire.

On 17 Oct. 1766 Grafton inquired of Chatham21 whether a seat in Parliament should not be found for the solicitor-general, Edward Willes. This places a further, undated, memorandum by Price22 the second half of October:

I undertake [he wrote to Grafton] to elect the solicitor-general for Leominster immediately and to choose any man that Government shall name for the borough of New Radnor at the next general election, both at my own expense if thought necessary.

In return he claimed three offices of a joint value of £900 p.a.: the stewardry, with increased emoluments, for himself; another Welsh office, also held by Henry Lewis, for his brother; and a third, held by a relative of Lord Powis, for a friend. These offices could not have been given to Price without deeply offending Oxford, Powis, and Thomas Lewis; and in the end Price exchanged his Leominster seat during the tail-end of that Parliament against a pension of £200 p.a. for his brother and the receivership of fines and forfeitures for himself.

Price’s last vote in the House, on the land tax, 27 Feb. 1767, was with the Government. But when in October Willes was about to be made a judge, Price offered Clive to return his candidate at Leominster, or even two at the general election, ousting Bateman. He was trying to succeed through Clive where Portland and Grafton had failed him, and wrote to Clive on 21 Oct.:23

Elections are a kind of warfare where circumstances and the temper of the people must be attended to, otherwise you make your way only by unlimited expense ... The business of elections are my study and have been my profession; I have worked myself up to a rank in my country above my hopes, and above my merit; and, the Duke of Portland agreeing, I will throw it all into your channel.

Backed by Clive’s prestige and vast resources Price might have performed wonders; and John Walsh, Clive’s relative and devoted henchman, tough and enterprising, urged Clive to accept of Price’s services. But although Price promised that in future his political affections or hatreds would be regulated by Clive’s ‘convenience and interest’, feuds were inherent in any junction with him: against Powis, who since 1759 had returned Clive’s father for Montgomery and supported Clive at Shrewsbury (the origin of Bath’s hostility to Powis); against Bateman and Oxford; and against the followers of these three ‘chicken lords’ as Price called them—in short, against a very large part of the political set-up in mid-Wales and the border counties. Moreover Price’s schemes were intricate and his methods over-subtle. At Leominster he proposed to prepare the ground for a Clive candidate while leaving people in the belief that he was hostile to Clive; but when declared, the candidate was to be his. Clive did not fall in with that game; a very sick man, at Bath and about to start for abroad, he took the simplest line; told both Powis and Bateman that he meant to offer a candidate at Leominster:24 and his brother William visited the borough. On 17 Oct. Price wrote to Clive with thinly veiled vexation:25

Captain Clive’s expedition to Leominster can be of no ill consequence but increase the expense; that he is the man I mean to recommend, no one has the least suspicion ... he is sure of his election: but if he had not gone there till the first week in November it would have been as well; by that time I meant to have taken him in my hand and not before; because the poor rate is not yet settled.

Somerset Davies, one of Powis’s dependants, in letters of 19 and 23 Oct., offered to support the interest of Clive and Bateman, though ‘this must not be done jointly’—if at Leominster ‘two brothers were to stand they must be clear of each other’. Clive’s agent Wingfield had erred in that matter; Price’s friends were taking advantage of it; if Price canvassed the town and could raise some money, it would be difficult to beat him.26 Even on 27 Oct. Davies still assumed that Price was an opponent: his friends were spreading reports that Clive had given up Leominster, and ‘that Price will be there in a few days’.

Next, there was a change of candidate. Clive’s brother was replaced by a follower of his, General John Carnac, whom Price took to Leominster to canvass the borough, ‘and then’, wrote Walsh to Clive, 4 Nov., ‘they intend to visit you at Bath’. Clive felt less sure of Price—witness a long letter from Price, 5 Nov., contradicting unfavourable reports about himself (including things he said when drunk—‘what man of honour would repeat the words of a drunken man to his prejudice, when sober?’).

Carnac wrote to Clive from Leominster on 10 Nov.:

I am just arrived here having been met upon the way by a large body of the most respectable inhabitants owing to the great personal influence of Mr. Price who was pleased to attend me. When I was lighting at my inn, I was surprised to meet your Lordship’s steward, who claimed me as your man, and had I not prudently declared that I offered myself as a candidate through the recommendation of Mr. Price, I had been in danger of being insulted by his voters who form a considerable majority and had but just before paid me the compliment of coming out to meet me.

Letters followed from Walsh exculpating both Price and himself:

12 Nov. Our friend C.P. is certainly very precipitate. I did not at all relish his carrying down Carnac but he had before I knew it settled it with the General and was quite ent’té; upon the matter. He is a good springer of game but not always the properest for hunting it down.

20 Nov. He is sorry Price acted ‘in an improper manner’ at Leominster; Price went there with Carnac ‘to prevent his importance being annihilated’; ‘at this time I knew nothing of any manœuvre of yours at Leominster’; Price also pursued

a favourite point of his, the carrying two Members against Lord Bateman, your nomination and his. The want of communication and knowing what each side was about has ... in great measure occasioned this faux-pas, for I  must say for Price that with all his warmth of imagination and eagerness of purpose he is to be restrained.

But Clive came to a friendly arrangement with Bateman who merely objected to Price's taking the lead at Leominster.

Meantime Price was pursuing once more his plans in Radnorshire, was buying estates for Clive in the county, and trying to make him or Walsh purchase Maeslough. ‘If you push for a Member this time’, wrote Walsh to Clive, 22 Oct., ‘I think Chase must be the man, as he will be useful in the House and it will be rather a dirty kind of election this time. If Ned Lewis could be prevailed on to give up, it would be easier.’ And on 26 Nov.: ‘I often see Chase and he is very entertaining and very serviceable to me. He is as entêté as ever about the county of [Radnor]. Don't be displeased with him for some wild sallies: managed with judgement he can be very useful.’ Clive wished to throw off Price. Walsh thought he merited Clive's confidence: ‘you will reap great advantage from giving it’. He is bent on standing for the county; will do so at his own expense ‘which he computes will be very little’; ‘assures me that in any situation he shall be devoted to you’.

‘This county is wonderfully attached to me’, wrote Price to his wife from Radnorshire, 31 July 1767. And on 14 Dec:

My friends in Radnorshire are infinitely more numerous than I expected or imagined. I firmly believe the majority of freeholders with me but I am not able as yet to form an exact computation.

A new situation arose in Radnorshire through the death of Henry Lewis, on 18 Jan. 1768: Lord Oxford obtained the stewardship, and declared for Gwynne and Edward Lewis, which threw Thomas Lewis, with a considerable interest in the county, on to Price's side. Clive had gone abroad on the very day of Henry Lewis's death; and his trustees differed in their regional politics. His father was attached to Powis, and confirmed that Clive had promised his interest to Gwynne. Walsh was all for Price—‘now in a manner your Member’, he wrote to Clive, 14 Feb.; and to George Clive, 18 Mar.: ‘Gwynne is our enemy and the other our friend’. George Clive ‘had no great opinion of either of the candidates’ (to Clive, 4 Apr.); thought that both county and borough could be acquired peaceably; but in the absence of positive orders from Clive, agreed with Walsh to declare ‘a neutrality’.

Price wrote to his wife on 12 Feb. 1768: ‘my country is strongly in my favour and I am certain ... of success ... I speak with precision ... though the event is somewhat extraordinary.’ On 1 Apr.: ‘I get ground every day—Ned Lewis has tried his utmost and can do nothing. Jack Harley along with him.’ And next: ‘Mr. Gwynne declaines upon next Wednesday ... if he polled the county he would be beat two to one.’ Clive, he writes, is buying land ‘in declared opposition to Lord Oxford ... to balance his power’, but this can operate in the future only. Meantime a letter from Walsh to Clive, 12 Apr., reporting Price's return, seems to indicate that Clive in the end favoured Price: ‘your people attended him, Lord Oxford's against, but Gwynne declined the very day of the poll.’

In the new Parliament, Price drew closer to the Opposition, voting with them in five divisions over Wilkes, and on the Spanish convention, 13 Feb. 1771. There are among his papers two cordial letters to him from Rockingham, addressing him by his christian name; the one of 16 Mar. 1772 thanks him for having secured Edward Foley's attendance in Parliament. The ‘gratuities’ to Wilkes from Rockingham, Devonshire, and Portland were paid through Price: ‘you are the best banker I ever had’, wrote Wilkes to him, 6 Nov. 1773.27 With Portland the correspondence continues in the seventies—almost all on money matters—they both were repeatedly in very tight corners: but it was Price who had now to raise the loans.

I am sorry to desire you to come to town [wrote Portland to Price on 19 July 1773] but as the Duchess wants to go out of town and as Cleaver says things must stop at Welbeck unless I can send him money, I am obliged though very unwillingly to desire you to come and see what monies you have at Child’s and assist me therewith. Don’t send me a draft as I desire my name may not appear.

About Price's re-election in 1774, Thomas Lewis (aged 84) wrote to his nephew John Lewis28 on 30 Oct.:

As soon [as] the county election was over ... Jones was met upon the hills by Jane Edwards ... She asked Jones ... how the election went, who made no answer. Then she holloes Chase for ever Chasee all over the place. Over that election they are busy, as he will lose it all here say.

He won it by 439 votes to 340 against Thomas Jones of Hafod, a powerful man in mid-Wales. Once more the event was ‘somewhat extraordinary’.

Price died on 28 June 1777. Mrs. Boscawen, widow of the Admiral, a half-sister of Mrs. Price, wrote to Mrs. Delany, 30 June:29

On Friday ... Price appeared to be particularly well, for he has had a mortal disease, I am persuaded, a long time, and at length it ended him instantaneously, for he appeared to be in a profound sleep when his servant found him dead on Saturday morning.

In various books dealing with Rousseau and Hume an invitation to Rousseau to settle in Wales is mentioned: this came from Price, which is shown by six letters from Rousseau written early in 1766 and preserved at Hatfield. W.R. Williams alone seems to have connected Price with Rousseau. In his Parliamentary Hist. of Wales he wrotes that Price ‘was a great friend of Rousseau and offered hima residence in his declining years in Radnorshire’. But there is no evidence of the two having ever met.

Ref Volumes: 1754-1790

Author: Sir Lewis Namier

Notes

• 1. Chase Price mss in the possession of the Marquess of Salisbury.
• 2. Portland mss.
• 3. Clive mss.
• 4. Chase Price mss.
• 5. Glocester Jnl. 11 Dec. 1759.
• 6. Add. 32921, f. 268.
• 7. Several letters from Bath on the subject are among the Chase Price mss.
• 8. 17 July 1764, Townshend mss at Raynham. See also Jesse, Selwyn, i. 280, 285.
• 9. One of 10 Sept. 1763, dealing with the recent Government crisis, is among the Portland mss, and several for 1763-4 among the Chase Price mss.
• 10. Add. 38304, ff. 1-2.
• 11. 14 Mar. 1763, Harris’s ‘Debates’; 18 Mar. 1771, Brickdale’s ‘Debates’.
• 12. Rockingham mss.
• 13. Portland mss.
• 14. Letters to Price from Wm. Kelly and Robt. Rogers (New York) and from Maj. Jos. Gorham (Nova Scotia), 1766 and 1767 among the Price mss; see also Price’s letters to Portland on Kelly, 16 and 19 Nov. 1765.
• 15. The letter is misdated 1764.
• 16. Fortescue, i. 249-50.
• 17. Chatham mss.
• 18. Ibid.
• 19. Chatham to Grafton, 6 Oct., Grafton mss.
• 20. Grafton to Chatham, 9 Oct. 1766, Chatham mss.
• 21. Chatham Corresp. iii. 111.
• 22. Grafton mss.
• 23. Clive mss.
• 24. Powis to Clive, 12 Oct., Bateman to Clive, 18 Oct., Clive mss.
• 25. Ibid.
• 26. Ibid.
• 27. Albemarle, Rockingham Mems. ii. 235-7.
• 28. Mss. of Lewis fam. of Harpton, NLW.
• 29. Mrs. Delany, Autobiog. and Corresp. (ser. 2), ii. 229.