SU CHKSXKV. COLONEL FRANCIS RA.WDON. 



CHESTERFIELD, EARL OF. 



CilKSNKY, COLONEL FRANCIS RAWDON. WM born in 1789. 

 He is a native of Inland. He OBmmenoed his military education at 

 the Royal Military Academy. Woolwich. M a seoood lieutenant in the 

 Royal ArtUUry, May , 1804. He bsoame lieutenant September 80, 

 1805. IB 1804 UM troops to which his company WM atuched won 

 ant to protect UM Channel Islands. He became oaptein of artillery 

 June SO. 1814 IB 1SS1 he married, and shortly afterwards WM sent 

 to Gibraltar, where hit wile died, and with her hi* only daughter. He 

 afterward* travelled a nod deal at intervals, chiefly in order to exa- 

 mine UM battle-fields of Borope and Western Asia. In 1839 Captain 

 Chssasy WM Mnt to Turkey for the purpose of leading his assistance 

 in fortifying the passes of the Balkan against the advancing armies of 

 Russia; but before he had reached his destination the Balkan had 



k ; but before be bad reached bis destination 



been arosasd, and UM war between KuMia and Turkey WM soon after- 

 wnU concluded by the treaty of Adrianople. In 1880 Captain Cheaney 

 travelled IB Egypt, where be examined the roate acroM the deMrt 

 from Cairo to Sue*, and eeot borne a report on the passage by ae* from 

 Bombay to Sues, and by the Egyptian deaert and the Nile from Sues 

 to Cairo and Alexandria. In the came year be made a journey in 

 Martini and Syria. He crossed the Syrian deaert to El Kayem, on 

 the Euphrates, and followed the ooune of the river to Anah, whence 

 be demoded UM Kupbratea to the Penian Oulf, a distance of 638 

 mile*, on a raft eupported by inflated skins, hi* only companion* being 

 three Arabs to manage UM raft, and an interpreter (a Turk) with bis 

 boy (a slave). He sent borne a map and memoir of his track and 

 along the course of the river. After travelling gome time 



in Persia and Asia Minor he returned to England in 1832. 



In 1&34 a committee of the House of Commons received evidence 

 M to the comparative advantages of the routes to India by the Red 

 Sea and by the Euphrates, and the House of Commons voted a sum 

 of 20,000t for an expedition to examine the route from the Mediterra- 

 nean to the Euphrates, and the course of that river to the Persian 

 Gulf. For this purpose two iron steam-vessels were constructed so M 

 to take to pieces, **ipUin Chesney being appointed to the command 

 of the expedition with the temporary rank of ' colonel on particular 

 service.' The expedition sailed from Liverpool on the 10th of Feb- 

 ruary 1835, and reached the mouth of the Orontes, on the coast of 

 Syria, on the 3rd of April The two iron steamers wen transported 

 in pises*, with excessive labour, partly on rafts and pontoons and 

 partly on waggons, from the mouth of the Orontes to Bir on the 

 Euphrates, a distance of 133 mile*. At Port William, near Bir, the 

 i were put together, and on the 16th of March 1836 they com- 

 the descent of UM Euphrates to the Penian Gulf, a distance 

 of 1117 miles. They had proceeded 509 miles to Salahiyah, when a 

 buiricane overwhelmed and sank one of the steamers (the ' Tigris') 

 and everything on board WM irrecoverably lost. The other steamer 

 (UM ' Euphrates') escaped with difficulty, but without much damage, 

 and reached Basrah, on the Persian Gulf, on the 19th of June. 



Btaid--s the surrey of the river Euphrates, which was the main 

 object of the expedition, materials were collected for a correct map of 

 Northern Syria, a line of levels WM earned from Iskeudrroon on the 

 Mediterranean to Bir on the Euphrates, Northern Mesopotamia was 

 explored, the river Tigris WM twice ascended to upwards of 400 miles 

 frcm it* junction with the Euphrates, a line of levels WM carried 

 between the Tigris and Euphrates, and other valuable labours per- 

 formrd and information collected. Captain Chesney bsoame major 

 December 2, 1834, and his last arduous and dangerous task connected 

 with the Euphrates expedition WM that of taking a mail from the 

 Pertain Golf across the great Arabian deaert to Beirut on the Mediter- 

 ranean, which be did unaccompanied by any European. 



On the 27th of April 1848, Major Chesnoy attained the rank of 

 lieutenantcolonol. In 1850 he publUbed 'The Expedition for the 

 Surrey of the Riven Euphrates and Tigris, carried on by Order of the 

 British Government in the yean 18S5, 1830, 1837 ; by Lieutenant- 

 Colonel Cbeauey, Commander of the Expedition. 4 vol*. Vols. I. 

 and IL' He became colonel Nov. 11, 1861. In 1852 he published 

 Observations on the Past and Present State of Fin- Anna, and on the 

 I'robable Effects in War of the New Musket, Ac.,' 8vo. In 1854 ho pub- 

 lished a narrative of ' The RuMo-Turkish Campaign* of 1828 and 1829 ; 

 with a View of the Present State of Affairs in the Bast, with Map*.' 



CHESTERFIELD, PHILIP DOKMEH STANHOPE, fourth Earl 

 of, WM born in London on UM 22nd of September, 1 694. Treated with 

 uldness almost amounting to aversion by hi* father, he WM placed 

 first in the hands of a private tutor, and at the age of eighteen sent to 

 Trinity College, Cambridge, where be studied the Greek and Roman 

 writen with unusual diligence. He tell* us that he narrowly escaped 

 becoming a pedant, a character for which he had the greatest contempt 

 in after fife ; and that be drank and smoked at college notwithstanding 

 his aversion to wine and tobacco, because he thought such practices 

 war* fati'ti, and mad* him look like a man. In 1714 he left the 

 university to make the usual grand tour of Europe. He passed the 

 summer at the Hague, when bu fashionable associates not only laughed 

 him out of bis pedantry, but initiated him into a love of play which 

 never forsook him. Many yean after be tells his son in one of his 

 letters that at the Hague be thought gambling an aeoomplUhineut, 

 and M be aimed at faabiooabU perfection, be adopted oatda and dice 

 su a mioettail step toward* it. From the gamblers of the Hague he 

 wrnt to UM iWifaanhU ladies and UUed courtesan* of Paris, who, M 



he WM accustomed to boast, completed his education and gave him 

 his ' final polish.' He WM at Venice when the accession of George L 

 in 1715 induced him to return home with great speed, in order to be 

 in time for a court place. Through the interest of his family con- 

 nections be WM made a gentleman of the bed-chamber to the Prince of 

 Wales, afterwards George IL In the first parliament of the new reign 

 he was returned for SU Germains in Cornwall, and M he wu deter- 

 mined to attract attention, from the moment of his election he studied 

 nothing and thought of nothing, for a whole month, but his maiden 

 speech. Though he afterwards became an accomplished orator, bis 

 first effort WM rather a failure, and betrayed a violence of manner not 

 at all oonsistent with bis smooth silken code. The speech WM other- 

 wine unfortunate, for it attracted attention to the fact that he WM 

 not quite of age, and consequently liable not only to expulsion from 

 the Commons' house, but also to a fine of SOW. An opponent mentioned 

 this to him privately as a good mode of silencing his zeal : Chesterfield 

 took the hint, and withdrew for some months to Paris, where, as it 

 WM always suspected, he WM engaged in some secret court intrigue. 

 He returned in 1716, and, resuming his seat, spoke in favour of the 

 Septennial Act. In the inveterate quarrel which broke out between 

 George L and his heir he adhered to the Prince of Wales, nor could 

 his uncle. General (afterwards Earl of) Stanhope, who wag then at the 

 height of favour, with plenty of places at his disposal, ever induce 

 him to change sides. Being much with the heir-apparent, he undertook 

 the difficult task of transforming a German prince into a British king, 

 and of making a fashionable and a most refined man (as he understood 

 it) of the rough and homely George. 



HU first division in parliament against the ministry WM on a motion 

 for the repeal of the Schism Bills, where he decidedly took the illiberal 

 side of the question, M he lived to regret. In 1726 he was removed 

 by the death of his father to the House of Lords, where his manner 

 of speaking was much more admired than it had been in the Commons. 

 He was constitutionally weak and devoid of strong passions, and as a 

 speaker hod little faculty of touching the higher feelings of others ; 

 but he WM brilliant, witty, and perspicuous a great master of irony 

 and was allowed by all his contemporaries to be one of the most 

 effective debaters of the day. On the accession of George II., whom 

 M prince he had steadily served for thirteen years, Chesterfield 

 expected a rich harvest of honours and places ; but having mistaken 

 the relative amount of the influence exercised on his master's mind 

 by the queen and the mistress, he paid his court to Mrs. Howard 

 (afterwards Lady Suffolk), and neglected Queen Caroline, who eventu- 

 ally proving to be more powerful than the mistress, checked his aspiring 

 hopes. He was not alone in this error; Lord Bolingbroke, Lord 

 liathurst, Swift, Pope, and many others of less fame, shared in it, aud 

 in the consequent disappointment. Pope's villa at Twickenham was 

 the place of rendezvous, where the royal mistress used to receive the 

 incense of Chesterfield and the rest who hod hoped to rise through her 

 favour. In 1728, the year after the accession, Lord Chesterfield accepted 

 the embassy to Holland, where he gained the friendship of Simon \ ., i 

 Sliugeland, a distinguished statesman, and then Grand Pensionary, and 

 assiduously cultivated his talent for diplomacy. To Sliugelaud 1m 

 afterwards acknowledged the greatest obligations, calling him his 

 " friend, master, and guide," and adding, "for I was then quite new 

 in business, and be instructed me, he loved me, he trusted me.' 

 Chesterfield had the merit of averting a war from Hanover, for which 

 service George II. made him High Steward of the Household and 

 Knight of the Garter. Under the plea of ill-health he obtained his 

 recall from Holland in 1732, and returning to court, where bis office 

 of Steward gave him constant access, be again indulged in the hope of 

 rising. No sooner however had his lordship shown his decided opposition 

 to Sir Robert Walpple, by making his three brothers in the House of 

 Commons vote against the Excise scheme, than he WM deprived of 

 the High-Stewardship, and so badly received at court, that he noun 

 ceased visiting there altogether. Lord Chesterfield now took a most 

 decided and active part in the opposition to the minister, and it is 

 even asserted that the real object of a visit which he paid to the Duke 

 of Oruiond, at Avignon, during a visit he made to France for his 

 health in the autumn of 1741, WM to "solicit through the duke an 

 order from the Pretender to the Jacobites, that they should concur 

 hereafter in any measures aimed against Sir Kobert Walpole." Thu 

 Stuart papers throw no light upon this question, and the supposition 

 appears scarcely justified by any circumstances adduced in support uf 

 it. (See Horace Wolpole's ' Memoirs,' i 45 ; and Lord Mahou [Earl 

 of Stanhope] ' Hist of England,' chap, xxiii.) In the ministry formed 

 on the resignation of Sir Robert Walpolo in 1742, Chesterfield was 

 excluded from office, and he at once went into opposition against the 

 members of the new cabinet, with whom, when out of place, he had been 

 accustomed to vote in the minority. On the coalition of parties known 

 by the name of the " broad-bottomed treaty," he took office, sorely 

 against the inclination of the king, who considered him as a personal 

 enemy ; but in order to satisfy bis majesty, and remove him from the 

 royal presence, he was named while in Holland, Lord-Lieutenant of 

 Ireland. Chesterfield, while in opposition, had still further offended 

 the king by repeatedly denouncing the union of the electorate of 

 Hanover with tue kingdom of England, and by proposing that they 

 ahould be separated from each other, and allotted to different branches 

 of the reigning family. Before proceeding to Ireland, the new lord- 



