Griffin served under the Duke of Cumberland in Flanders, 1747-8. Returned for Andover on the interest of his uncle, John Wallop, 1st Earl of Portsmouth, his first political connexion was with Henry Fox, secretary at war and Cumberland’s right-hand man. In Dupplin’s list of the Parliament of 1754 Griffin is included in Fox’s group; and when in 1755 Fox wished to secure Portsmouth’s support for Sir Edward Winnington at Bewdley, he approached him through Griffin. ‘You, my Lord’, wrote Griffin to Portsmouth on 19 Sept. 1755,
He served on the expeditions to St. Malo and St. Cas in 1758, and on his return claimed to have met with ‘a reception from the King and court ... far I own beyond anything that my own merit could entitle me to’.
He received Newcastle’s whip in 1761 through Lord Barrington, secretary at war, and in Bute’s list was classed ‘Government’. He supported Bute and applied to him for favours (unsuccessfully) through Jenkinson—a military governorship, 18 July 1762, the lieutenant governorship of the Isle of Wight, 19 Aug., an office about the Queen, 7 Nov.; and obtained from Sandwich promotion in the navy for his brother.
A letter to Pitt of 27 Oct. 1763 is the first suggestion of his leaving Government: he requested ‘the honour of a few minutes conversation’ before the meeting of Parliament, which Pitt, professing himself ‘extremely flattered’, granted.
Rockingham in July 1765 classed Griffin ‘pro’, and courted him ‘in an obliging, unsolicited and friendly manner’.
I own among others I should be particularly happy that you showed us so much friendship as not to let the world say you were among the refuters and for our sakes among the dissatisfied, which I feel would with justice hurt us, and I should almost flatter myself you would even at the expense of a slight disadvantage wish to serve us were it the case.
And Rockingham the same day: ‘I trouble you with a letter lest you should feel any uneasiness, which I am sure would not only be very disagreeable to me but critical I may say to all of us.’
Griffin, though sensible of his obligations to Rockingham, welcomed Chatham’s return to office, and on 15 Aug. 1766, barely a fortnight later, applied to him for a peerage. Chatham, anxious to ‘proceed with the sincerity of a real friend’, felt obliged to inform Griffin that ‘his Majesty will probably not be easily moved to create many’.
May I not be allowed to say that those whose expectations have been raised only by applications to former ministries cannot have quite so much reason to hope for the accomplishment of them under your Lordship’s Administration as I had flattered myself I had had for mine?
On 26 Oct. he inquired if Chatham desired the ‘close attendance of your particular friends’ at the meeting of Parliament.
Griffin voted with Opposition over Wilkes on 2 and 3 Feb. 1769; pressed by Rockingham to attend the division of 8 May, which confirmed Luttrell in his seat for Middlesex, he declared himself ‘no friend to the resolution of the House of Commons which gave Colonel Luttrell his seat there’, but ‘particular business’ prevented his attendance.
No correspondence between Griffin and Chatham after 1769 survives, and they seem to have lost touch with each other. When Chatham and Rockingham quarrelled in March 1771 Rockingham tried to make sure that Griffin would be on his side, yet Griffin maintained his independence. Rockingham wrote on 23 Feb. 1771
Early in 1774 Lord Richard Cavendish wrote to Rockingham:
I take the liberty of giving you this trouble at the request of Dr. [Richard] Watson to inform you that in a conversation he had the other day with Sir John Griffin, he seemed disposed to come over to the opinions of Opposition about America and expressed a great desire, of communicating his sentiments to you, and of knowing yours in the present turn of affairs. Dr. Watson thinks that an application of any sort from you would be agreeable to him, and could not fail to have a good effect on his conduct.
On 24 Feb. 1775, in the debate on the bill to prohibit the colonists from fishing off Newfoundland, Griffin expressed ‘his sincere wishes to see a happy conclusion put to the American disputes without bloodshed’: the operation of the bill should be delayed ‘to such a period as ought to give those so inclined time to return to their duty’, so that ‘none but the unrelenting and untractable could feel its influence’.
Confronted with the choice between abandonment of British sovereignty or war, Griffin hesitated and was unwilling to decide. On 22 Oct. 1775 Rockingham urgently requested his attendance at the opening of Parliament;
He declared that he had hitherto supported Government on principles, without regard to men; thinking it his duty as an honest man so to do, as long as the true interest of the country appeared to be consulted, and the public affairs conducted to the credit or honour of the nation; denied that to be the case at present ... adding, he should ill deserve to sit there any longer, if he continued to afford his support to men, the effects of whose mistaken and pernicious measures had reduced us to so shameful and dishonourable a situation. Professed himself an advocate for the supreme legislative authority of this country over its colonies; disclaimed however on the one hand vindicating the rash and indiscreet measure of having taxed the Americans, as he did on the other, their mode of resistance.
He opposed ‘coercion and conquest’, the use of foreign troops, the increase of the army, and the calling out of the militia,
instead of which, he added, tender of conciliation on terms suited to the true spirit of the British constitution ought to be preferred and held out to the Americans, which, if found not to prevail, to relinquish all connections with them; or otherwise, if practicable, to harass them with your fleets, by interrupting their trade, till at length they might perhaps be brought to sue for protection.
He remained independent, friendly with Rockingham but not of his party, more courted than courting. When, on 9 May 1777, Sir James Lowther moved for an address to the King to increase his brothers’ incomes, Griffin, ‘objecting to the propriety of the motion, and urging the difficulty of discussing a subject of so delicate a complexion’, moved the previous question.
If those gentlemen, my Lord, who are of opinion that the Americans will not treat but on the footing of independence should prove to be right, I must confess, all circumstances considered, it nevertheless does not appear to me necessary nor in sound policy prudent in this first instance to begin by acknowledging their independence.
He was more concerned for the welfare of the Empire than to see Administration defeated, and closer in spirit to Chatham than to Rockingham—predestined to follow the younger Pitt.
From 1780 till the fall of North’s Administration he voted in every recorded division with the Opposition. He voted for Shelburne’s peace preliminaries, 18 Feb. 1783, and against Fox’s East India bill, 27 Nov. 1783, and received his peerage from the younger Pitt.
He died 25 May 1797.