GASCOYNE, Bamber (1725-91), of Bifrons, Barking, Essex

Gascoyne, intent on being a country gentleman, in a letter to his friend John Strutt, 13 Apr. 1759, discussed the impending Essex county by-election with a show of Toryism, talking of Whigs, ‘Quakers, Presbyters, the Devils, etc.’Strutt mss at Terling. In 1761, with Strutt’s support, he contested Maldon against Newcastle’s candidates, and topped the poll—which ‘was occasioned’, he wrote in 1773, ‘by two incidents: Colebrooke and Bullock could not raise cash and I was young and industrious’. Industrious he remained throughout life, ‘an active, bustling man’ with a well-nigh obsessionist persistence and perseverance.

In Bute’s parliamentary list of mid-December 1761, Gascoyne was classed as ‘Tory’ and ‘Pitt’; and on 30 Dec. 1762 Henry Fox still referred to him as ‘Tory, which he is’.Bute mss. When on 11 Dec. 1761 George Cooke, seconded by Beckford, moved for Spanish papers (to document Pitt’s demand for war against Spain), Gascoyne supported the motion; allowed ‘royal prerogative to negotiate, but insisted on that of the House to inquire’: if necessary, through a secret committee. There was, he said, ‘faction in the ministry’; Whig and Tory had been destroyed, but ‘personal parties substituted in their stead’.Add. 33035, ff. 32-38. ‘He himself had never been in a minister’s house, nor ever intended it.’Walpole, Mems. Geo. III, i. 91. Again, on 29 Jan. 1762, he supported Beckford over the Spanish papers ‘with many words, and a voice rather audible, than melodious’. He often intervened in debates: over the Liverpool bill, 23 Mar.; the game bill 23 and 29 Mar.; ‘did well’ over the Durham election petition, 11 May; and altogether kept in the foreground.Harris’s ‘Debates’. In August 1762, Fox, when advising Bute to make sure of Members before the House met, wrote: ‘I would try at Bamber Gascoyne; though I fear it is too late, and therefore with caution.’Fox to Shelburne, 16 Aug., Shelburne to Bute, 19 Aug., Lansdowne mss.

It was left to Fox to make the attempt. Temple wrote to Lady Chatham in November 1762: ‘Gascoyne has been here: much dealing with Fox; but I think he is firm.’Chatham Corresp. ii. 193. Then on Tuesday, 30 Nov., in a talk with Fox, Gascoyne agreed to take office; but next day wrote to him: ‘I find it incompatible with my happiness in life to part with the freedom I enjoy, I am therefore determined to remain independent.’ Fox replied: ‘I cannot tell whether my surprise or concern is greatest.’ On 2 Dec. Gascoyne wrote to Strutt enclosing copies of his correspondence with Fox:

This will somewhat surprise you ... On Tuesday I partly accepted, but I never had a moment’s easiness in my mind till I had quitted it again, my heart was uneasy, I never slept. The words of persons accosting me in the street hurt me, I therefore wrote a letter to Mr. Fox the next morning, I have herewith sent his answer. Mr. W. [unidentified] ... will ... to-morrow ... assure him that against the Duke of Newcastle I will act with him. That as to the Crown I will support it against every faction and that he may command me when he pleases to open any measures ... and that time may come when the civility offered may be accepted with less difficulty—thus I left it. Indeed I am a coward and my conscience never was at rest.

On 9 Dec. Gascoyne spoke and voted against the peace preliminaries, but was absent on the 10th.Add. 33000, ff. 223-4; Fox’s list of these two divisions, Bute mss.On 21 Dec. Fox wrote to Bute:Bute mss.

Mr. Gascoyne is your declared friend, and will come to your Lordship tomorrow with a letter from me, desiring for him the disposition of King’s waiter at Maldon. Luckily his inclination squares with our convenience, and he likes the promise of the Board of Trade in the course of the sessions better than the possession now.

And Gascoyne to Bute, the same day: ‘At the request of Mr. Fox and with my own inclination I am to wait on your Lordship’; but he protested: ‘I am no attendant on levees.’Add. 5726 D. f. 25. On the 22nd, presumably after the visit to Bute, he wrote to Pitt:Chatham Corresp. ii. 204-6.

The offer of coming into the Board of Trade is now made me without conditions, and in a more eligible manner than before offered ... I have attached myself to you upon principle, gratitude, and respect; and could I flatter myself that my going into office was likely to impede any operation of yours, I should never forgive myself.

He asked for Pitt’s opinion or wish in this matter; and received the reply which he probably expected:

I cannot offer you any advice. Your own sense of things must alone guide you ... I never in my life expressed my wish to any friend, either for their accepting or declining office.

Gascoyne’s appointment to the Board of Trade in the Grenville Administration was declared on 20 Apr. 1763—Fox thought him ‘a proper person in the House to treat any opponent roughly and coarsely who should deserve it’;Harris’s memorandum, 14 Apr. 1763. and he promised Gascoyne that Administration would ‘bring him into Parliament if he failed in his election at Maldon’.Grenville to Holland, 3 Apr. 1764, Grenville letter bk. But strenuous efforts were made in good time to secure it;Rochford to Bute, 22 Feb., Bute mss. and on 23 Apr. Gascoyne told Strutt: ‘I verily believe I should show you a better appearance than the last election, the Treasury hath fully exerted itself.’ Three days later, Huske, a tough adventurer of American origin, defeated him by 438 to 254 votes (in 1761 Gascoyne had received 400). Gascoyne was crestfallen. He wrote to Strutt, 9 May: ‘I have often sat down to write to you, and as often declined it by not knowing where to begin ... I have been in a perturbed state ever since I left you and yet I still think mine enemies will not triumph over me.’ He felt deceived and sold; was ruminating on instances of ‘hypocrisy and ingratitude’; on how ‘to recover the lost game’; also on the bills which his ‘good friends’ had run up against him—he had to borrow money from Strutt which it took him years to repay. Vindictive and aggressive, he conceived a relentless hatred of Huske; and by a long-drawn series of lawsuits he managed to destroy the corporation which had contrived his defeat, and made the borough forfeit its charter—no mean achievement.

While waiting to re-enter Parliament, Gascoyne assiduously attended to his official duties—in 1764 he was present at 103 out of 131 meetings of the Board.A. H. Bayse, Board of Trade 1748-82 On a vacancy in the representation of Essex, he wrote to Strutt, 12 June 1763, that even if assured of being well supported he was ‘determined never to stand another contested election’; and yet in the same letter speculated on his chance of ‘jumping in’ without publicly offering himself. But even his friends were agreed that his ‘little popularity’ would render the attempt ‘arduous’ and ‘improper’—‘Gascoyne can never do’.Bramston to Strutt, 12 June 1763; Keeling to Strutt. 13 June 1763. He was not to hold an Essex seat again: self-righteous and constantly engaged in litigation (‘sometime,’ he wrote to Strutt, 12 Nov. 1770, ‘I am determined to have revenge by law which I never find strong enough for my resentment’), he was not liked in the county.

Fox (now Lord Holland) wrote to Sandwich from France, 23 Sept. 1763: ‘If you can get Bamber Gascoyne brought into Parliament Mr. Grenville knows I think he will be a very useful man.’Sandwich mss.But when a vacancy was impending at Midhurst where Holland had the nomination, he pleaded a previous engagement; Gascoyne appealed to Grenville ‘with a concern equal to that I suffer from my present situation’;3 Mar. 1764, Grenville mss (JM). and Grenville reminded Holland of the promise which Gascoyne was urging ‘in the strongest terms’.3 Apr. letter bk. After somewhat acrimonious correspondence Gascoyne was returned for Midhurst, 16 Jan. 1765.

On 29 Jan. he voted with the Government on the renewed motion on general warrants, but did not speak: ‘There were speakers enough and I did not seek applause nor desire to be more unpopular than I am.’ He criticized the Opposition’s mismanagement of their motion on ex officio informations by the attorney-general: ‘My fetters galled me much ... had I been free ... I had shook the House or carried the question’ (16 Mar.). Further limitations were imposed on him by his official duties: ‘I never can attend till 2 o’clock and have scarce ever time to be prepared.’

Gascoyne left London for Childwall early in July 1765, and was absent when the Grenville Administration was replaced by Rockingham’s. In Newcastle’s preparatory lists Gascoyne invariably appears among those to be removed: and that he would be, he was told by Grenville on 27 July.Ibid. But he himself thought the new ministry in tribulation over it: ‘too prudent to write to me ... they have some doubts and fears as to displacing me and yet they think it imprudent to keep me in without knowing my mind’—‘poor as I am, I will not act with them or under them’.To Strutt, c.18 July. And on 11 Aug.: ‘these wretched and feeble statesmen’; ‘nothing shall ever tempt me ... to spend my days with Whigs, Presbyters, and Pelhamites’. When told by a friend that the Bedford connexion were being dismissed (the Duke having ‘personally affronted the King’), but that there was no intention of discharging him unless he meant to act against the new Government, he claims to have replied that nothing should divert him ‘from openly and boldly vindicating the late Administration and opposing the present’. But when invited by Lord Gower to Trentham to meet the Dukes of Marlborough and Bridgwater, and other friends of Bedford,

I thought it was as well to avoid appearance of attaching myself so much to this connection and therefore under pretence of being obliged to watch Liverpool for political purposes I put off this visit; since this I have received a letter from Lord Hillsborough congratulating me on my discharge.

He turned squire; cared not ‘when Parliament meets’ (15 Oct.); ‘amusements of the field in the morning’, and cards at night; and ‘much uneasiness’ at the impending return to the political stage. He did not attend the December session, though urged by Grenville.Grenville letter bk., 9 Nov. 1765. But on 14 Jan. 1766 he was the first Opposition speakerFortescue, i. 224.—‘I stepped forth not to oppose the Address but to speak of the state of the nation and abuse our new masters, declaring my hearty approbation of my dismission as I never yet acted with them nor ever would.’To Strutt, 16 Jan. When on 7 Feb. Grenville’s motion for enforcing laws in America was defeated by 274 votes to 134, Gascoyne wrote to Strutt:

It appeared very strange even to me who have seen the vicissitudes in political matters that there should be such an alteration in men’s minds. At the breaking up of the last session when the minority was 35, and the person whom the then majority supported has not had the direction of any one act since by which he could by any means forfeit the opinion of those who had voted with him in that very measure, now condemned and in every other measure.

I now fear the Stamp Act will be repealed in the Commons ... Faction not principle has divided us and the enemies to our established constitution in church and state wish to increase the flame.

He spoke again on the third reading of the repeal, 4 Mar.Walpole, Mems. Geo. III, ii.216.

But even more of Gascoyne’s time and energy during the session was devoted to local problems; foremost, that of the Chelmer navigation which cut across political divisions in the county. The enthusiasm for the venture ‘all came from those living in the neighbourhood of Chelmsford, whose trade had everything to gain from the navigation, while the reluctance was all on the side of Maldon which had everything to lose in the way of wharf, warehouse and harbour dues’.Chas. Strutt, Strutt Fam. of Terling, 1650-1873, p. 21. Strutt was prominent in the Maldon interest, and Gascoyne its chief spokesman and manager in the House. His many and very long reports to Strutt supply an almost unique picture of the way in which such business of considerable local interest was transacted in the House, and of how much time and energy was devoted to it—it looms large in the journals of the House, sometimes in local newspapers, but neither in the metropolitan press nor in reports of parliamentary debates. Similarly Gascoyne took a very active part in debates on the corn trade—in the spring of 1765, in February 1766, November 1767, and again in 1771; and he complained of the ineffectiveness of the country gentlemen over a question of so much importance to the landed interest. During the debates on the indemnity bill for the embargo placed on the export of corn, December 1766, he took ‘a spirituous part in opposition’—To Strutt, 5 Dec. 1766.

and had my intentions been lucrative the alarm I have sounded is not in vain, but I still remain fixed as when I saw you last and have returned for answer that I am rivetted to Mr. Grenville, not for favours received or hopes but for measures.

By whom the offer was made, and with how much authority does not appear—Gascoyne was apt to over-rate the awe and consideration in which he was held.

As the Parliament of 1761 was approaching its term, the problem of a seat arose for him once more—Midhurst was at the disposal of the Government. What Gascoyne craved for he admitted when disappointed of it (15 Mar. 1768): ‘To have represented the county would have been the highest honour and I should have made it the greatest task of my life.’ But late in 1767 he protested to Muilman, a merchant of Dutch extraction settled in Essex:

I have no intention of seeking another seat in Parliament as I own I am much dispirited when I think how few advocates the landed interest will have and how many it will want; I have done my duty and I have been much abused for so doing and ungratefully treated.

And to Strutt, 26 Dec.: ‘Muilman ... rebukes me for deserting Parliament, assures me Essex is open’; 10 Feb. 1768: everything is shaping well but ‘of candidates I know not’. And Bramston wrote to Strutt on the 12th: Gascoyne had been plaguing him ‘all this week’, discoursing on the support their side could secure, and the poor state of their opponents—

All this and a vast deal more I heard, it ended with—we have only to find a candidate and the thing is done ... Gascoyne plainly called upon me as far as he could without speaking quite out, to ask him to stand. I do think he would be a useful man but I have private objections I cannot get over and besides I verily believe he would not go down; but who will tell him so.

Finally Gascoyne declared his candidature; and when Eliab Harvey, who in February 1767 had voted for the higher land tax, was preferred to him, Gascoyne wrote to Strutt on 12 Mar. in an outburst of passion:

There was but one thing agreed on by the company ... that I was the only objectionable man in the room. The basis of our opposition was public principle which we have now deserted; my ears were tickled with the general approbation of my conduct in every act in Parliament, and he whose conduct was reproachable was preferred unanimously before me because it was thought this conduct had rendered me in some places with some persons unpopular. Constructive errors in private life were used to damn my public conduct; nay I was sold before I offered and for this I was called out of Lancashire, for this my labours were incited and multiplied, my private business neglected and my abilities magnified and my services magnified that I might assist a proud and malevolent enemy to stride over me.

But having calmed down, he honestly worked for the candidates; and on 13 Apr., after their defeat, wrote to Strutt:

I feel a vast comfort when I reflect that neither the cause or the candidates can lay any misconduct at my door ... I now take my leave of all elections and party meetings ... I am determined to oppose no more but make the yoke easy by rending myself agreeable to them in private, for I think it more eligible to live with Whigs than act with Tories diametrically opposite to principle and reason. So adieu to the old interest.

Gascoyne meant to work his way back into Parliament and office. He made up his differences with the Whig lord lieutenant of Essex—‘you are not acquainted with the friendship Lord Rochford bears me’, he wrote to Strutt, 2 Jan. 1769, ‘I am taught to believe I am high in his esteem’. He was one of the promoters of the loyal address passed at the Chelmsford assizes and presented to the King on 6 Mar.Gent. Mag. 1769, p. 163. On the 13th he wrote to Strutt: ‘The King hath spoke very graciously and very frequently of my services and he hath thought of reinstating me but how far his minister will permit that I cannot say.’ Hillsborough, back at the Board of Trade, favoured the reinstatement of Gascoyne who next waited on Grafton;Letter to Strutt, undated. he told the Duke: ‘my ambition in office was no higher than where I stood before; I wished to be in Parliament’, and ‘thought myself entitled to ease in that respect as I had wasted too much of my private fortune in attempts of that kind already’. Grafton promised to serve Gascoyne when opportunity offered; but was under some previous engagements with regard to the Board of Trade.

It reached Gascoyne that Hillsborough had told Grafton ‘he had nobody to do business for him or with him and that since I had been turned out he had lost his right hand’. ‘This man is ... wonderfully good to me ... he works night and day to get me in.’ Toward the end of May, at his suggestion, Gascoyne tried to obtain from Thomas Bradshaw, secretary to the Treasury, ‘some certain advice’ as to his situation, and again received assurances for the future. ‘I correspond with Bradshaw at his desire’, Gascoyne wrote to Strutt at the end of October; but he still knew nothing for certain about his ‘political state’. When early in December there seemed a possibility of Camden’s obtaining a repeal of ‘the revenue laws in America’, and of Hillsborough resigning, Gascoyne wrote to Strutt: ‘until I see what measures are resolved on, I will not embark’. When he again took up the matter, ‘I have no doubt of the wishes and intentions of your friends’, replied Bradshaw, 20 Dec., ‘but at present there is no opportunity for carrying them into execution.’ ‘If nothing happens soon’, Gascoyne remarked to Strutt, ‘I will take my leave of London and these cursed courtiers. As to public business I will withdraw myself from it as fast as I can, for it is not in my power to do any good, I only draw vexation on myself and hatred from others.’

On 6 Feb. 1770: ‘the resignation of the Duke of Grafton made no room for me ... Lord Hillsborough continues his perseverance and friendship in my interest but I think there are many young men in Parliament that will be attended to in preference.’ 6 Mar.: ‘All things remain as to my situation just as they did. No news, nor no appointments.’ After long searching for a constituency Gascoyne was returned on 28 Dec. by Lord Weymouth for Weobley, as part of an arrangement connected with Weymouth’s resignation.Gascoyne to Strutt, 7 Dec. 1769, 14 Oct. and 12 Nov. 1770; Fortescue, ii. 183. ‘I knew not that I was chosen till this moment’, Gascoyne wrote from Hillsborough’s London house, 2 Jan. 1771. There was also a vacancy at the Board of Trade—but ‘a treaty is on foot for advantage of Government to which I shall most willingly accede ... in or out that is my plan’. And in his New Year resolutions on re-entering Parliament (to Strutt, 10 Jan.):

I have well considered my situation, I know it to be nice and dangerous, therefore it will much behove me to be sparing in my speech, cautious in my words, and cool in my temper; not only the humour of the times requires this, but my own time is changed much since I first went into Parliament. Ten years is an age that works alterations ... There is great difference betwixt speaking as a young man, or a new Member and an old one ... now I am fixed and espoused by one side and hated by the other. Therefore I must confine myself to measures and not engage with men. Few things shall tempt me even to speak to measures unless on such subjects as my education and practice have made me master of.

I know the factious phalanx are alarmed at my return and the whole host will be ready to rise at the first opportunity ... For these reasons I am not very pressing to accept the Board of Trade ... There is a treaty on foot with a small party who are called Grenville’s friends; to one of which [Thomas Whately], if this treaty takes place, the place at the Board of Trade would be acceptable. I have therefore declared I am in no haste to accept nor shall in any ways be disgusted if any disposition of that is made to the strengthening his Majesty’s Government. This is taken kindly ... I think being the first sessions in Parliament without being in place will render me more respectable and consequently more serviceable than if in place and to speak plain, if Lord Hillsborough was not concerned I should not be satisfied with the Board.

When toward the end of May, North offered Gascoyne the office of keeper of the King’s roads and he refused it as a mere sinecure, an exchange was settled with Whately; but as Weymouth wished his borough ‘not to be vacant six months’, it was arranged for Whately to draw the keeper’s salary, and Gascoyne Whately’s, even before the appointments were declared: ‘The pay runs on as if I had kissed hands.’To Strutt, n.d. (but about the end of May), and 11 and 15 June 1771. He also started to function unofficially at the Board—he wrote, 11 Sept. 1771: ‘Some disturbances among our pious brethren at Boston called me to office three times last week and this day, as there was no real lord in town and Lord Hillsborough desired me to assist.’ The official appointment followed on 10 Feb. 1772.

After his return to the House Gascoyne was a fairly frequent speaker: during the remaining 3½ years of that Parliament, interventions by him in 38 debates are recorded. They covered a wide diversity of subjects, yet mostly within the range of his real interests and knowledge: trade, especially the corn bills, provisions, etc.; the Africa Company and East Indian affairs; legal matters: salaries of Welsh judges, the Gray’s Inn petition, etc.; the poor bill (‘I mean to give my opinion as a practising justice only’). He grew passionate over the motion for the attendance of the lord mayor on the commitment of a messenger of the House sent to arrest a printer (18 Mar. 1771): the question ‘must be determined, or you destroy the very existence of Parliament’; ‘the charters of the City of London we know nothing of. I know the privileges of this House’; ‘if you yield ... you are the most nugatory body of people on earth’.Cavendish’s ‘Debates’, Egerton 226, pp. 176-81. On 23 Mar. 1774 he spoke in support of the Boston port bill;Brickdale’s ‘Debates’. and in June supported the Quebec bill. At the Board of Trade (where his attendance at meetings was 80-90 per cent) he exerted considerable influence on American affairs. John Pownall, under-secretary to Lord Dartmouth who in August 1772 succeeded Hillsborough as secretary of state for the colonies and at the Board of Trade, wrote to William Knox, the other under-secretary, 23 July 1773:HMC Var. vi. 110.

Our business has hitherto been as light as you could wish, and I think it is likely to continue so, for what can Lord Dartmouth have to do whilst Bamber Gascoyne is minister for America at the Board of Trade and Lord Suffolk at the Council Office, where they will not let us have anything to say, all Councils for American business being in Lord Gower’s absence held by Lord Suffolk.

In the House Gascoyne regularly supported the Government; but, as an old Grenvillian, voted with the Opposition for making permanent Grenville’s Election Act, 25 Feb. 1774.

As the Parliament of 1768 was drawing to an end, the question of a seat for Gascoyne arose once more: the arrangement at Weobley was for the one Parliament only. Gascoyne wrote to Strutt in November 1773: ‘I never sat so pleasant in Parliament as when I knew I sat by suffrages and not by power’; but he had to sit ‘by power’, i.e. on the Government interest; and this too meant expense. On 6 Sept. 1774: ‘My own seat is uncertain without some cash and I will not give any. I shall not dislike to quit London and public business ... what little attachment I may have to measures and men, it will soon be eradicated by ill usage.’ On 30 Sept., the day Parliament was dissolved: ‘They are still squeezing me ... I am not hurt at departing from public business. You will soon see my [London] house advertised.’ And on 4 Oct.:

Before we meet my resolution and orbit will be fixed and at this time of life, now in the 49th year of my age, I look upon my situation more critical than at any other period ... The conditions offered to me, will not go down, for however repudiated I may be for being a placeman yet God be thanked I have been a freeman—however this I will own—had I not been a placeman I had been a better man.

And North wrote to Robinson, 6 Oct.: ‘I think Gascoyne should have the refusal of Tregony if he will pay £1,000, but I do not see why we should bring him in cheaper than any other servant of the Crown’; and further on: ‘Tell Gascoyne that if we can bring in Jenkinson for less than £1,000 we will not require so much of him. He had better venture, as we are much disposed to serve him.’Laprade, 24, 25.

On 13 Oct. Gascoyne was returned at Truro for a seat placed by Lord Falmouth at the disposal of the Government. In the new Parliament a dozen speeches by him are reported, none of much interest. In the reshuffle in offices, June-July 1779, he was promoted to a seat at the Admiralty Board, and henceforth dealt in the House mostly with its departmental business, again regularly voting with the Government. Unfortunately after 1775 his letters to Strutt, now himself in Parliament, are few; there may also have been a cooling off in their relations (after calling him for tens of years ‘Dear Jack’, Gascoyne towards the end addressed him ‘Dear Strutt’).

Gascoyne left office with North; spoke repeatedly on the Opposition side (against the Crewe bill disfranchising revenue officers, 23 Apr.; against Barré’s pension, 9 July 1782; etc.); and voted against Shelburne’s peace preliminaries, 18 Feb. 1783. In March 1783 he was classed by Robinson as ‘North, doubtful’; he held no office under the Coalition; and voted against Fox’s East India bill, which he described as ‘imprudent, impudent, damnably wicked’. ‘The seals are this day sent for by the King from Lord North and Fox. God send that they may never see them again.’To Strutt, 19 Dec. 1783. As for himself: ‘I had retired with a full determination not to attend but on great events.’ He stood again in 1784: about 25 Mar. Robinson included him among ‘friends ... who may choose to come in upon purchase’, and in April among ‘old Members who will probably pay if they do not get in again for their present seats’.Laprade, 124, 128. Gascoyne had written to Strutt, 19 Dec.: ‘As to Truro I will not visit it’; and he was returned at Bossiney for a seat placed by Lord Mount Edgcumbe at the disposal of Government, which covered half of the £3,000 it cost from secret service funds.Royal archives, Windsor, no. 5715, election disbursements. In the new Parliament Gascoyne spoke several times (on 30 Mar. 1786 against an extension of the Crewe Act); and voted with the Government even on Richmond’s fortifications plan, 27 Feb. 1786. In April 1786 he was appointed receiver general of customs, which vacated his seat.

Gascoyne died 27 Oct. 1791, never having attained a position commensurate to his abilities and effort. An effective speaker, a relentless worker, rough and not easily intimidated, though often almost morbidly depressed, he was defeated by his own temper and capacity to make enemies: he was disliked, and was fully conscious of it.

According to the Gentleman’s Magazine (1791, p. 1066), he left his eldest son entailed estates in Essex and Lancashire worth near £4,000 p.a.