Hope entered the navy under the aegis of his uncle Captain Charles Hope at the age of ten. In 1787 during service he fell foul of Prince William, who complained to the King of his ‘most violent, obstinate, and quarrelsome disposition’, but was one of the heroes of the glorious First of June, and was employed in the Anglo-Russian expedition to Holland in 1799 and in the Mediterranean a year later. He resigned his command in 1801 and returned home. He had been returned to Parliament in his absence in a reshuffle arranged by Henry Dundas of what he termed the ‘family confederacy’, succeeding his kinsman Alexander Hope as Member for Dumfries Burghs. His eldest brother Charles disliked the arrangement, so he informed Robert Dundas, 25 Apr. 1800,
and I gave the same opinion to Lord Hopetoun and him [William] above two years ago. He has not fortune at present for Parliament. He cannot afford either to live with his family in London or to live separate from it. And as to anything that he is to gain by it, you know well that he has too much spirit to make a trade of Parliament—and in his profession, his character is such that his friends are entitled to ask anything for him, to which his standing in the service can possibly give him a claim. So I see nothing that can follow to him, but much expense which he cannot afford, and much domestic inconvenience, of which from his profession he has already enough. However ... if he thinks this a good thing for himself, I shall rejoice at his success, as much as if I heartily approved of it.
Geo. III Corresp. i. 363; NLS mss 8, f. 95.
Hope went out of Parliament in 1802 without having drawn attention to himself, though his manners were reported to have made him ‘popular’ with his constituents’.
In 1804, having been obliged to resign his North Sea command for health reasons, he was again returned to Parliament by the Dundas connexion, this time on a vacancy for Dumfriesshire, with a view to thwarting an opposition to the established interests there, in which he succeeded. He had welcomed the prospect of Pitt’s return to power and was duly listed a supporter of Pitt’s second ministry. In April 1805 the Whig gossip Creevey reported that Hope thought Pitt ‘a damned rascal’ for his part in the censure of Lord Melville, and would desert him. By 9 May he had departed from London. On hearing this, Melville informed Alexander Hope on 10 May that Hope probably
avoided conversation with me because he had made up his mind unalterably to the line he has prescribed to himself. I understand he has an intention of vacating his seat, and from Lady Ann’s dispositions you may naturally suppose that is a decision to which she will endeavour to fix him.
But Hope did not vacate his seat, and his rebellion appears to have melted in the face of family disapproval.
Hope evidently anticipated that Melville would be restored to the Admiralty, and failing this, and dissatisfied with the conduct of that department, he at length resigned in March 1809, to be with his ailing wife and father-in-law in Scotland.
There is not much evidence for Hope’s attendance in Parliament thereafter, though he was listed ‘against the Opposition’ by the Whigs in 1810 and paired with ministers on the Scheldt inquiry, 30 Mar. 1810, and on the orders in council, 3 Mar. 1812. He took leaves of absence on 29 Apr. and 8 June 1812. He was listed a supporter by the Treasury after the election of 1812. His seat was not in danger. He took six weeks’ leave on 9 Mar. and paired against the Catholic relief bill, 24 May 1813. His command at Leith evidently detained him mostly in Scotland during that Parliament, though on 8 May 1815 he voted for the civil list and on 6 and 8 Mar. 1816 he turned up to vote for the army estimates. A week later he again took leave, and no further votes survive before 1820. On 21 Aug. 1814, writing to the prime minister for a regiment for his brother John, he boasted that it was the only favour he had asked of government.