SLOANE, Hans (1739-1827), of South Stoneham, Hants.

Sloane grew up under the wing of Hans Stanley; went out with him to Paris in 1761;Add. 32923, ff. 353-5. acted for him in Isle of Wight affairs when Stanley went abroad in the summer of 1764;Stanley-Sloane corresp. Aug.-Oct. 1764, Sloane-Stanley mss; Sloane-Grenville corresp., Grenville mss (JM and HL). was appointed by him deputy cofferer; his seat at Newport was secured for him by Stanley—‘I take this opportunity’, wrote John Eames to Sloane, 30 Oct. 1766, ‘of assuring you of my ready assistance in carrying the agreement into execution, which has been entered into by Mr. Stanley and Mr. Holmes for bringing you into Parliament for the borough of Newport.’ And Chatham wrote to him on 21 Oct. (obviously in reply to a letter of thanks for a share in the transaction which Chatham disclaimed): ‘it is with particular pleasure that I learn all has passed at Newport to your satisfaction.’Sloane-Stanley mss. In 1768 Sloane and Earnes had to stand a contested election at Newport, and in 1774 Sloane was returned unopposed on a compromise between the Holmes and Worsley interests. In the House a steady attender, he invariably voted with the Government—‘connected as he is with Hans Stanley’, wrote the Public Ledger in 1779, ‘he cannot be expected to have an opinion of his own’. On Stanley’s death in January 1780 he brought in his brother-in-law John Fuller for Southampton without opposition from John Fleming who in 1774 had been returned on a joint interest with Stanley. But at the general election in September 1780 Fuller and Sloane both stood for Southampton and, with Government support, ousted Fleming by a narrow margin. Appointed to the Board of Trade before the election, Sloane adhered to North to the very end; voted against Shelburne’s peace preliminaries, 18 Feb. 1783; and was classed by Robinson as a follower of North.

On the formation of the Coalition Government in April 1783, Sloane was considered for a seat at the Board of Admiralty had Lord Apsley persisted in declining it, but in the end was left out in the cold.Fortescue, vi. 335. In December 1783 Robinson wrote about Sloane and Fuller: ‘They have thought themselves neglected by Lord North and ill-used by Portland. They stay away, at least Sloane does’—and he classed them both as hopeful. But in the division lists over Fox’s East India bill, Sloane appears on 27 Nov. 1783 as voting with the Government (and Fuller as absent that day, and voting against the Government on 1 Dec.). Again in a list drawn up by Robinson, between the accession of the Pitt Administration and the dissolution of the House, Sloane is classed among previous opponents ‘who are now thought very hopeful’.Laprade, 55, 76. But on 28 Dec. 1783, the well informed Daniel Pulteney wrote to the Duke of Rutland from Southampton that the two sitting Members, ‘Lord North’s men’, were sure to be turned out by Fleming and another well-wisher of Pitt.Rutland mss at Belvoir. And in a paper drawn up on the eve of the general election, Robinson noted against Southampton and the names of Sloane and Fuller: ‘Fleming vice Fuller. Wanted, another candidate.’Laprade, 117. In other words, the two were to be turned out. In fact they quitted without a contest. Sloane returned to the House in October 1788, apparently on the Harris interest at Christchurch, and voted against Pitt on the Regency bill.

He died in 1827.