On 30 June 1753 Lord Hardwicke wrote from London to his son Philip about the by-election in Bedfordshire:
He was regarded as a loyal follower of Bedford. But once at least he tried to assert his independence. When before the session of 1754 Bedford was seeking support for his follower Lord Fane, against whose election for Reading a petition had been presented, Ossory’s declaration that he would attend no election petitions angered Bedford who wrote to him on 19 Nov.:
I find myself obliged ... to state to you by letter the obligations I think you are under in a public light to your constituents, and in a private one to me, by whose means you have been introduced to those constituents ... how will you answer to me your non-attendance in a point which so nearly interests me? ... the great personal friendship I have for Lord Fane, and the great opinion I have of his honesty and abilities, must always make me look upon those who engage at my request in this just defence of his cause, against the arbitrary power of a minister, as personal friends to myself, as on the other hand I must undoubtedly think myself very ill used by those who have been under any obligations to me who shall refuse to give my Lord Fane any assistance that may be justly in their power to give.
Ossory replied 24 Nov.:
Though I had determined ... never to engage in committees of election yet as your Grace thinks yourself equally pushed at with him [Fane] and makes such a point of this affair, I will attend it in the manner your Grace desires; but am resolved for the future never to engage in a thing of this kind upon any account whatever.
Bedford mss 30 ff. 104, 108.
Ossory died 23 Sept. 1758.