Full Title:
Biographical, Literary, and Political Anecdotes of Several of the Most Eminent Persons of the Present Age. Never Before Printed. With an Appendix; Consisting of Original, Explanatory, and Scarce Papers. By the Author of Anecdotes of the Late Earl of Chatham. In Three Volumes. Volume II. London: Printed for T. N. Longman, and L. B. Seeley. In Pater-Noster-Row. 1797.
Chapter XXI.
William Knox, Esq. Advocate for the American War. Secretary to Lord George Germaine. His State of the Nation; assisted by Mr. Grenville. Other Publications.
This gentleman was another of Mr. Grenville’s friends; and was a very strenuous and persevering advocate of the British measures against America. He was agent for Georgia; and Under Secretary of State to Lord Hillsborough, and to Lord George Germaine, during the American war. To his zeal and suggestions, many of the unfortunate measures against America were ascribed, and he sustained much of the hatred of the Americans on that account. He was the author of several tracts on American subjects, the principal of which was,
“The Controversy between Great Britain and her Colonies reviewed.” It is obviously a work of much labour and contains extracts from many papers. The writer’s view is to support the right of Great Britain to tax America.
He was also the writer of a tract intitled “The Present State of the Nation; particularly with respect to its Trade, Finances, &c.” This pamphlet was, at first, ascribed to Mr. Grenville; and Mr. Burke, by his pamphlet intitled “Observations upon it,” gave a temporary currency to that opinion. Mr. Grenville undoubtedly assisted the writer with materials and arguments, but the compositions belong to Mr. Knox. It consists principally of a defence of Mr. Grenville’s ministry and measures, and a condemnation of the Rockingham ministry, and their measures.
Mr. Knox has also published two small volumes, called “Extra-official State Papers;” which contain many useful hints.
The two following Letters are not unworthy of the reader’s notice:
5th March 1783.
“Sir,
“Letters having been written to the Secretary of the late Board of Trade, and to my colleague, for the last six months, as Under Secretary of State in the American department, and to all the clerks who have been deprived of their situations in those offices by their suppression, acquainting them, that the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury had made them all allowances in compensation of the incomes they had been deprived of; and no such letter having come to me, I am constrained to give you the trouble of this letter, to request the favour of you to move their Lordships to permit you to inform me of what account it is that I, who had served as Under Secretary to every Secretary of State that has filled the American department, from its institution to its suppression, and even attended the Earl of Shelburne when that department was absorbed in the domestic, until his Lordship was more ably served, should be the only person passed over upon this occasion without compensation, and even without notice.
“I am, Sir, &c. William Knox.”
“Geo. Rose, Esq.”
Copy of Mr. Rose’s Answer, dated 17th of March 1783.
“Sir,
“Upon reading to my Lords Commissioners of the Treasury your letter, dated the 5th instant, respecting a compensation for your office of Under Secretary of State for the American department, I am directed to acquaint you, that my Lords are of opinion that you have no claim whatever to a compensation for the loss of your office, you already having a pension of six hundred pounds a-year for yourself, and the like sum for Mrs. Knox.
“I am, Sir, &c. Geo. Rose.”
Eighteenth-Century Reading Room 