[165] John Leveson Gower, Baron Gower, was elected President of the Board (the Jacobite meeting) in 1742, on the death of the Earl of Lichfield, while he was Lord Privy Seal, which he resigned soon after; but came into the same place again on the coalition, and was some time after created an Earl. CHAPTER VII. Change of the Ministry--Character of Mr. Legge--The Duke of Bedford has an audience--He declines office--Further appointments--Lord Anson--The Duke of Devonshire and Lord Hartington--The Whigs satisfied--Character of Lord Holderness--Murray released--The Princess delivered of a posthumous child--Discovery of Lyttelton’s letter--Foreign affairs--The Marquis de Mirepoix--Character of Sir Charles Hanbury Williams--Death of the Prince of Orange--Princess of Orange--Debates on Privilege--Illness of the Duke of Cumberland--Debate on the army estimates--Affairs of France--Death of Lord Bolingbroke--The characters of Sir Robert Walpole and Bolingbroke--Death of the Queen of Denmark--Walpole and Pelham. June 13th.--The Duke of Newcastle wrote to Lord Sandwich, that the King had no farther occasion for his service; and in the evening sent Mr. Legge to acquaint the Duke of Bedford with the dismission of his friend. Legge was a younger son of Lord Dartmouth, who had early turned him into the world to make his fortune, which he pursued with an uncommon assiduity of duty. Avarice or flattery, application or ingratitude, nothing came amiss that might raise him on the ruins of either friends or enemies; indeed, neither were so to him, but by the proportion of their power. He had been introduced to Sir Robert Walpole by his second son, and soon grew an immeasurable favourite, till endeavouring to steal his patron’s daughter,[166] at which in truth Sir Robert’s partiality for him had seemed to connive, he was discarded entirely; yet taken care[167] of in the very last hours of that Minister’s power; and though removed from the Secretaryship of the Treasury, being particularly obnoxious to Lord Bath, he obtained a profitable employment[168] by the grossest supplications[169] to the Duke of Bedford; and was soon after admitted into the Admiralty by as gross court paid to Lord Winchelsea, whom he used ill the moment he found it necessary to worship that less intense but more surely-rising sun, Mr. Pelham. He had a peculiarity of wit and very shrewd parts, but was a dry and generally an indifferent speaker. On a chosen embassy to the King of Prussia, Legge was duped and ill-treated by him. Having shuffled for some time between Mr. Pelham, Pitt, the Duke of Bedford, and Lord Sandwich, and wriggled through the interest of all into the Treasury, and then to the Treasurership of the Navy, he submitted to break his connexions with the two latter by being the indecent messenger of Lord Sandwich’s disgrace. The Duke met him on the steps of Bedford-house (as he was going to Lord