Conway, Henry Seymour

▪ British commander and politician

born 1721

died July 9, 1795, Park Place, near Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, Eng.

      military commander and prominent British politician who urged moderate treatment of the American colonies.

      Conway began his military career while still in his teens and fought in the War of the Austrian Succession. After receiving the command of a regiment in 1749, he served in Ireland and was successively promoted to major general in 1756 and to lieutenant general in 1759.

      Conway's concurrent political career began in the House of Commons, where he sat from 1741 to 1774 and, after a brief lapse, from 1775 to 1784. He emerged as a leading figure in the opposition when he attacked the government's use of general warrants (warrants not naming the person to be arrested) in the John Wilkes controversy. Conway's resistance to the crown in this affair lost him the King's favour, his military command, and his post as groom of the royal bedchamber in 1764. George III, however, was forced to accept the Rockingham administration, with Conway as secretary of state for the southern department, in July 1765. Inclined toward a policy of reconciliation with the Colonies, Conway successfully moved the repeal of the Stamp Act in 1766. He continued to serve as secretary of state and leader of the House of Commons in the Pitt-Grafton administration, during which time he opposed Chancellor of the Exchequer Charles Townshend's hardhanded colonial taxation policy.

      Following his resignation from the government in January 1768, Conway returned to military duty and, in 1772, was promoted to general and awarded the governorship of the island of Jersey. In Parliament he strongly criticized continued British prosecution of the war with the American colonies. He played a crucial role in the House of Commons' resolution against continuing the war, a move that helped lead to the fall of Lord North's government in 1782. That March, Conway was appointed commander in chief and given a Cabinet seat in Rockingham's successor administration. Conway's political career came to an end, however, after he violently criticized the following government of the younger Pitt and lost his Parliamentary seat in the general election of 1784.

* * *