The Townshend Moment: The Making of Empire and Revolution in the Eighteenth Century by Patrick Griffin (review)

Patrick Griffin's The Townshend Moment offers a study of the lives and careers of the Townshend brothers, George (1724–1807) and Charles (1725–67). Remarkably, Griffin offers the first book-length examination of the Townshends, a curious lacuna given their prominent involvement in British politics in the years immediately prior to the American Revolution. In addressing that omission, Griffin has chosen not to write a conventional biography but instead to pursue something rather more interesting. Retelling the familiar story of imperial crisis and revolution via the brothers' experiences, Griffin presents their lives and careers through a series of "moments"—intersections of the Townshends' lives and careers with decisive points in a larger imperial narrative. Griffin's alternative approach offers refreshing new context and perspective by elevating two hitherto bit players to leading roles. His guiding theme in exploring the Townshends emerges from his fascination with causality and the manner in which "contingency, providence, or good fortune—call it what you will—shapes broad dynamics" (xi): in this example, the dynamics of British governance and empire.

In eschewing a straightforward biographical study, Griffin avoids having to interpret his subjects as remarkable or exceptional. Indeed, he establishes "his brothers" as conventional products of a polite eighteenth-century upbringing. It is a well-considered choice, for notwithstanding the scandalous affaires du coeur of their mother, Etheldreda Townshend (known to posterity as "Naughty Audrey" [4]), scholars of Georgian Britain would find little surprising about the Townshends' early years. In their educations and their exploitation of kinship and connections to obtain appointments, Griffin's Townshends are instantly recognizable as archetypal eighteenth-century gentlemen: born and raised in Robert Walpole's Britain, with worldviews colored by a sociopolitical landscape long familiar to readers of Sir Lewis Namier. Rather than railing against such historical typecasting, Griffin accepts the Townshends' well-worn paths to office as a given and passes swiftly to the formative first moments of their careers.

For the younger brother, Charles, Griffin contends, the first moment was the fortunate coincidence of his appointment to the Board of Trade and Plantations just as the office entered into a period of marked activity, driven by the dynamic leadership of George Montagu Dunk, 2d Earl of Halifax. This meeting of minds and kindred spirits, Griffin argues compellingly, served to define Charles's subsequent vocation as a meticulous student and practitioner of the logistics of empire. "What Halifax needed more than anything," Griffin contends, "was someone who had a passion for the arcane details of a commercial empire and the intricacies of the mercantilist system of trade" (22). Charles offered the perfect acolyte; he was a fervent devotee of Halifax's philosophy of blue-water imperialism, and through his experience of colonial administration he became a convincing advocate for both the preservation of metropolitan sovereignty and the necessity of imperial reform.

Though Charles's professional life was defined by the fortuitous alignment of personality, mentor, and vocation, his elder brother was shaped by jarring personal incompatibility. George Townshend pursued a military career and by his early twenties was already an accomplished aide-de-camp, experienced combat veteran, and rigid disciplinarian. But what might have seemed like a perfect calling proved calamitous as his beliefs increasingly clashed with those of his superiors, most notably the commander in chief of British forces, William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland. With generous understatement, Griffin observes that "George championed virtue even when it proved politically inexpedient" (35), a succinct précis of how his temperament led to his downfall. George's caustic depictions of his enemies in political pamphlets and scurrilous caricatures, Griffin argues, provide a vivid demonstration of his "vindictive and idealistic streak" (41). Griffin chooses to afford his subject the benefit of the doubt in this matter, presenting George's actions as evidence of his high moral virtue. A less sympathetic...