St Mawes

Thomas Jones, Lord Edgcumbe’s agent, wrote about St. Mawes in June 1760:

Lord Falmouth and Mr. Nugent, but the latter is lord of the borough and makes the returning officer and thereby has the strongest and most secure interest.

And Nugent himself said in the House on 13 Apr. 1780, during the debate on disfranchising revenue officers:

He was perfectly safe at St. Mawes ... Five-sixths of the borough was his own property, his constituents were his tenants, and he was sure of his election.1Add. 32907, ff. 461-2; Almon, xvii. 515.

The two co-operated, though not without occasional jealousies. When in 1764 a vacancy seemed imminent in the governorship of St. Mawes castle, the post was ‘eagerly solicited’ by both ‘in support of their respective interests’, Nugent desiring that Falmouth ‘might not name any near relation or dependant of his to it’, while he let his son, Colonel Edmund Nugent, apply for it, though with an offer to depart from it rather than put Grenville under difficulties. In the end neither side was given the appointment.2Grenville to Nugent, 27 Oct. 1764, to Ld. Suffolk, 22 Jan. 1765, Grenville letter bk.

Hugh, 2nd Viscount Falmouth, at his death, 4 Feb. 1782, left his interest in the borough to his illegitimate son, Hugh Boscawen, M.P. for St. Mawes 1774-90. Nugent, who had acquired his interest through his marriage with Anne, sister and co-heiress of James Craggs, M.P., bequeathed it, at his death, 14 Oct. 1788, to his daughter Mary Elizabeth, wife of George Grenville, 1st Marquess of Buckingham (Nugent’s only son having pre-deceased him). Boscawen sold out his interest to Buckingham, who thus came to control both seats.