Lot 67: FRANCIS RAWDON-HASTINGS 1st Marquess of Hastings,

FRANCIS RAWDON-HASTINGS 1st Marquess of Hastings, 2nd Earl of Moira (1754-1826). British military officer and politician. Serving throughout the American Revolutionary War, he fought at Bunker Hill, White Plains, Monmouth and Camden, and other major battles. Notably, he raised a corps at Philadelphia called the Irish Volunteers, who under him became known as fierce and capable fighters. ALS "Moira," 31/2pp, 7"x9", Denington, Sep 20, 1811 To William Eden, 1st Baron Auckland regarding the Prince-Regent, just seven months after his father George III's mental incapacitation. in part, "If I do not misconstrue your last letter it carries with it an implication as if I had some estrangement in regard to your friends. Be assured that nothing of the sort exists...If the allusion be not to me & only bears in others who have been in the habit of confidential attachment to the Prince, I am convinced that you equally are in the supposition. The persons to whom I referred never have been devoted to the Prince, & only avail themselves a temporary facility of intercourse to color matters as may best suit their private views. My statement to you was not with the most distant wish of annoying your friends: It was only to awaken your own sense of Candor in judging the Prince..." Darkly signed. An intimate friend of the Prince-Regent, the following year he asked Lord Moira to form a Whig government after the assassination of Prime Minister Percival, but he was unsuccessful. The Prince then appointed him governor-general of India in 1813 where his policies proved very successful. Est: $700-1000