ADDINGTON, Henry, 1st Viscount Sidmouth (1757-1844). Prime Minister 1801-1804.
Letter Signed ('Sidmouth') to Lord Nugent, 1½ pages folio, (remains of mount on verso, water-stain along two folds), Whitehall, 16 March 1818. Forwarding the decision of the King, as Commander-in-Chief, that certain classes of prisoners were ineligible for Army service.
Nugent had recommended that William Orchard, who had been convicted of assault, be allowed to join the Condemned Regiment. Considering the abrupt downscaling of the Army and Navy following the end of the Napoleonic wars, such a request was likely, as it did in this case, to fail.
 George Nugent Grenville (1788-1850), Baron Nugent, succeeded to his mother's Irish peerage in 1813. Prominent in Buckinghamshire society, he served as M.P. for Aylesbury from 1812 to 1832 and again from 1847 to 48.
 Sidmouth served as Home Secretary during a time of perceived national crisis - France threatening from without and revolutionary ideas from within. Fear of mob violence led him to act harshly at any threat to the social order.

[No: 1731]