"2nd Viscount Melville" Robert Dundas Signed Free Frank Dated 1839 For Sale

Up for sale a RARE! "2nd Viscount Melville" Robert Dundas Hand Signed Free Frank Dated 1839.  

March 1771 – 10 June 1851) was a British statesman, the son of Henry Dundas, the 1st Viscount. Dundas was the Member of

Parliament for Hastings in 1794, Rye in 1796 and Midlothian in

1801. He was also Keeper of the Signet for Scotland from

1800. He was appointed a Privy

Counsellor in 1807,[ a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1817,] a Knight of the Thistle in

1821,[ and was Chancellor

of the University of St Andrews from 1814. Melville filled

various political offices and was First Lord of the

Admiralty from 1812 to 1827, and from 1828 to 1830; his eldest

son inherited his title. He was born in Edinburgh on 14 March 1771, the only son of Henry

Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville, and his first wife, the former Elizabeth Rannie (1751–1843). Educated at the Royal High School,

Edinburgh, he went in 1786 with his tutor John Bruce on

a continental tour and enrolled at Göttingen University.[1] He studied afterwards at the University of Edinburgh and

at Emmanuel College,

Cambridge, and was admitted at Lincoln's Inn in 1788. After a successful attempt at law

he became his father's private secretary from 1794, though he was brought in as

MP for Hastings in

1794, and then Rye in

1796. The same year, on 29 August, he married an heiress, Anne Saunders (died

10 Sept 1841), and took her name beside his own. They had four sons and two

daughters; their eldest son, Henry Dundas,

later third Viscount Melville, became an army officer while their second

son, Richard Saunders Dundas,

became First Naval Lord. Dundas

was appointed Keeper of the Signet for Scotland and

elected MP for Midlothian (Edinburghshire) in 1801. He remained silent

in parliament until his speeches of 1805 and 1806 in defence of his father, who

was then being impeached. His first real test came in negotiating to be left in

charge of Scotland by a hostile 'ministry of all the talents'. He got nowhere,

but won the respect of his own side, and the problem vanished with the

ministry's collapse. He was rewarded with the presidency of the Board of Control for India by

the Duke of Portland in

1807. Dundas's main task was to frustrate any possibility that Napoleon might exploit his alliance with Russia to make some attempt on British India. He sent a

mission to the shah of Persia, at whose court French agents were

present. He formed alliances with the princes of Lahore and Kabul.

He ordered occupation of the Portuguese factories in India and China,

of the Dutch colony of Java, and of the French stations on Mauritius and Réunion. He had also to deal with a sharp deterioration,

through loss of trade during the war, in the finances of the East India Company. A

series of reports on its development since the India Act of 1784, written by a

select committee which he chaired, concluded that it should give up its

inefficient trading privileges, at least in the subcontinent. Dundas drafted

the legislation which ended them at the renewal of the company's charter in

1813. Dundas's Indian administration was interrupted for six months in 1809

when he served as Chief Secretary for

Ireland. Spencer Perceval, succeeding Portland, then wanted to promote

him to the cabinet as secretary for war, but this did not happen due to the

wishes of his father. Dundas returned to the Board of Control, still without a

place in cabinet. He succeeded as Viscount Melville on 27 May 1811. The next year, under

Prime Minister Lord

Liverpool, he was promoted First Lord of the

Admiralty. While the Napoleonic wars went on, his job was to

maintain the British maritime supremacy established at the battle of Trafalgar. In a

state paper of February 1813 he pointed out that France, with the shipbuilding resources of disposal, would be able to construct a fleet to match Britain's if the

struggle continued much longer. The point was underlined by complaints from

the Duke of

Wellington in Spain of inadequate protection for

the convoys supplying him, especially after the outbreak of hostilities with

the United States in 1812 unleashed hordes of American

privateers on the Atlantic. Drastic cuts followed the eventual peace, but

Britain, now the only colonial power of any importance, found her maritime

commitments increased. Melville did not think the fleet could be reduced much

below 100 ships of the line. The cabinet set a limit of forty-four. The

following years saw a constant struggle by Melville to find every possible

economy while he avoided meeting a target he regarded as unreal. He quietly got

his way, not least by improving the design and durability of ships, research on

which benefited from his close personal interest. Yet he resisted the

introduction of steamers, since an infant technology seemed bound to prove

expensive and unreliable; moreover, if navies were to be rebuilt all round as

steam driven, Britain would place herself on the same level as her rivals. By

the late 1820s he was able to authorise the construction of new and larger

classes of ship, matching those in France and the United States. Even out of

tight budgets he never failed to squeeze something for another scientific

interest, in exploration (where places are named after him, see below). Appointed

a governor of the Bank of Scotland, he was

elected chancellor of the University of St Andrews in

1814, and made a Knight of the Thistle in

1821. The crisis of the system came in 1827 on the resignation of Liverpool and

the succession of George Canning, who was

set on Catholic emancipation.

Melville said that, while he personally supported it, he could not approve of a

policy which would split the outgoing cabinet. The Whigs in Canning's

coalition now persuaded him that a Scottish manager was unnecessary; the home

secretary could do all the work with a native adviser or two.