part in the engagement. He returned to England and attended parliament in the autumn. Early the next year he obtained the appointment of aide-de-camp to Marshal Wade, who succeeded Lord Stair in the command of the army in Germany, and in May joined the marshal at Ghent. The campaign of 1744 was inglorious, and Conway returned to England disheartened (Rockingham Memoirs, i. 395). He was at this time in love with Lady Caroline Fitzroy (the Lady Petersham and Countess of Harrington of Walpole's ‘Letters’), the sister of his brother's wife, but his means were small, and Horace Walpole persuaded him not to make her an offer (ib. 402; Walpole, Letters, i. 312). Between Conway and Walpole there existed a strong and lifelong attachment, and Conway figures largely both in the correspondence and memoirs of his cousin. He was by no means so remarkable a man as Walpole makes him out. His personal advantages were great; he was singularly handsome, his voice was sweet, and his manner, though reserved, was gracious. No man of his time was so generally liked. While he was a man of fashion his tastes were cultivated and his habits respectable. In a period marked by political intrigue and corruption he was conspicuous for integrity and a delicate sense of honour. His talents were not brilliant: he lacked decision and insight, and he was easily swayed both by his emotions and his friends. He had not the ability either to form or carry out a plan for himself, and he unconsciously allowed Walpole to use him as a means of gratifying his spite and his caprices (Russell, Life of C. J. Fox, i. 283; Lord E. Fitzmaurice, Life of Shelburne, ii. 55). Of his personal courage there is no doubt; he was a better soldier than he was a general, a better general than a statesman.
When, in 1745, the Duke of Cumberland replaced Wade in the command of the army in Germany, he appointed Conway one of his aides-de-camp. The appointment had some influence on his political life. Discontented with the way in which the war was carried on, he had provoked the king and the duke by some votes he had given on the subject. The renewal of activity delighted him; he became a chief favourite with the duke, and defended the war on all occasions (Walpole, Memoirs of George II, i. 35). He joined the army just in time to take part in the battle of Fontenoy on 11 May, where he distinguished himself by his personal bravery. In the autumn he accompanied the duke to the north, received the command of the 48th regiment of foot on 6 April 1746, and on the 16th took part in the battle of Culloden. He served with the duke in Flanders in 1747, and was present at the defeat of the allied army at Lauffeld, in front of Maestricht, on 2 July; here he was overpowered, and barely escaped being stabbed when on the ground by a French hussar (Walpole, Letters, ii. 91). He was made prisoner, but was released on parole. He returned home, and on 19 Dec. married Caroline, widow of Charles, earl of Aylesbury, and daughter of Lieutenant-general John Campbell, afterwards Duke of Argyll, by whom he had one daughter, Anne Seymour, who married John Damer, son of Lord Milton, afterwards Earl of Dorchester. From 24 July 1749 he commanded for two years the 34th regiment. On his marriage he lived at Latimers, Buckinghamshire, which he hired for three years. In Aug. 1751 he was ordered to join his regiment in Minorca and visited Italy on his way. Receiving the command of the 13th dragoons in December he returned home early the next year, and bought Park Place, near Henley-on-Thames. He had scarcely had time to settle there before he was ordered to Ireland. Thither Lady Aylesbury accompanied him, leaving her daughter, then three years old, in charge of Horace Walpole. They were quartered at Sligo, and returned home in the summer of 1753, in which year he received a legacy of 5,000l., as joint heir of his uncle, Captain Erasmus Shorter. In 1754 he seconded the address to the crown and took some part in the debates on military matters (Parl. Hist. xv. 282). On the appointment of Lord Hartington, afterwards Duke of Devonshire, to the lord-lieutenancy of Ireland, he insisted on having Conway as secretary. Conway went to Ireland in March 1755, and his conciliatory temper did much to pacify the country. His tenure of office ended the next year. Although the place was one of great profit, he was a loser by the employment, for his expenses were large, and he did not have the opportunity of reimbursing himself by the second or ‘fallow’ year, during which, as a matter of course, both the lord-lieutenant and the secretary absented themselves.
Conway's association with the Duke of Devonshire continued after his return to England, and in the autumn of 1756 Walpole employed him to use his influence with the duke to accept the treasury without conditions, and allowing Pitt full liberty of action in the formation of the ministry. Conway was successful in his endeavour, and thus on 3 Nov. defeated a cabal formed by Fox and the Bedford party (Memoirs of George II, ii. 99–103). In parliament Conway was in constant rivalry with
