bury (1747) during the Pelham administration. Through his new patron's influence he was elected for Tavistock in April 1754, and represented that pocket borough without intermission down to 1784. In 1756, moreover, Bedford ‘contrived in the most delicate way to advance him a considerable loan,’ such accommodation being rendered extremely necessary by the increasing recklessness of Rigby's expenditure. Two years later, upon his appointment, under the Duke of Devonshire's government, as lord lieutenant of Ireland, Bedford nominated Rigby his secretary. Rigby's ‘polished gallantry and unaffected conviviality’ met with a hearty recognition at Dublin. For two months. Bedford set his face sternly against jobbery of every kind, but at the end of that period Rigby persuaded him without difficulty to ask an Irish pension of 800l. for his sister-in-law, Lady Waldegrave, and thus inaugurated an undeviating policy of douceurs to followers and adherents of the ‘Bloomsbury crew,’ of which Rigby was designated the brazen boatswain. Early in 1759 Bedford procured from Newcastle the appointment of Rigby to the board of trade, and on 21 Nov. in the same year he was created master of the rolls for Ireland.
After the resignation of Pitt in October 1761, Rigby associated himself closely with Henry Fox, whom he advised to use his influence to ‘make a clean sweep of the whigs.’ At the same time he advised the common council of London, in a speech of boisterous vigour, to fall to their proper business of lighting lamps and flushing sewers now that Pitt's cause was lost. When the storm of unpopularity broke over Fox's head in consequence of the proscription and the peace policy of 1762, Rigby rudely severed his connection with his former ally, whose genuine affection for Rigby was one of the most curious traits in an unamiable character. ‘I thought this man's friendship had not been only political,’ Fox wrote to George Selwyn, and numerous passages in a similar strain show how the wound rankled. Rigby had himself spoken strongly against the war in January 1762. In the following year his patron, the Duke of Bedford, took office as president of the council, and Rigby identified himself more closely than ever with his interests. In November of this year a scene took place in the house between him and Grenville. Rigby attacked Temple as an incendiary, and Grenville replied with fury, calling Rigby an illiterate and a coward, who fled to Ireland to escape being hanged. Rigby answered with good humour, and readily acquiesced in an undertaking demanded by the house that the altercation should have no consequences. Shortly after this incident, however, he fought a duel in Hyde Park with Lord Cornwallis, and during 1764 he travelled in France and Belgium, writing from Brussels and Antwerp, for the amusement of his patron, Bedford, racy descriptions of certain canvases of Rubens.
In 1765 he was appointed vice-treasurer of Ireland, with a salary of 3,500l., and the following two years were occupied in finessing for a more lucrative office. Besides the vice-treasurership, he already held the mastership of the rolls in Ireland, and in November 1767 he tried his utmost, though without success, to get this post confirmed for life. The tax upon the pensions of non-residents drove him to a state of despair, in which he paid assiduous court to his old opponent, Grenville, and to Grafton. His bluster proved so offensive to some of the ministers that Grafton was adjured by Conway and others to tell the Duke of Bedford he ought to send for Rigby and whip him. In the following year, however, his diplomacy was triumphant, and on 14 June 1768 Rigby was made paymaster of the forces, the avowed goal of his ambition. His tenure of office was made famous by the jovial parties at the pay office. Lords Thurlow, Gower, and Weymouth and Dundas, among other ministers, are mentioned as drowning the cares of office at Rigby's convivial board. The orgies at Mistley Hall are spoken of with less reserve. Garrick suggested that Rigby had fixed his abode in a swamp in order that he might have an excuse for using brandy as the rest of the world used small-beer. Junius, alluding to the ‘lumen purpureum’ that habitually beamed from his features, satirised in him the solitary example of the Duke of Bedford's patronage of ‘blushing merit.’
Rigby's gratitude to the court led him in 1769 to take a prominent part in opposition to Wilkes by the promotion of bogus petitions for a dissolution. He spent large sums upon the ‘loyal address from Essex,’ and a contemporary engraving, entitled ‘The Essex [Calves] Procession from Chelmsford to St. James's Market for the good of the Common-Veal,’ represents two carts drawn by donkey tandems to St. James's Palace; each cart is filled with bleating calves, and the first of them is driven by Rigby, while one of the occupants exclaims ‘This is a Rig-by Jove.’ In 1770 he frankly opposed Grenville's Bribery Act on the ground that it stopped treating at elections. In 1771 he obtained a legacy of 5,000l. and the remission of large outstanding debts from the Duke of Bedford, whose devoted henchman he had been to the
