Richard FitzPatrick

General Richard FitzPatrick (24 January 174825 April 1813), styled The Honourable from birth, was an Anglo-Irish soldier, wit, poet, and Whig politician. He sat in the British House of Commons for 39 years from 1774 to 1813, and was a "sworn brother" of the statesman Charles James Fox. He served in the Philadelphia campaign during the American Revolutionary War. Family and childhood FitzPatrick was a younger son of John FitzPatrick, 1st Earl of Upper Ossory, and Lady Evelyn, daughter of John Leveson-Gower, 1st Earl Gower. He had an elder brother, John FitzPatrick, 2nd Earl of Upper Ossory, and two sisters: Mary, who later married Charles James Fox's brother Stephen Fox, 2nd Baron Holland, and Louisa, who became the second wife of Fox's Whig adversary William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne. After the death of her husband in 1758, Fitzpatrick's mother brought her children to England and soon remarried Richard Vernon, an original member of the Jockey Club. Lady Evelyn bore her second husband three daughters: Henrietta, who married George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick; Caroline Maria, who married Robert Percy Smith, brother of writer Sydney Smith, and Elizabeth, who remained single as the companion of her niece, Caroline Fox. Lady Evelyn died in 1763, leaving Fitzpatrick and his sisters each £100 in trust. After the death of their mother, the children were cared for by her sister, Gertrude Russell, Duchess of Bedford. Richard Fitzpatrick was educated at Eton, where he met Charles James Fox, a lifelong friend. It may have been through the influence of another aunt's husband, General Waldegrave, that Fitzpatrick began an army career, enlisting in 1765 as an ensign in the First Foot Guards. Military career In 1772, Fitzpatrick was gazetted lieutenant and captain. Despite his opposition to the American War, he did not resign his commission when his regiment was ordered to New York in the winter of 1777. Instead he went to America, where he fought in the Battle of Brandywine and the Battle of Germantown. Shortly thereafter, he was promoted to captain and lieutenant colonel. Later that year he returned to England, where he attended to his sister Lady Holland during her fatal illness. With first-hand experience of the war, he returned to Parliament to oppose it. Though he does not appear to have seen active military service after that, Fitzpatrick was promoted to major general in 1793, lieutenant general in 1798 and general in 1803.