Later Life
The acquittal of Hastings in April 1795 disappointed Francis of the governor-generalship, and in 1798 he had to submit to the additional mortification of a defeat in the general election. He was once more successful, however, in 1802, when he sat for Appleby, and it seemed as if the great ambitions of his life were about to be realized when the Whig party came into power in 1806. His disappointment was great when the governor-generalship was, owing to party exigencies, conferred on Sir Gilbert Elliot (Lord Minto); he declined, it is said, soon afterwards the government of the Cape, but accepted a KB. Though re-elected for Appleby in 1806, he failed to secure a seat in the following year; and the remainder of his life was spent in comparative privacy.
Among the later productions of his pen were, besides the Plan of a Reform in the Election of the House of Commons, pamphlets entitled:
- Proceedings in the House of Commons on the Slave Trade (1796),
- Reflections on the Abundance of Paper in Circulation and the Scarcity of Specie (1810),
- Historical Questions Exhibited (1818), and a
- Letter to Earl Grey on the Policy of Great Britain and the Allies towards Norway (1814).
His first wife, by whom he had six children, died in 1806, and in 1814 he married his second wife, Emma Watkins, who long survived him, and who left voluminous manuscripts relating to his biography. In his domestic relations he was exemplary, and he lived on terms of mutual affection with a wide circle of friends.
Read more about this topic: Philip Francis (politician)
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