Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1881-11-08
SIR EDWARD THoRRTON'S
SUCCESSOR.
Sketch Of the New British Minister
at Washington,
Whose Noble Ancestor Was Over
Here in 1910.

The Hon. Lionel Sackville SackYille-
West, who succeeds Sir Edward
Thornton, has had over thirty.five
years experience in the Foreign
Affairs service of his country. He
comes from an ancient historic house.
The Vests were centuries ago promi-
nent in English political and social
life. One of them was, in the seven
teenth century, a Governor Of Vir.
ginia. where he died, and the State Of
Delaware derives its name from him.
Mr.. Sackville- West, who is a bachelor
of flty-four, is the third surviving
son of a farmer, Earl Delaware, by
his marriage with the sister and
heiress Of that Duke of Dorset who
was killed out hunting in Wicklow,
ireland, while on visit to his mother,
who was married to Lord Whiteworth,
then Viceroy, the anne so conspiou-
GUS as English Ambassador to Ma
poleon L. Mr.. Sackville- Vests
family has not been without troubles.
His eldest brother, Lord Cantelupc,
was a brilliant but exceedingly dissi-
plted man, whose death, in the prime
OF manhood, occasioned q most un-
usual shock to the gay werld at the
height Of the London season. His
screams we're heard allover Grosvenor
street and produced a never to be-
forgotten impression on the neightor.
hood. The next brother, a general
officer. drowned himself in an excess
Of melancholy induced by bereave-
ment. The ladies of the family have
met happier fate. One is now Duchess
of Bedford, another Countess of Derby.
The service OF Minister West began
in 1915, with the Earl of Aberdeen,
when that statesman was Foreign Sec
rotary. He was in the Fo eign office
in 1S47, when he was appointed at
tache to the British Legation at Lis
bon, from which he was transferred in
lS49 to Naples. He was attache to
Struttgard in 1852, at Berlin in 1853,
and Secretary of Legation at Turin in
1858, where he was also Charge
d'Affaires on several occasions between
1859 and 1863. 10 1864 he was sent to
Madrid as Secretary of Legation,
where he was Charge twice between
that time and 1867. In the latter year
hewas promoted to the Secretaryship
of the Embassy at Berlin, and trans
ferred to Paris in 1868, where be was
Minister PlenipOtentiary q portion of
the year during the absence of the
ambassador, and again in 1869, 1871
aud 1872. lie was appointed Envoy
Extraordinary and Minister Plenipo-
Tertiary to the Argentine Republic in
1872, and to Spain on the llth of Jan
uary, 1873, where he still remained at
the date of publication Of the Alma
mach de Gotha for 1881. 1t will be
seen that Mr.. West has gone up
through all grades of diplomatic ser
vice to bis present position of Envoy
Extraordinary to the United States,
according to the excellent rule of civil
service promotion upon experience and
merit that prevails in Great Britain.
The arrival of Minister West in one
of the American Line steamships is
due to the offer generally made blythe
management, in consideration of the
fact that it was one of Nj. Vests an
cestors who, in 1910, gave his name to
Delaware Bay and to the State whicl
adjoins it, and who, at the close of the
same year, arrived at jamestown as
Royal Governor and Captain General
Of Virginia. 1T is recorded by Mr..
Bancroft, says the London Telegraph,
"that Lord Delaware came to those
rude and sparsely settled shores sur
rounded by the pomp of the Old
World, and with a train of liveried
servants whose gorgeous dresses were
strangely out of harmony with the
dense forests Of the Old Dominion.
Lord Delaware's reign wasbut Of short
duration, for his health, always feeble.
suceumbed before an attack of fever
and ague, which compelled him to sail
for England. But, short as his term
ofofice was, Lord Delaware impressed
his fellow-colonists with a sense of the
lofty purity of his character, and upon
his return to England ne never
ceased to extol Virginia as the land OF
promise, which needed but a few
English laborers of honesty, encum-
bered with large families, to add a
precious jewel to the British Crown
In 1913 Lord Delaware was again dis
patched to Virginia as Governor, but
was never destined to reach its then
distant shores. What the voyage
across the Atlantic was in the bluff
bowed sailing vessels of those days,
ranging between 100 and 300 tons in
burden, may be read in the verses Of
Drayton and in the precious collec-
tions of Richard Hakluvt