Background
George Sackville-Germain was born on 26 January 1716, the third and youngest son of Lionel Cranfield Sackville, seventh Earl and first Duke of Dorset.
George Sackville-Germain was born on 26 January 1716, the third and youngest son of Lionel Cranfield Sackville, seventh Earl and first Duke of Dorset.
Sackville was educated at Westminster School, and after spending some time with his father in Paris, accompanied his father to Dublin, Ireland, where he attended Trinity College, graduating with a B.A. in 1733 and an M.A. in 1734. In April 1737 he was appointed clerk to the council in Dublin, and in July he became a captain in the 6th dragoon guards, then known as the 7th or Lord Cathcart’s horse guards. In 1740 he was promoted to lieutenant colonel of the 20th foot, under Major General Bragg. In 1749 he became colonel in the 12th dragoons and in 1750 colonel of his old regiment, the 6th dragoons, now renamed the 3rd Irish horse dragoons regiment.
Sackville entered the House of Commons in 1741 as M.E for Dover, and represented that borough until 1761. After performing a tour of military service that included the battles of Dettington and Fontenoy in 1745, in which he was badly wounded, he returned to England. He was made colonel of the Lancashire fusiliers, which he joined at Inverness after the Jacobite rising of 1745, remaining in Scotland until 1747.
In 1751 he returned to Ireland and represented the borough of Portarlington in the Irish Parliament, at the same time retaining his English parliamentary seat. Sackville became a member of the Privy Council in 1758. During this time, he also continued his distinguished military career. However, when he hesitated to commit his forces to the batde of Minden in 1759, he was dismissed from the army. Sackville asked to be court-martialed in order to clear his name, and when this request was refused, he published an Answer to Colonel Fitzroy. He eventually was court-martialed, but instead of being exonerated, he was found guilty of disobeying orders and his discharge from the army was confirmed.
Despite this setback, Sackville became M.P. for Hythe, Kent, in 1761, and under the new king (George III) he was quickly restored to favor. He succeeded to his father’s estates at Knowle Park in 1765, and in 1768 he was elected M.P. for East Grinstead, which he represented until he succeeded to the peerage. As a follower of Lord North he was popularly assumed to be the author of the Letters of Junius.
In 1770, Parliament granted him the right to be known as Lord George Germain, in accordance with the will of Lady Betty Germain. Any whiff of cowardice that might have remained due to the ignominious end of his military career was finally obliterated as a result of his duel with another M.P., Captain George Johnstone, for which he subsequently was declared a hero by none other than Horace Walpole (Horatio or Horace Walpole, fourth Earl of Oxford, 1717-1797). Germain became secretary of state for the American colonies under Lord North from 1775 to 1782, and was rewarded with a viscountcy in February 1782. Spending his late years mostly in retirement, he died at his residence in Sussex on 26 August 1785.
He married Diana, daughter and coheiress of John Sambroke, in 1754. She died in 1778, leaving Sackville a widower with two sons and three daughters.