Welsh Journals

33 PERCIVAL LEWIS. This gentleman was a well-known personage in his day, filling many parts, and filling them well. His father Edward Lewis, was a London merchant residing at Putney, who purchased the Downton estate near New Radnor, although he had no previous connection with the county of Radnor, and, being fortunate enough to obtain the Harley interest, stood as a candidate for the Radnor Boroughs at the general election of 1761, in opposition to Thomas Lewis of Harpton—" Old Burgess Harley "—who had been member for 46 years. The result was a Double Return of both can¬ didates, one way out of a difficulty, on 3 April, but on the necessary Petition being presented to the House of Commons, which then decided all such matters, the return was amended on 28 November by erasing the name of Thomas Lewis. At the following general elections of 1768, 1774, and 1780, John Lewis of Harpton, the nephew and heir of Thomas Lewis, was returned, but on petition the indefatigable Edward Lewis was each time declared duly elected, and in 1784 he was chosen without a contest, only however to suffer defeat in his turn, in 1790, at the hands of David Murray, the son in law of the Hon. Thomas Harley, M.P., who was Lord Mayor of London in 1767. Percival Lewis was born in or about the year 1757, and was admitted a student of Lincoln's Inn, where he was called to the bar on 12 June 1780. He attended the Courts of the Great Sessions in Wales for some years previous to his marriage with Miss Cray, the daughter of Jeremiah Cray, a lady who brought him a handsome fortune. He then quitted the pro¬ fession of the law, and accepted a commission in the North Hants Militia, in which he commanded a company several