The first prelude to his misfortunes, may justly be reckoned his falling in love, and privately marrying a young lady, the daughter of major general Holmes; a match by no means suited to his birth, fortune and character; and far less to the ambitious views his father had of disposing of him in such a marriage, as would have been a considerable addition to the fortune and grandeur of his illustrious family.  However disappointed the earl of Wharton might be, in his son’s marrying beneath his quality; yet that amiable lady who became his daughter-in-law deserved infinitely more felicity than she met with by an alliance with his family; and the young lord was not so unhappy through any misconduct of hers, as by the death of his father, which this precipitate marriage is thought to have hastened.  The duke being so early freed from paternal restraints, plunged himself into those numberless excesses, which became at last fatal to him; and he proved, as Pope expresses it,

  A tyrant to the wife his heart approv’d;
  A rebel to the very king he lov’d.

The young lord in the beginning of the year 1716 indulged his desire of travelling and finishing his education abroad; and as he was designed to be instructed in the strictest Whig principles, Geneva was judged a proper place for his residence.  On his departure from England for this purpose, he took the rout of Holland, and visited several courts of Germany, and that of Hanover in particular.

Though his lordship was now possessed of his family estate, as much as a minor could be; yet his trustees very much limited his expences, and made him too moderate remittances, for a person of his rank and spirit.  This gave him great uneasiness, and embarrassed him much in his way of living, which ill suited with the profusion of his taste.  To remove these difficulties, he had recourse to mortgaging, and by premiums and large interest paid to usurers, supplied his present necessities, by rendering his affairs still worse.

The unhappy divisions which reigned in England at the time this young peer made his first entry into public life, rendered it almost impossible for him to stand neuter, and on whatever side he should declare himself, still there was danger.  The world generally expected he would follow the steps of his father, who was one of the first English gentlemen who joined the prince of Orange, and continued firm to the Revolution principles, and consequently approved the Hanoverian succession, upon whose basis it was built.  But whatever motives influenced the young marquis (for king William had bestowed this title on his father) he thought proper to join the contrary party.  The cause of his abandoning the principles of the Whigs is thought to be this.

The marquis being arrived at Geneva, he conceived so great a disgust at the dogmatical precepts of his governor, the restraints he endeavoured to lay upon him, and the other instances of strict discipline exercised in that meridian of Presbyterianism, that he fell upon a scheme of avoiding these intolerable incumbrances; so, like a torrent long confined within its bounds by strong banks, he broke loose, and entered upon engagements, which, together with the natural impetuosity of his temper, threw him into such inconveniencies, as rendered the remaining part of his life unhappy.