_Hon. T. Luttrel._ Temple Simon Luttrell (d. 1803), third son of the
first Earl of Carhampton; M.P. for Milborne Port. A florid orator,
Luttrell was always pertinacious in debates on naval affairs. Tickell’s
parody perhaps reflects an interminable speech on the state of the
navy, 11 March 1778, in which Luttrell described the timber used for
ship-repairs as so “singularly spungy and porous” that “your seamen ...
are frequently set afloat in their hammocks, from the water soaking
in, over-head, through the planks,” related an instance of a seaman’s
driving his fist, “without much pain to his knuckles,” through the hull
of a man-of-war, and entered into a detail of the twenty-four invasions
of Great Britain and Ireland since the Norman Conquest (_Parliamentary
History_, XIX, 874-892).
_the noble Earl who is now at the head of that department._ John Montagu
(1718-1792), fourth Earl of Sandwich; First Lord of the Admiralty.
Sandwich was notorious for the dissoluteness of his private life.