John Montagu, 4º. Conde de Sandwich
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John Montagu, 4° Conde of Sandwich, PC (13 de noviembre de 1718 — 3 de abril de 1792) sucedió a su abuelo, the 3er Conde, en 1729, a la edad de diez.
Educado en Eton and at Trinity College, Cambridge, pasó cierto tiempo viajando y al volver a Inglaterra en 1739 tomó su lugar en la House of Lords as a follower del duque de Bedford. He was soon appointed one of the Commissioners of the Admiralty under Bedford and a Colonel in the Army.
In 1746 he was sent as plenipotentiary to the congress at Breda, and he continued to take part in the negotiations for peace until the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was concluded in 1748. In February 1748 he became First Lord of the Admiralty, retaining this post until June 1751. In August 1753 Sandwich became one of the principal Secretaries of State, and while filling this office he took a leading part in the prosecution of John Wilkes for obscene libel although he had been associated with Wilkes in the notorious Hellfire Club. John Gay's The Beggar's Opera was played in Covent Garden shortly thereafter, and the similarity of Sandwich's conduct to that of Jemmy Twitcher, betrayer of Macheath in that play, permanently attached to him that appellation.
Lord Sandwich was Postmaster General in 1768, Secretary of State in 1770, and again First Lord of the Admiralty from 1771 to 1782.
Sandwich married Dorothy Fane, daughter of the 1st Viscount Fane, by whom he had a son, John, Viscount Hinchingbrooke (1743 – 1814), who later succeeded as 5th Earl. Sandwich's first personal tragedy was his wife's deteriorating health and eventual insanity. Many years later Sandwich found happiness with the talented opera singer Martha Ray, who bore him a number of children of whom Basil Montagu (1770 – 1851), writer, jurist and philanthropist, was one. Tragedy was to strike again in April 1779 when Ray was murdered on the steps by a jealous suitor. Sandwich never recovered from his grief.
