was wounded. Rise under the Tories By 1710, Hill's sister, Lady Masham, had supplanted her cousin in the Queen's affections and now joined Robert Harley to weaken Marlborough and advance her brother. The Queen, prompted by Harley, solicited for Hill the colonelcy of the late Earl of Essex's Regiment of Dragoons. Marlborough refused to promote Hill over officers more experienced and deserving, placing additional strain on his relationship with the Queen. In April, he was forced to accede to the Queen's demand that Hill be promoted brigadier general. In May, Hill also received a pension of £1000 p.a. during the lifetime of the Queen. Marlborough and the Whigs in Parliament attempted to have Lady Masham removed from Court, an unsuccessful move which ultimately precipitated Marlborough's own political demise. Hill, in the meantime, was returned as a Member of Parliament for Lostwithiel in 1710. He showed little activity in the House of Commons, although, as his one-time patroness, the Duchess of Marlborough sourly noted, he did trouble himself to vote once, when ill, to support Harley's attacks on Marlborough. Expedition against Quebec Well-connected with the Harley Ministry, Hill's star continued to rise. When Henry St John in 1711 revived a plan for the capture of Quebec, Hill was proposed as commander-in-chief to gain the Queen's favor. 5 000 troops under Hill's command, in thirty transports escorted by ten ships of the line under Sir Hovenden Walker, embarked for Quebec, but eight transports with 800 men were wrecked in the Saint Lawrence River on 11 August 1711 owing to fogs and gales. Hill and Walker, after a Council of War, abandoned the enterprise without firing a shot and returned to England. Jonathan Swift, a confidant of Hill, noted that Hill's friends privately blamed him for his irresolution and lack of leadership. Hill's Tory connections, however, allowed him to escape any check in his career arising from this disaster. Further promotion In June 1712, Hill became Lieutenant-General of the Ordnance, the Whig Thomas Erle having been turned out, and received the office of Governor of Dunkirk after the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht. In July he was promoted major general, and sworn of the Privy Council in November. Perhaps impelled by hopes of a never-offered peerage, he did not stand for election in 1713. In London, Hill was elected to the society of wits headed by Swift and St John, and was