He was born the eldest son of Christopher Musgrave of Tourin, County Waterford, by Susannah, daughter of James Usher of Ballintaylor, near Dungarvan.
[1] Musgrave was high sheriff of County Waterford and was firm in enforcing the law; in September 1786 he personally flogged a Whiteboy after no one else could be found to do it.
[1] In 1801 appeared his Memoirs of the different Rebellions in Ireland from the Arrival of the English, with a Particular Detail of that which broke out the 23rd of May, 1798; the History of the Conspiracy which preceded it, and the Characters of the Principal Actors in it.
[3] He further accused him of trying to persuade the Rockingham Whigs to support Catholic emancipation, by which they "departed from those wise lessons which the history of and experiences of past ages uniformly afford, and adopted a visionary system of concession, which shook the pillars of the throne".
[1] The Dictionary of National Biography called Musgrave "a man of considerable talent, warped by blind prejudice and savage party spirit".