George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life Part 10

(121) The Thatched House Tavern in St. James's Street stood on the site of the present Conservative Club. Various well-known clubs were in the habit of meeting here, notably the Society of Dilettanti which was formed in 1734, of it Walpole wrote that "the nominal qualification is having been in Italy and the real one being drunk."

(1775,) Sept. 1, Friday, Richmond.--I have omitted, contrary to my usual custom, two posts, the writing to you, which being out of course may perhaps make you at a loss to guess what is become of me.

I am here with Mie Mie, and shall be so for ten or twelve days longer, and then the weather being cool and the days grown short, I shall find the evenings too tedious to myself and not very beneficial to her, which would undoubtedly be with me the first consideration. My journey to Castle H(oward) I would not postpone, if the postponing of it was the prevention of it.

But as I am determined to go there, and it is not as I apprehend material whether it be the first week of this month or of the next, I have submitted to those who desire to govern me in this matter, and that is in regard to Luggershall. My lawyers and Mr. T.

Townshend,(122) who is the heir of entail to that estate, have entreated me not to omit any longer the holding what they call a Court Leet.

Mr. Grenville's Bill, as I apprehended that it would, has made it very dangerous to omit any forms which the law prescribes, and the failure of what I am enjoined as lord of the manor to do by the charter would certainly be very prejudicial upon an enquiry, and perhaps lay me open to an opposition, which could never be made to my interests or property there without such negligence.

For this reason I must either postpone my journey to Castle H(oward) till after that, or make my stay there if I go before too short.

This is my present arrangement, which, however important it may be represented to be, should be altered if I could be essentially useful to you or to your affairs by it. I beg that you will not omit to acquaint Mr. Gregg with this, who will see immediately the necessity of it.

I could indeed have set out as I originally intended so as to have met you upon your return, and should have done it if I could have prevailed upon M(arch?) to have allowed me to do what I am now doing, by which I flatter myself to bring about what will be in many respects of use to that little infant, who has very little thought bestowed upon her but by my means. It is a sore grievance to me, but it is my lot and I must endure it.

My excursions to town are not above once in six days. On Sat.u.r.day last on my return hither I was indeed very near demolished. My coachman thought fit to run for the turnpike, as the phrase is, and against a four-wheeled waggon with six horses. He seemed to me to have very little chance of carrying his point, if it was not to demolish me and my chaise, but almost sure of succeeding in that. I called, roared, and scolded to no purpose, il ne daigna pas m'ecouter un instant: so the consequence was, what might be expected, he came with all the force imaginable against the turnpike gate, (and) set my chaise upon its head. Mr. Craufurd was with me, and on the left side, which was uppermost, and we were for a small s.p.a.ce of time lying under the horses, at their mercy, and the waggoner's, who seemed very much inclined to whip them on, and from one or other, that is, either from the going of the waggon over us, or the kicking of the horses, we were both in the most imminent danger. Lady Harrington was in her coach just behind us, and took me into it, Mr. Craufurd got into Mr. Henry Stanhope's phaeton, and so we went to Richmond, leaving the chaise, as we thought, all shattered to pieces in the road. This happened just after I had finished my last letter to you, and which I think had very near been the last that I should ever have wrote to you, as those tell me who saw the position in which we for some time were.

Postscript. Richmond, Sat.u.r.day morning.--I received to-day yours from C(astle) H(oward) of last Monday, the 28th August, and you may be sure that it is no small pleasure to me to find by every letter which I receive, that there is such an attention to your affairs, as is really worthy your understanding and capacity. You will find your account in it, by preventing ennui in yourself and roguery in others, besides a thousand train (sic) of evils that are inseparable from dissipation and negligence. I hope that you made my compliments to Mr. Nicolson; il a l'air d'un personnage tres respectable, d'un homme affide et sur. I cannot afford to wish any period of mine, at ever so little distance, to be arrived, but I am tempted to wish that I was two years older, for this reason, that I am confident your affairs, and the state of your mind, will be pleasanter than it has been in for a great while. So my wife(123) has made you another agreeable visit for a fortnight, as she called it. I am sorry for what you tell me of the visit which was not made. I don't love excuses, but perhaps there may be some which need not give any jealousy of want of true affection. I hope you will receive mine as such, or I would set out for C(astle) H(oward) directly. I have totally laid aside the thoughts of going this year to Matson, or even to Gloucester. I have no engagement, but to be one day at Luggershall, but that with difficulty can be dispensed with. Neither Lord N(orth) or his Parliament, or anything else shall prevent me from going to you when you desire it.

But the alteration in the little girl is so visibly for the better, since she has been in this air, and Mrs. Craufurd acts so much like a guardian to her, that I am in hopes by degrees to be the means of placing her where my mind will for the present be easy about her, and that she may be brought up with that education that, with the help of other advantages, may in some measure recompense her for the ill fortune of the first part of her life. This is, if my heart was kid open, all that you could see in it at present, except the anxiety which is now almost over in regard to you.

For I verily believe that what has happened, although it came upon me like coup de tonnerre, and has given me a great deal of bile, and my stomach I find weakened from that cause, more than from any other,--for I'm more and more abstemious every day,--yet I now see that all will end well, and that in the meantime neither you (n)or Lady C(arlisle) will make yourselves uneasy by placing things before you in a wrong light.

I will speak to Ridley when I go to town, but scolding increases my bile, and so to avoid it I sent that coachman who had like to have destroyed me this day sevennight out of my sight, and his horses, without seeing him.

You say that C(harles) will receive four or five thousand from Lord S(tavordale?) upon the same account. Je le crois, and others will soon after receive it from him, but I am afraid not you. You may be sure that he said nothing to me of that; he does not talk of his resources to me, except that of his Administration, which you will be so just to me as to recollect that I never gave any credit to, because he knows how I desire that those resources may be applied.

On the contrary, when I spoke to him the other day about your demand, I was answered only with an elevation de ses epaules et une grimace dont je fus tant soit feu pique. But it is so. I shall say no more to him upon that or any other subject than I can help. La coupe de son esprit, quelque brillante quelle puisse etre, n'est pas telle qui me charme et luisera par la suite pour le mains inutile.

I am now going in my chaise to dine at Mr. Digby's, ou cette branche de la famille ne sera pas traitee avec beaucoup de management; and first I am going to write a letter to my Lord Chancellor to thank him for a living which he has given to a friend of mine at Gloucester, accompanied with the most obliging letter to me in the world. This and yours have put me to-day in very good humour. We had an a.s.sembly last night at Mrs. Craufurd's for Lady Cowper, Lady Harrington, Lady H. Vernon, &c., and Mie Mie was permitted to sit up till nine. She wanted to see "an sembelly," as she calls it, and was mightily pleased. . . .

(122) Thomas Townshend (1733-1800), afterward first Viscount Sydney, was Selwyn's nephew. He was Secretary of War in 1782, and in 1783 Secretary of State, when he initiated the policy of sending convicts beyond the seas as colonists. Sydney in Australia was named after him. His second daughter married the second Earl of Chatham, and his fourth daughter married the fourth Duke of Buccleugh--"the beautiful, the kind, the affectionate, and generous d.u.c.h.ess" of Sir Walter Scott.

(123) A joking allusion to one of his friends.

(1775,) Oct. 7, Sat.u.r.day night.--I returned from Luggershall yesterday, a day later than I was in hopes to have come, for I was made to believe that the Court Leet, which was my object in going, would have been held on Wednesday; however I pa.s.sed a day extraordinary better than I expected in that beggarly place. I made an acquaintance with a neighbouring gentleman, who has a very good estate, and a delightful old mansion, where I played at whist and supped on Wednesday evening. He is a descendant of the Speaker Smith, and son of that Mr. Ashton whom we saw at Trentham, or whom I saw there the first'time I went, and who was an evidence against me at Oxford 30 years ago--a sad rascal; but the son is un garcon fort honnete, and he received me with extraordinary marks of civility and good breeding.

We have the same relations, and his house was furnished with many of their pictures. There was one of a great grandmother of mine, who was the Speaker's sister, painted by Sir P. Lely, that was one of the best portraits I ever saw. I wish Sir J. Reynolds had been there to have told me why those colours were so fine and looked as if they were not dry, while all his are as lamb (sic) black in comparison of them. I am to have a copy of this picture next spring.

I shall appoint Gregg on Monday to meet me on business, and I will therefore defer talking upon that subject till I have seen him.

Storer dined with me to-day. Hare and Charles I am told have lost everything they had at Newmarket. General Smith has been the winner.

Richard also is stripped. No company in town as yet, or news. I have been writing Gloucester letters to-night about this d.a.m.ned contest till I am blind, so I must be short. Ridley has a.s.sured me that he has sent the books.

Have you read the Anecdotes of Me du Barri? They are to me amusing.

The book is I think a true picture of the latter end of the life and court of that weak wretch Louis XV., not overcharged, and so many of the facts being incontestable, you may take the whole story for a true one, no one part being more improbable than another. Will you have it sent? It is dear, half-a-guinea; un recit trop graveleux pour etre recommande aux dames. My most affectionate compliments, and so adieu. My eyes grow too dim to write, but are infinitely mended.

I dine to-morrow at the Amba.s.sador's, and after dinner we go to make our visits at Richmond to Lady Fawkener, and to Petersham. I thank you for your idea of Emily(124): j'en profiterai; I can depend upon no other's.

(124) Edward Emly, Dean of Derry. Selwyn always writes of him as "Emily": in a letter of March 24, 1781, he calls him "Mr. Dean Emily."

In the midst of the news of the gaieties of the town, of the begging of political placemen for a higher rank in the peerage, we now come upon the question of America. The English people had not yet appreciated the momentous struggle into which the King and his ministers had drawn their country. The flippancy with which Selwyn alludes to the rebellion is indicative of the general state of opinion even among those who were constantly at the centre of political affairs. The battle of Bunker's Hill had been fought on the 17th of the preceding June, and yet to Selwyn the struggle beyond the Atlantic was merely a "little dispute."

(1775,) Oct. 11, Wednesday m(orning).--I went last night after I had sent my letters to the post, which by the way was not till past ten, to Lady Betty's. There were with her Lady Julia, Gregg, and a Mr.

Owen at whist. There were Hare, Delme,(125) and his odd-looking parson, who came to town to christen the child. I went from thence and supped at Lady Hertford's, with Lord Fr(ederick) Cavendish, Mrs.

Howe, and the Beau Richard, who is returned from Jamaica. His friend Colonel Kane has got the start of him since he went dans la carriere politique, mais le bon Colonel est un peu plus intriguant que son camarade; celui-ci est certainement un charactere bien sauvage, un melange d'irlandois et de Creol, et avec tout cela, un fort honnete garcon. . . .

You pant after news from America; there are none pour le moment.

But you may depend upon it, if that little dispute interests you, I will let you know, quand le monde sera ra.s.semble, tout ce que j'apprens, et de bon lieu.

Charles a.s.sures us that nothing is so easy as to put an end to all this, but then there must be a change of Ministry, quelconque, no matter what, as a preliminary a.s.surance to the Insurgents; and then for the inference, under any change he can't allow himself to take an employment, and lay more money upon shark(s?). But there will be no change yet, I am confident, and when there is, he will as much want another.

They now doubt of Southwell's peerage,(126) after all the bustle in our country. All the claimants for new peerages oppose it with their clamours, as if this was a creation, and taking it for granted that the King is to accept their interpretations instead of his own. I suppose, if he fulfilled all his engagements upon that score, there would be an addition to the House of Lords equal to the present number.

Ergo, if I was King, I should expunge the whole debt, and begin sur nouveaux fraix. I think that I should have answer ready to make to my Minister against those promises. I should tell him, if my affairs required a Sir G. Hawke or who(m) you please to be made a peer, it should be down (done) sur le champ, but I would not be hampered by engagements. Qu'en pensez-vous, Seigneur? I take it for granted that Lord Gower will be here soon. I have desired Gregg to wait on him with an account of all that has pa.s.sed in your affairs during my regency, because Gregg will be better able to state the matter to him, and to explain the necessity I have been under, by an unexpected increase of demands, of transcending the bounds of the deed, as well as to satisfy him upon your own domestic economy, which is certainly by all accounts irreprehensible.

(125) Peter Delme, married in 1769 to Lady Elizabeth Howard, Lord Carlisle's sister; he was called Peter the Czar, in allusion to his great wealth, which, however, he and Lady Betty very much reduced by high play. He shot himself in Grosvenor Square, April 10, 1770.

(126) Thomas George, third Baron Southwell (1721-1780), was created Viscount Southwell in July, 1776.

(1775,) Nov. 16, Thursday night, the Committee Room of the House of Commons.--I received last night, but late, your much wished-for and expected letter concerning the Bedchamber;(127) which, containing what it did, and the style of it being what it was, I carried this morning to Lord G(ower), who seemed perfectly satisfied with the option you had made, and the manner in which you expressed yourself in relation to himself. Lord North dines with him on Sat.u.r.day, when he intends to expatiate more at large upon your views, and to urge further your pretensions to some more advantageous situation.

I must say for the Bedchamber, you could not have a more honourable post or at the same time a more insignificant one. I ventured to tell Lord G. that I believe (sic), notwithstanding the demur you made upon it, if it had been a point with him that you should have accepted it--I did believe that you would. I thought that I ran no risk in making on your behalf that compl(imen)t, as he seemed to be so perfectly agreed with me that it was better not to accept it.

He entered with me on the last account from the Colonies, which is undoubtedly much more favourable than was expected by friends, or enemies; and it agreed so perfectly with the private letters which I have seen, that I could not but credit it. It is my real belief that the Opposition will be disappointed, and those who have joined them upon speculation and resentment, not a little vexed at being duped.

It is impossible to answer for events, but these must be such as are very little expected or probable, before there can be any breach in the present Ministry, or the King obliged to make a change in it.

Burke's speech(128) to-day was three hours and twenty minutes. Lord Ossory has hoisted his flag, and spoke. It is now about 9 o'clock; it will be midnight in all probability before we rise, for none of the leading persons in Administration has spoke, or the princ.i.p.al squibs of opinion. Charles is down, but has not yet spoke. I am more desirous myself of hearing Lord G. G(ermaine) than anybody. He looks very confident, and I take for granted is prepared for all kind of abuse.

Rigby came to me in the House last night to know if I had heard from you, adding, "I hope to G.o.d that he will accept the Bedch(amber)." I was not more desirous that you should, because that was his opinion.

I thought that Lord G(ower) had been talking to him, but he a.s.sured me that he had not; so from what quarter his intelligence came I know not. Lord G. thought that it was most probable from Lord North.

If you had made that your option, I should have proposed that you should at the same time have been sworn into the Privy Council, as an earnest that more was intended, and in a Line of Business, and I think that they would not have objected to it.

Adam Hay, Lord March's Member for Peebles, died yesterday, I am afraid to say suddenly, because it is a suspicious word, and will be more so in his case, as I believe Fortune has not been favourable to him. But I do not believe anything of that sort; his general state of health has been bad for some time, and I was told that his last and fatal attack was in his bowels. The two Lascells and (sic) dined at his house not a week ago. Sir R. Keith comes in, in his room.

Lord N(orth) and Lord Suffolk recommend him. March has demurred upon it, but seems not determined for particular reasons. I have been employed about this, this whole day at Court, and then with Lord North, and going backwards and forwards. March will not do what he should, at the time it ought to be done, and then things are in confusion, when they should be adjusted, and carried into execution.

It is to no purpose endeavouring to persuade him; if you tell him what may happen, he silences you with some adage, or a qu'importe, and so drives everything off till he does (not) know what party (parti?) to fix upon.

(127) Lord Carlisle declined the offer of a Lordship of the Bedchamber, see Trevelyan's "Early Life of Fox," chap. iv.

(128) On November 16th Burke moved for leave to bring in a Bill for composing the present troubles and for quieting the minds of his Majesty's subjects in America. The motion was negatived, after an important debate, a little before five o'clock in the morning, by 210 to 105 votes.

(1775,) Dec. 9, Sat.u.r.day m(orming), at home.--By accident you will receive no letter from me to-morrow, but by no accident facheux. For the future, however I conclude my day, I will begin it by writing to you, when the day comes that I am to write.

Yesterday I dined at Lord Gower's; there were the B(isho)p of Worcester, Lord Stanley and Lady Betty, Lord March, Storer, K.

Stewart, and la famille; en verite votre beau-pere est bien servi; le diner fut superbe. I was obliged, without staying for my coffee, to go to the House, where we were till about ten. I hope that it is the last day of business before the Recess.