George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life Part 7

I was at Vauxhall last night with Lady Harrington, Lady Barrimore, Mrs. Damer,(91) Lady Harriot, March, Frances, and Barker. Very fine music, and a reckoning of thirty-six shillings; fine doings. I had rather have heard Walters play upon his hump for nothing. I dined to-day at James's with Boothby, Harry St. John, March, and Panton.

To-morrow Lord Digby and I dine at Holland H(ouse), and on Thursday Harry and I dine at Beckford's with Sir W(illiam) M(usgrave). Rigby gave a dinner to-day to the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Grafton.

(91) Anne, only daughter of General Conway. She ultimately became possessed of Strawberry Hill. She devoted herself to sculpture; the heads that ornament the bridge at Henley-on-Thames are her work.

The Newmarket people go the beginning of next week. I shall then go into Kent, and the beginning of the week after I shall set out for Castle Howard. I long to see you dans votre beau Chateau. But where is it that I do not wish to see you? If anything is published that is not a mere catch-penny, as it is called, I shall send it directly. I believe the account of the D(uke) of G(rafton) and Nancy is of that sort, but I know no more than the advertis.e.m.e.nt.

Almack's is extinct. I am writing from White's, which I have long wished was so too.

Bad news from the Colonies. The P(rince) of Brunswick has another son. The people are come from the Installation at Cambridge, but I know no more of what has pa.s.sed there than you see in the papers.

Harry pursues the Bladen, and March will be talked of for Lady Harriot till he does or does not marry her. I wish it decided one way or other. I own I have his happiness too much at heart not to be anxious about it, and hate to have it in suspense.

Lord Farnham has distributed four hogshead of some vin de Grave, which he had, among his friends, and they prefer it to that which Wion (?) furnishes us with. I cannot help that, all things are good and great and small, &c., by comparison. G.o.d bless you, my dear Lord; I will come, as you have given me leave, as soon as my affairs here will possibly permit it.

I write to-night for ten dozen more of vin de Grave.

CHAPTER 3. 1773-1777, 1779 AND 1780 POLITICS AND SOCIETY

Fox's Debts--Lord Holland--News from London--Interview with Fox--The Fire at Holland House--A Visit to Tunbridge--Provision for Mie Mie --County business and electioneering at Gloucester--Lotteries--Fox and Carlisle--Highway adventures--London Society--Newmarket intelligence--An evening in town--Charles Fox and America--Carlisle declines a Court post--Money from Fox--Selwyn and gambling--A Private Bill Committee--Selwyn in bad spirits--The Royal Society --Book-buying--Political affairs--London parks--Gainsborough--The d.u.c.h.ess of Kingston--Selwyn's private affairs--"The Diaboliad"--A dinner at the French Amba.s.sador's--Politics and the Clubs--In Paris --Electioneering again.

A distinguished man of letters of the present day has called Selwyn the father confessor of the society of his time: it is a tribute to his friendliness and good sense, as well as to his good nature and patience. Without them he could never have been the trusted adviser of Carlisle in those financial difficulties in which the young peer's friendship for Charles Fox involved him. It was in 1773 that the crash came in Fox's affairs. His gambling debts had been acc.u.mulating. The birth of a son to his elder brother--closing, at any rate for the time, Charles Fox's reversionary interests--caused his creditors to press their claims. Lord Holland was obliged to come to the a.s.sistance of his son. It is at this moment that the correspondence which is gathered in the present chapter begins. Lord Holland had raised a large sum with which to pay off his son's debts. Selwyn was indignant because it seemed as if creditors less indulgent than Carlisle would be the first to be paid. So in many letters he presses upon Carlisle that he must not allow his friendship for Charles Fox to outweigh the monetary claims which he had upon him, and in no measured terms he condemns the carelessness with which Fox regarded his financial obligations to his friend.

The correspondence contained in this chapter commences at the end of the year 1773, after an apparent break of four years; there is no doubt, however, that it continued and the letters from Selwyn have not been preserved. The letters in 1773 begin by referring to the financial matters to which brief allusion has just been made, and which formed a subject so full of interest and anxiety for Selwyn.

He has time, however, to give his friend news of the political and social events of London. The American question was becoming more and more important, the Declaration of Independence had startled England in 1776, and in 1774 Charles Fox had finally left the Administration of Lord North, soon to become the leader of the Whig party and the champion of the American Colonists.

(1773, Dec. 1)--This is the severest criticism which I have heard pa.s.sed upon you. In all other particulars be a.s.sured that you have as much of the general esteem of the world as any man that ever came into it, and will preserve the highest respect from it if you will only from this time have such a consideration, and such a management of your fortune, as common prudence requires. Charles has destroyed his, and his reputation also, and I am very much afraid that, let what will be done now, they will in a very few years be past all kind of redemption. You will have been the innocent cause of much censure upon him, because all the friendship in the world which you can show him will never wipe off what he and his family at this instant stands (sic) accused of, which is, setting at nought the solemnest ties in the world and after the maddest dissipation of money possible, the ama.s.sing for his sake 50,000 pounds to pay everybody but those who deserved the first consideration, and without which he could never [be] said to be free, and it would [be]

a constant reproach to be easy. When there was no idea but of his having 20,000 advanced, which sum was otherwise to have been left him, and I said that such and such persons would be paid first, you did not seem to credit it. Was I right? or not? in my conjectures?

If I tell you now, that 16,000 pounds more than the present sum of 50,000 will come, I cannot pretend to say from what quarter, but I mean from the Holland family; and, if I tell you also, that as much more will be borrowed for purposes which do not now exist; I must tell you that I think that these sums will be sent after the others, if you do not strenuously oppose it, and if somebody does not watch over the springs from whence these supplies are to flow.

As to Hare,(92) you will do me the justice to own that I have not said a word to impeach his friendship to you. But I must set him aside as a man capable of transacting this business. It is not de son ressort, and I know that he has difficulties to combat with, if he undertakes it, which are insuperable. Now, when I talk of men of business, I will explain myself. I mean three for example: Mr.

Wallis, if ever you consult him, Mr. Gregg, and Lavie. I would also seriously apply to my Lord Gower for his advice, and make him a confidant in what relates to this business. He has very powerful motives for interesting himself in it. All others I would silence at once by saying that you had fixed upon particular persons to talk with upon this subject, and that you would not listen an instant to any other. After one or two attempts to discuss the point they would give it up, and, knowing in what channel it was, would be more afraid to trifle with you about it. Charles never opens his lips to me upon the subject, and when Hare was last at my house he did not say a single word relative to it. The bond was not so much as mentioned. To speak the truth, I had rather that they would not, for I should not be able to keep my temper if they did.

I have talked this matter over with persons of established reputations in the world for good sense, knowledge, and experience, and with as nice feelings in points of honour and friendship as anybody ever had. It is their opinion which makes me so confident of my own, exclusive of the arguments themselves, qui sautent aux yeux.

Now, as to the expedients. The capital sum,(93) let us call it, 15,000. Let Charles pay immediately 5,000 pounds from the 50,000 pounds. I will endeavour a year hence to raise you five more. Let Charles and Lord Stavordale,(94) by their joint securities (and let Lady Holland contribute hers), try to raise the other 5,000, and then this debt is paid; and when the worst comes to the worst, you will lose yourself only the 5,000, which we shall endeavour to get from your own securities and resources. All this is very practicable with people who are disposed to think of their honour more than of the gratification of their own pleasure.

The Holland family went to Bath yesterday. I took my leave, and it may be a final one, of them on Monday. Charles, it is said, will follow them. What is become of Hare I know not. If you desire a letter to be shown to Lord Holland,(95) Lady H. must shew it. I will speak to you, as I promised, without reserve. I am apt to think that he will comprehend what you say very well. It is not my judgment only, but I have heard it said, that a great deal of his inattention upon these occasions has been affected, and that if the same money was to be received and not to be paid, our faculties would then improve. I wish that if he has any left, he would exert them now for the sake of the reputation of his family as well as of his own; or he will add a load of obloquy to that which has been already derived (?) upon him, on account of the means by which this dissipated wealth has been acquired; and by this last act of indifference to the honour of his son he will seem to justify all that abuse with which he has been loaded, and they will be apt to apply, what he does not certainly merit, but will nevertheless carry an air of truth with it, and they will say that--

"Plundering both his country and his friends, It's thus the Lord of useless thousands ends."

You see, my dear Lord, with how much confidence I treat you. I have thought aloud, when I have been speaking to you, which perhaps I ought not to have done, but I cannot help it. I hope that you will burn my letters, for if they served as testimonies of the warmth of my friendship to you, they might be ill interpreted by others. . . .

Charles you say has not wrote to you. There is no accounting for that or for him but by one circ.u.mstance, and that is, that the gratification of the present moment is the G.o.d of his Idolatry. You mention his credit with Lord North.(96) I know for a certainty that Lord North disavows that which I know he once gave him. "He will,"

they say, "manage this, and will settle that, with the Minister."

Stuff! The Minister, whoever he happens to be, will settle this matter with Charles, and say, "Sir, I know you want me, and that I do not want you, but in a certain degree. Speak, and be paid, as Sir W. Young was." Alas, poor Charles! Aha promissa dederat. You say that you have not had a line from Lady H(olland); have you then wrote to her? I will add more to this if I see occasion, after I have been to talk with Lavie, who really means, I believe, to serve you with great fidelity, and reasons about this matter with great nettete and percision.

(92) James Hare (1749-1804); son of Richard Hare, apothecary, of Limestone; grandson of Bishop Francis Hare; at Eton with Fox and Carlisle, and afterwards entered Balliol College, Oxford. As a young man he was considered more brilliant than Fox, and more was expected of his future. He sat for Stockbridge from 1772-1774, and for Knaresborough from 1781 to his death. Like all of the fashionable men of his day, he played heavily. In 1779 he had become deeply involved in debt, but obtained the post of Minister Plenipotentiary to Poland, which he held until 1782; in 1802 he was very ill at Paris, where Fox made him frequent visits. He died at Bath. Lady Ossory described his wit as "perhaps of a more lively kind than Selwyn's." Storer left him a legacy of 1,000 pounds.

(93) Fox's debt to Carlisle.

(94) Henry Thomas, afterwards second Earl of Ilchester (1747-1802); the cousin and companion of Fox, and as great a gambler. "Lord Stavordale, not one-and-twenty, lost eleven thousand last Tuesday, but recovered by one great hand at hazard."

(95) Lord Holland had ama.s.sed a large fortune when Paymaster-General, and on this account his unpopularity was so great as to amount to public detestation.

(96) Frederick North, second Earl of Guildford, known in history as Lord North (1732-1792); Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1767; First Lord of the Treasury, 1770 to 1782; Secretary of State, 1783 (March to December); succeeded to Earldom of Guildford, 1790.

(1774,) January 18, Tuesday, Chesterfield Street.--I received yesterday your extreme kind letter, while I was at Lord Gower's at dinner; which dinner, by the way, or the supplement to it, lasted so long, that I have increased my cough by it greatly, and am so unable to go this morning to Court, that I think now of putting on my clothes in the evening only, and so going, as I did last year, to the King's side, to make her Majesty my bow as she pa.s.ses from that apartment to the ball-room. We had yesterday at dinner d.i.c.k Vernon and Keith Stewart only, besides Lord Gower's family.

I was going home to dine by myself tres sagement et tres tranquillement, dans le dessein de me menager, when Lord G. was so good as to propose my going home with him; and thinking that to be an opportunity of talking more with him upon you and your affairs, as we did, I could not resist it. I do a.s.sure you, my dear Lord, it is a great pleasure to me to see the zeal with which he speaks of you, and your interests, which is not, to be sure, surprising, considering your connection, but it makes me happy that my former intimacy with him begins to revive, which it has gradually done, from the time that you have belonged to him.

Miss Pelham(97) came to Lady Gower after dinner, and I think intends to go to-day to the Birthday, but such a hag you have no conception of; and a patch which she is obliged to wear upon the lower eyelid, improves the horror of her appearance. She will kill herself, I make no doubt.

The letter which you have been so good to enclose for my satisfaction, from Lady Holl(an)d to you, does not much elate me, I own; it is just that of one who is obliged to say a great deal, and finds an inconvenience in doing anything; and as to Charles's writing to you, you know best how these promises have been fulfilled. If I could direct her Ladyship's good disposition, I should make her show your letter to her to Lord Holl(an)d; I am persuaded that his faculties are not so entirely lost as not to discern with how much force of reason, propriety, and good nature it is wrote. What he would do in consequence of it, I cannot be quite so sure. Then he might, perhaps, relapse into a state of imbecility, or affected anility, which might deprive you of the advantage which you should expect from it.

Among other things which pa.s.sed between Lord Gower and me upon the subject of Charles, to which our conversation, by the way, was not confined, I told him that your people of business had proposed that you should sue Charles for the Annuities, and how that advice seemed to shock you. He was not surprised at that, knowing your delicacy and friendship. But sueing Charles, you will find in a short time, has no horror but in the expression. If you are shocked, you will be singly so; Charles will not be so, it is my firm belief. As soon as Lavie comes to you, he will tell you how far Mr. Crewe has embraced that idea, and what has been the consequence of it. If you will sue Lord H(ollan)d and Mr. Powell, or (for?) them, in Charles's name, you will do your business. But I do not say that it is time for that.

What I proposed to Lord Gower was only this, and that cannot have nothing (sic) rebutant in it, to either Charles or you. It is this.

To hear Charles's story patiently, but to answer or reason with him as little as possible. To desire that he would be so good as to meet you at your own house, with Mr. Wallis and Mr. Gregg; we will have nothing to do with Lavie, pour le moment. Il ne respectera pas celui-ci comme les deux autres. Discuss with them before Charles the means of extricating yourself from these engagements. Let him hear what they say, and what they would advise you to do, as guardian to your children; for there is the point de vue, in which I am touched the most sensibly; and whatever Charles has to offer by way of expedient, by way of correcting their ideas, whatever hopes he can give, which are rationally founded, let him lay them before these people in your presence.

Why I wish this is, the [that] he must then have something to combat with, and that is, truth and reason. Without that, and you two together only, or Hare, what will follow? There will be flux de bouche, which to me is totally incomprehensible, as Sir G.

M('Cartney) told me that it was to him. Il fondera en larmes, and then you will be told afterwards, whenever a measure of any vigour is proposed, that you had acquiesced, because you had been disarmed, confounded. This happened no longer ago than last Sat.u.r.day, with Foley,(98) who related the whole conference to me, and the manner in which it was carried on. "However," says Foley, "I carried two points out of four, but I was obliged to leave him, not being able [to] resist the force of sensibility."

I confess that, had it been my case, I should have been tempted to have made use of Me de Maintenon's words to the Princesse de Conti-- "Pleurez, pleurez, Madame, car c'est un grand malheur que de n'avoir pas le coeur bon." I do not think that of Charles so much as the rest of the world does, and to which he has undoubtedly given some reason by his behaviour to his father, and to his friends. I attribute it all to a vanity that has, by the foolish admiration of his acquaintance, been worked up into a kind of phrensy, I shall be very unwilling to believe that he ever intended to distress a friend whom he loved as much as I believe that he has done you.

But really this is being very candid to him, and yet I cannot help it. For I have pa.s.sed two evenings with him at supper at Almack's, ou nous avons ete lie en conversation, and never was anybody more agreeable and the more so for his having no pretensions to it, which is what has offended more people than even what Lady H(ollan)d is so good as to call his misconduct. I do a.s.sure you, my dear Lord, that notwithstanding all that I have been obliged by my friendship and confidence in you to say, I very sincerely love him, although I blame him so much, that I dare not own it; and it will give me the greatest pleasure in the world to see him take that turn which he professes to take. But what hopes can we have of it?

Vernon said yesterday after dinner, that he and some others--Bully, I think, among the rest--had been driven by the rain up into Charles's room; and when they had lugged him out of his bed, they attacked him so violently upon what he did at the Bath, that he was obliged to have recourse, as he did last year, to an absolute denial of the fact. The imagination of the blacklegs at the Billiard Table that he was gone over to Long Leate to borrow the money of Lord W(eymouth?) had in it something truly ridiculous, and serves only to shew that his Lordship had been never trusted by them.

Gregg dines to-day at Lavie's; I shall go down to meet him there, and perhaps order my chicken over from Almack's, that I may converse more en detail with Gregg upon this business of the Annuities. I like his conversation the best, I own, because I see less resentment in it. He speaks to the matters of fact, and not to the characters of the actors, which now is losing of time. G.o.d knows how well, and how universally, all that is established.

The women in town have found this a good morsel for their invective disposition, and the terms in which they express themselves tiennent de la frenesie, et de l'entousiasme. Lady Albemarle, who is not a wise woman, certainly, was at Lady Gower's the other evening, and was regretting only that Charles had not been consumed in the Fire, instead of the linnets. I am glad it was no worse. I think your fears about the rebuilding of the House are not so well founded as your satisfaction might be, that you had not been drawn in to insure it. I think that you are more obliged to what he thinks upon that subject (for he said that he did not believe in fire) than to your own prudence. I am in daily expectation of the arrival of these late sufferers at Holl[an]d H(ouse). I wish them all arrived there, I own, and that they may stay there, and that there may be no real sufferers by the fire, which there would be if any workmen had begun to rebuild the House. That would be a case of true compa.s.sion.

You desire me to tell you something of Hare and Storer,(99) &c.

Storer, the Bon ton, is still at Lord Craven's. I supped with the Mauvais ton at Harry St. John's last night. I do not dislike him: he does not seem to be at all deficient in understanding, and has besides de la bonne plaisanterie. Hare is in town, and, if I was to credit his own insinuations, upon the point of bringing his affair to a conclusion. But I think that he prepares the world too much for some change in his condition, for he drives about in an old chariot of Foley's,(100) as I am told, with a servant of his own in livery; and this occasions so much speculation, that his great secret diu celari non potest. I would advise him to conclude as soon as he can this business; sans cela la machine sera d'erangee; elle ne peut aller jusques au printemps, cela est sur.

The Duke of Buccleugh has said nothing to us as yet about our anniversary dinner, but I hope that so good a custom will not be laid aside. If it is, Richard must take it up, as it is his birthday, and so I shall tell him. I have myself, by all which I have said upon the history and fate of that unfortunate Prince, excused myself from giving any sort of fete at my own house; but I do not carry my rigour so far, as not to accept one on that day at the house of another person. Voila le point ou ma devotion se prete un feu. Your letter to Lord Grantham shall be sent to the Secretary's Office this evening, and some compliments from me at the same time. I wish that he was here, that I might talk with [him] for half an hour upon your subject.

(97) Sister of Henry Pelham, niece of Duke of Newcastle (1728-1804).

died at her estate at Esher, in Surrey, leaving a large fortune.

(98) Thomas Foley, second baron (1742-1793). He was noted for his sporting proclivities; Fox was his racing partner, and the money they lost, which included a hundred thousand pounds for Lord Foley, and its replenishing, was a never-ending source of gossip.

(99) Anthony Morris Storer (1746-1799), called the Bon ton, and Lord Carlisle, were termed the Pylades and Orestes of Eton, and the intimacy was continued in later life; M.P. for Carlisle 1774-80, and for Morpeth, together with Peter Delime, 1780-4. In 1781 he succeeded in obtaining the appointment as one of the Commissioners for Trade, in which Selwyn and Carlisle had so deeply interested themselves. He was with Carlisle on his mission to America in 1778 and 1779. During their political connection he acted as a medium between Fox and North, in whose family he was intimate.

Fox made him Secretary of Legation at Paris in 1783--Gibbon competing for the office, and when the Duke of Manchester was called home he was nominated as Minister Plenipotentiary; six days later, however, his friends were no longer in power. It was in this year that his long friendship with Carlisle was broken; he did not stand for re-election for Morpeth and revoked the bequest of all his property which he had made to him. Storer never married. He was universally admired for his versatility and his proficiency in all he undertook; he excelled in conversation, music, and literary attainments; he was the best skater, the best dancer of his time. He began his valuable and curious collection of books and prints in 1781. On these and card-playing he spent more money than he could afford, but in 1793, at his father's death, he received an ample fortune. He then occupied himself building and adorning a property, Purley, near Reading. He left his library and prints to Eton College, which also possesses his portrait.