Private Letters of Edward Gibbon (1753-1794) Volume 1 (of 2)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Judith Porten, the mother of Edward Gibbon, was the third and youngest daughter of Mr. James Porten, a merchant of London. She died in December, 1747, leaving the maternal care of her son to her sister, Miss Catherine Porten, the "Aunt Kitty" of the later correspondence, to whom this letter is addressed. After her father's commercial ruin, Miss Catherine Porten opened a boarding-house for Westminster School, in College Street. Under her care Gibbon spent the two years which he passed at Westminster. He entered the school in January, 1748, and was placed in the second form.

[2] This endorsement is in the handwriting of his stepmother, the second Mrs. Gibbon.

[3] "M. Pavilliard has described to me the astonishment with which he gazed on Mr. Gibbon standing before him; a thin little figure, with a large head, disputing and urging, with the greatest ability, all the best arguments that had ever been used in favour of popery." [Lord Sheffield.]

[4] Voltaire lived from 1755 to 1758 at les DÉlices near Geneva, and within Genevan territory.

[5] It is probable that this was the Mr. Taaffe who, with Mr. Wortley Montagu and Lord Southwell, invited a Jew named Abraham Payba to dine with them at Montagu's lodgings in Paris, in September, 1751. Having made him drunk, they won from him in less than an hour eight hundred louis d'or. Their debtor paid them with drafts which he knew would be dishonoured. Finding themselves outwitted, Taaffe and Montagu broke into Payba's house, and possessed themselves of a considerable sum of money and a quantity of jewellery. For this offence they were imprisoned for three months in the Grand ChÂtelet (Nichols' Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century, vol. iv. pp. 629-634).

[6] Miss Hester Gibbon died unmarried in 1790, at the age of eighty-six, at King's Cliffe in Northamptonshire. William Law, the author of the Serious Call, originally her brother's tutor at Putney, afterwards her almoner, spiritual adviser and guide, died at her house in 1761. In the tomb which she caused to be built for him, she was also herself buried. Hester Gibbon is stated to have been the Miranda of the Serious Call; but her age at the date when the book was published (1728) makes this doubtful.

[7] The second daughter of Mr. James Porten married Mr. Darrel of Richmond, and left two sons, Edward and Robert.

[8] Gibbon's father married his second wife, Miss Dorothea Patton, in 1755.

[9] David Mallet, or Malloch, poet, playwright, and miscellaneous writer (1705-65), is best known for his ballad of William and Margaret, his unsubstantiated claim to the authorship of Rule Britannia, and his edition of Bolingbroke's works. Bolingbroke, said Dr. Johnson, had "spent his life in charging a gun against Christianity," and "left half-a-crown to a hungry Scotchman to draw the trigger." Mallet was "a great declaimer in all the London coffee-houses against Christianity," and the obtrusion of his sceptical views made his household unpleasing to David Hume. To his house Gibbon was taken after his reception into the Church of Rome.

[10] A well-known doctor of the day.

[11] George Simon (1736-1809), Viscount Nuneham, afterwards second Earl of Harcourt, eldest son of the first earl. He was remarkable for his affectation of French manners and fashions.

[12] Word omitted in original.

[13] The Seven Years' War, 1756-63.—"A war," says Horace Walpole, "that reaches from Muscovy to Alsace and from Madras to California" (Horace Walpole to the Earl of Strafford, June 12, 1759).

[14] Dr. John Turton (1736-1806) was in 1782 appointed physician to both the King and Queen. He attended Goldsmith on his death-bed. His progress to fame and fortune was very rapid, and when he died he left his widow £9000 a year in land, and £60,000 in the funds. "The bulk of his great fortune he has bequeathed, after the death of his wife, to her Royal Highness the Princess Mary, their Majesty's fourth daughter" (Annual Register, April 15, 1806).

[15] Miss Porten had now removed from College Street to a large boarding-house which she had built in Dean's Yard, Westminster.

[16] The lottery began to be drawn November 14, 1758; the last ticket was drawn December 12, when "No. 72,570 in the present lottery was drawn a prize of £10,000."

[17] Matthew Maty, born near Utrecht in 1718, settled in England as a physician in 1741; in 1756 he was appointed an under-librarian at the British Museum, and in 1772 succeeded Gowin Knight as chief librarian. His Journal Britannique (1750-55), published in French at the Hague, contains a bi-monthly review of English literature. He died in 1776. If the son, whom Gibbon "tipped," resembled the father, this passage may confirm Dr. Johnson's description of Maty as a "little black dog." For Gibbon's relations with Maty, see note to Letter 15.

[18] Dorothea Mallet, Madame Celesia (1738-1790), a poet and dramatist, eldest daughter, by his first wife, of David Mallet. She married Pietro Paolo Celesia, a Genoese gentleman, who was ambassador to this country from 1755 to 1759, and was afterwards ambassador to Spain. Madame Celesia's drama of Almida, an adaptation of Voltaire's TancrÈde, was brought out at Drury Lane in 1771, and published in the same year.

[19] Dodsley's tragedy of Cleone was then being played at Covent Garden.

[20] Sir William Milner, Bart. (1719-1774), for many years receiver-general of the Excise, married Elizabeth, youngest daughter of the Hon. and Rev. George Mordaunt, brother of the third Earl of Peterborough. She died a year after her husband.

[21] Sir John Brute, the surly, drunken husband of Lady Brute in Vanbrugh's play of The Provoked Wife.

[22] Mallet's tragedy Eurydice, written in 1731, was revived in 1759. The Smyrna Coffee-house in Pall Mall stood on the site now occupied by Messrs. Harrison, the booksellers. It was famous in the days of the Tatler and the Spectator.

[23] On his return from Lausanne Gibbon completed his Essai sur l'Étude de la LittÉrature, his first published work. The manuscript was submitted to Dr. Maty in 1758, and by his advice partly rewritten and wholly revised. It was published in French, with a letter to the author from Dr. Maty, in 1761. The essay is printed in The Miscellaneous Works of Edward Gibbon (ed. 1814), vol. iv. pp. 1-93.

[24] Lady Hervey, the beautiful "Molly Lepel," daughter of Brigadier-General Nicholas Lepel, was the widow of John, Lord Hervey, the "Sporus" of Pope's Prologue to the Satires, and the Boswell of George II. and Queen Caroline. Married in October, 1720, she was the mother of four sons, three of whom in succession became Earl of Bristol. She died September 2, 1768.

[25] In June, 1759, Gibbon and his father joined the Hampshire regiment of militia as respectively captain and major. The South battalion, to which they belonged, was kept "under arms, in constant pay and duty," from the date of its enrolment till December 23, 1762, when it was disbanded as a permanent force. The battalion was at Winchester Camp from June 25 to October 23, 1761, and from the latter date to February 28, 1762, at "the populous and disorderly town of Devizes" (see next letter). His Autobiography shows that Gibbon found that "a camp," as Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale in October, 1778, "however familiarly we may speak of it, is one of the great scenes of human life," and that, partially at least, he agreed with Lord Chesterfield, that "courts and camps are the only places to learn the world in."

[26] The Black Musqueteers of Colonel BarrÉ were raised in 1761-2 as the 106th Regiment of Foot (or Black Musqueteers.) See List of General and Field Officers for 1763, p. 175.

[27] William, Lord Fitzmaurice, M.P. for Chipping Wycombe, afterwards Prime Minister (1782), and first Marquess of Lansdowne, succeeded his father as second Earl of Shelburne in the spring of 1761. He acted as the go-between in the negotiations between Bute and Fox, which led to the cessation of the Seven Years' War and the Treaty of Paris.

[28] Robert Sharrock was a captain in the South Battalion of the Hampshire Militia.

[29] James Hall received his commission as ensign in February, 1762.

[30] John Butler Harrison, lieutenant in the South Battalion, was Gibbon's chief friend in the regiment. In his journal Gibbon speaks of the disagreeable society in which he was compelled to live. "No manners, no conversation, they were only a set of fellows, all whose behaviour was low, and most of whose characters were despicable. I must, however, except Sir Thomas and Harrison out of this society. Harrison is a young man of honour, spirit, and good nature. The virtues of his heart make amends for his having none of the head."

[31] Francis Egerton, third and last Duke of Bridgewater (1736-1803), with the assistance of Brindley, developed the canal system of the north of England.

[32] The Marquis of Tavistock, who married, in June, 1764, Lady E. Keppel, was killed in the hunting-field in 1767.

[33] John, second and last Earl of Ossory, married, in 1769, the Duchess of Grafton. Anne Liddell, daughter of Lord Ravensworth, married to the Duke of Grafton in January, 1756, was separated from her husband in 1765. Her daughter by Lord Ossory was born in 1768; her divorce from the duke, and her marriage with Lord Ossory, took place in March, 1769.

[34] The Treaty of Paris was signed February 10, 1763.

[35] Mr. Neville arrived in London with the Definitive Treaty, February 15, and at once had an audience of the king, which he describes in a letter printed in the Bedford Correspondence, vol. iii. p. 199.

[36] Claude Adrien HelvÉtius (1715-1771) published his materialistic book, De l'Esprit, in 1758. He married Mademoiselle de Ligneville, who survived him more than a quarter of a century.

[37] Madame Geoffrin (1699-1777), a woman of humble origin, the widow of a wealthy ice-merchant, opened her salon to philosophers and men of letters. Madame du Deffand called her la mÈre des philosophes, also la reine mÈre de Pologne for her intimacy with Stanislas Poniatowski. She affected to despise the influence of Madame Geoffrin. When some friend spoke to her of her rival's salon, she exclaimed, "VoilÀ bien du bruit pour une omelette au lard." Gibbon owed his introduction to Madame Geoffrin to Lady Hervey. Writing to Lady Hervey in October, 1765, Horace Walpole says of Madame Geoffrin, "she has one of the best understandings I ever met, and more knowledge of the world." Yet his account of her, on the whole, confirms Lord Carlisle's opinion that she was "the most impertinent old brimstone" (Lord Carlisle to George Selwyn, December 26, 1767). Gibbon speaks in his Autobiography of her "capricious tyranny." In a letter to Gray (January 25, 1766) Walpole paints an elaborate portrait of her and her rival, Madame du Deffand.

[38] The Right Hon. Hans Stanley, of Paultons in the New Forest, was a grandson of Sir Hans Sloane. He was a distinguished diplomatist, a Fellow of the Royal Society, a Trustee of the British Museum, Cofferer of the Royal Household, and M.P. for Southampton. Walpole speaks of him as "deep in the secrets of the peace of Paris." He committed suicide at Althorpe on January 13, 1780. Gibbon knew him through Stanley's connection with Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. Stanley was twice Captain and Governor of the Island, 1764-66 and 1770-80.

[39] John, fourth Duke of Bedford (1710-1771), to whom Gibbon had a letter of introduction from the Duke of Richmond, was in 1756 appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Keeper of the Privy Seal in 1761, and in 1762 ambassador to France, where he signed the preliminaries of peace with France and Spain. "The Duke of Bedford," writes Horace Walpole in September, 1762, "is gone in a fury to make peace, for he cannot be even pacific with temper."

[40] Charles, third Duke of Richmond, born 1735; ambassador at Paris, 1765; Secretary of State, 1766; Master of the Ordnance, 1783; died 1806.

[41] The Marquis Jeronymo Grimaldi, a member of an illustrious Genoese family, was at this time the Spanish ambassador. He negotiated the family compact of 1761 between France and Spain.

[42] Mrs. Gibbon's youngest brother.

[43] M. d'Augny.

[44] Marie Jeanne de Chatillon, Madame Bontemps. Gibbon had met her son, who was acting as private secretary to the Duc de Nivernois in London, at Mallet's house in November, 1762. She translated Thomson's Seasons into French prose in 1759.

[45] The English banker at Paris.

[46] Mrs. Poyntz, wife of Stephen Poyntz, of Midgeham, Berkshire, was mother of Lady Spencer and grandmother of Georgiana, the beautiful Duchess of Devonshire.

[47] George Henry Lee (1718-1772), who succeeded his father as third Earl of Lichfield in 1743, was one of the leaders of the Jacobites. He came to court, however, on the accession of George III. "Lord Lichfield and several other Jacobites have kissed hands; George Selwyn says, 'They go to St. James's, because now there are so many Stuarts there'" (Walpole to Montagu, November 13, 1760). Lord Lichfield became in 1762 Chancellor of the University of Oxford, which may explain his reception of Gibbon's letter.

[48] Sir Thomas Worsley, Bart., Lieut.-Colonel of Gibbon's battalion of the Hampshire regiment, succeeded his father, Sir James Worsley, of Pilewell in Hampshire, and Appuldurcombe in the Isle of Wight. He married the eldest daughter of the Earl of Cork, by whom he had a son and a daughter. He continued a collection of notes on the Isle of Wight, commenced by his father and completed by his son, Sir Richard Worsley, the author of the History of the Isle of Wight (1781). He died September 23, 1768.

[49] The Marquis de Mirabeau (1715-1789), father of the famous orator and political leader, belonged to the school of Economists. In 1760 his ThÉorie de l'ImpÔt had lodged him in the Bastille, and made him the fashion in Paris. Gibbon speaks of him in his Journal (February 24, 1763): "Il a assez d'imagination pour dix autres, et pas assez de sens rassis pour lui seul." He met him at a supper-party in the house of Madame Bontemps.

[50] Dr. Acton was a cousin of Gibbon. He married, "renounced his country, and settled at BesanÇon, and became the father of three sons, the eldest of whom, General (afterwards Sir John Francis Edward) Acton, is conspicuous in Europe as the principal minister of the King of the Two Sicilies." He was the grandfather of the present Lord Acton.

[51] Sir Willoughby Aston was returned M.P. for Nottingham in 1754, and was appointed Colonel of the Berkshire Militia in 1759. Lady Aston was a Miss Pye, of Farringdon, Berks. His "numerous" family consisted of his only son and successor, and of six daughters. He died August 24, 1772.

[52] William (afterwards Sir William) Guise, subsequently M.P. for Gloucestershire, only son of Sir John Guise, Bart., died without issue, April 6, 1783.

[53] M. de Mesery.

[54] In Gibbon's Journal at Lausanne, in June, 1757, occurs the entry: "I saw Mademoiselle Curchod—Omnia vincit amor, et nos cedamus amori." He was, in fact, shortly afterwards engaged to Suzanne Curchod, daughter and only child of the Minister of Crassy, a hamlet at the foot of the lower slopes of the Jura, between Geneva and Lausanne. Both the lovers were born in 1737, and were in their twenty-first year. At Lausanne, at the SociÉtÉ du Printemps and the AcadÉmie de la PoudriÈre, of which Suzanne Curchod was the founder and the president, she frequently met Gibbon, and the attachment, on her side at least, was strong and genuine; on his it seems to have always had a touch of affectation. The account given by Julie von Bondeli (E. Bodemann, Julie von Bondeli, pp. 217, 218: Hanover, 1874) of Gibbon's passion has the exaggeration of unreality. He was seen, says this friend of Wieland and Rousseau, stopping the country people near Lausanne, and demanding, at the point of a naked dagger, whether a more adorable creature existed than Suzanne Curchod. Gibbon wrote her several letters, some of which are quoted by M. d'Haussonville in his Salon de Madame Necker, and addressed to her indifferent verses. The following lines seem to be an expansion of the entry in his Journal:—

"TÔt ou tard il faut aimer,
C'est en vain qu'on faÇonne;
Tout flÉchit sous l'amour
Il n'exempte personne,

Car Gib. a succombÉ en ce jour

Aux attraits d'une beautÉ

Qui parmi les douceurs d'un tranquil silence

Reposait sur un fauteuil," etc., etc.

They became engaged, and Gibbon implored her to marry him without waiting for the sanction of his father. This, however, she refused to do. When Gibbon left Lausanne in 1758, she wrote to him once; then all correspondence between them seems to have ceased, though Gibbon says that he wrote to her twice on his journey and once on his return to England. He also sent her his Essai with a dedicatory letter in 1761. In August, 1762, he wrote to break off the engagement, on the ground of his father's opposition, in a letter quoted by M. d'Haussonville (Le Salon de Madame Necker, pp. 57, 58). In 1763 Gibbon came to Lausanne, and there received from Mademoiselle Curchod a letter in reply, which showed, so far as words could prove anything, that she had never ceased to love him. Her friend, the Pastor Moultou, endeavoured to interest J. J. Rousseau in the story, and to make him speak to Gibbon on the subject. But Rousseau declined to interfere, saying that Gibbon was too cold-blooded a young man for his taste or for Mademoiselle Curchod's happiness. In Gibbon's unpublished diary, he thus comments on the receipt of this letter, September 22, 1763: "J'ai reÇu une lettre des moins attendÛes. C'etoit de Mademoiselle C. Fille dangereux et artificielle! Elle fait une apologie de sa conduite depuis le premier moment, qu'elle m'a connÛ, sa constance pour moi, son mepris pour M. de Montplaisir, et la fidelitÉ delicate et soutenue qu'elle a cru voir dans la lettre oÙ je lui annoncois qu'il n'y avoit plus d'espÉrance. Ses voyages À Lausanne, les adorateurs qu'elle y a eÛ, et la complaisance avec laquelle elle les a ecoutÉ formoient l'article le plus difficile À justifier. Ni d'Eyverdun (dit elle), ni personne n'ont effacÉ pendant un instant mon image de son coeur. Elle s'amusoit À Lausanne sans y attacher. Je le veux. Mais ces amusements la convainquent toujours de la dissimulation la plus odieuse, et, si l'infidelitÉ est quelquefois une foiblesse, la duplicitÉ est toujours un vice. Cette affaire singuliÈre dans toutes ses parties m'a ÉtÉ trÈs utile; elle m'a ouvert les yeux sur le caractÈre des femmes, et elle me servira longtemps de preservatif contre les seductions de l'amour." Mademoiselle Curchod came to Lausanne in February, 1764, and again met Gibbon; "Elle me badine sur mon ton de petit maÎtre. Elle a du voir cent fois que tout Étoit fini sans retour." "Nous badinons," he says again in the same month, "trÉs librement sur nÔtre tendresse passÉe, et je lui fais comprendre tout clairement que je suis an fait de son inconstance." Gibbon's continued coldness at length convinced Mademoiselle Curchod that his affection for her was entirely extinguished, and she took her leave of him in an indignant letter, quoted by M. d'Haussonville, as she undoubtedly thought, for ever. In this farewell letter she repudiates the suggestion of her inconstancy: "Si l'on vous a dit que j'aie ÉcoutÉ un seul moment M. d'Eyverdun, j'ai ses lettres, vous connoissez sa main, un coup d'oeil suffit pour me justifier." Mademoiselle Curchod married, at the end of 1764, Jacques Necker, and became the mother of Madame de StÄel-Holstein.

[55] At Monrepos in 1757-58, when Voltaire was living at les DÉlices, Gibbon had heard him in his tragedies of ZaÏre, Alzire, Zulime, and his sentimental comedy L'Enfant Prodigue. Voltaire settled at Ferney in 1758.

[56] Charles Paulet, fifth Duke of Bolton, who committed suicide in 1765, was succeeded in the Lord Lieutenancy of Hampshire by James Brydges, Marquess of Carnarvon. Lord Carnarvon resigned the post in 1764, because Mr. Stanley was appointed Governor of the Isle of Wight (Grenville Correspondence, vol. ii. pp. 399-403).

[57] Name illegible. Probably Lord Northington.

[58] Sir Thomas Worsley, Bart.

[59] On April 7, 1763, Lord Bute resigned, and was on the same day succeeded by George Grenville, as First Lord of the Treasury. During the autumn recess, George III. opened negotiations with Pitt to take Grenville's place. But no change was made, and Grenville was preparing to meet Parliament in November, 1763, as Prime Minister.

[60] Henry Temple, second Viscount Palmerston (1739-1802), a man of artistic tastes, and, in after-years, a frequent resident in Italy. He was at this time M.P. for Hastings. He married, as his second wife, January 3, 1783, Miss Mee, by whom he was the father of the Prime Minister, born 1784.

[61] In Gibbon's Journal for September 23, 1762, written at Southampton, occurs the following entry which explains the words "my friend Wilkes:"— "Colonel Wilkes of the Buckinghamshire Militia dined with us, and renewed the acquaintance Sir Thomas and myself had begun with him at Reading. I scarce ever met with a better companion; he has inexhaustible spirits, infinite wit and humour, and a great deal of knowledge: but a thorough profligate as well in principle as in practice; his character is infamous, his life stained with every vice, and his conversation full of blasphemy and bawdy. These morals he glories in, for shame is a weakness he has long since surmounted. He told us himself that, in this time of public dissension, he was resolved to make his fortune. Upon this noble principle he has connected himself with Lord Temple and Mr. Pitt, commenced a public adversary to Lord Bute whom he abuses weekly in the North Briton, and other political papers in which he is concerned. This proved a very debauched day; we drank a good deal both after dinner and supper, and when at last Wilkes was retired, Sir Thomas and some others (of whom I was not one) broke into his room and made him drink a bottle of claret in bed." Wilkes had been challenged by Mr. Samuel Martin, M.P. for Camelford, formerly Secretary of the Treasury under both the Duke of Newcastle and Lord Bute, for speaking of him in the North Briton as a low fellow and dirty tool of power. Wilkes was dangerously wounded in the duel, which was fought in November, 1763. In the preceding April he had been arrested under a General Warrant on suspicion of being the author of No. 45 of the North Briton. He applied for a writ of Habeas Corpus, and the case came before Lord Chief Justice Pratt in the Court of Common Pleas. He was discharged from custody, the judges unanimously holding that the arrest was a breach of his privilege as a member of Parliament.

[62] Gibbon refers to his promotion to the rank of major in the Hampshire Militia.

[63] Lady Mary died in 1761. A surreptitious edition, said to be edited by John Cleland, of her letters written during her travels in Europe, Asia, and Africa, was published in three volumes at London in 1763.

[64] George Pitt, first Lord Rivers (cr. 1776), served as Envoy at the Court of Turin from 1761 to 1768, in which latter year he was elected M.P. for Dorsetshire. He died in 1803, at the age of eighty-two.

[65] Edward Augustus, Duke of York, third child and second son of Frederick, Prince of Wales, born March 14, 1739, died September 17, 1767, at Monaco.

[66] Louis Dutens (1730-1812), chaplain to the Embassy at Turin in 1758, had, in the absence of the Envoy (the Hon. Stuart Mackenzie), acted as chargÉ d'affaires. He retained the post till the appointment of George Pitt in 1762. In 1764 he was once more acting as chargÉ. The Count de Viry had been Sardinian Minister in London, where his services to Lord Bute gained him from George III. a pension of £1000 a year, and a promise of the post of minister for his son. Viry was at this time Foreign Secretary to Charles Emanuel III.

[67] Sir M. Featherstonhaugh, Bart., F.R.S., M.P. for Portsmouth, died March, 1774.

[68] At Lausanne, in 1764, Gibbon met Mr. Holroyd (afterwards Lord Sheffield). In his Journal for April 6, 1764, he says: "J'ai conÇu une vÉritable amitiÉ pour Holroyd. Il a beaucoup de raison et des sentimens d'honneur avec un coeur des mieux placÉ." The friendship then begun ripened into warm affection. "My obligations to the long and active friendship of Lord Sheffield," Gibbon says in the will by which he appoints his friend one of his executors, "I could never sufficiently repay." Of the warmth of his affection, and the nature of some of his obligations, the letters now published afford continual proof.

[69] Charles Emanuel III., Duke of Savoy and second King of Sardinia, came to the throne on the abdication of his father in 1730. He died in 1773. "He is the most insignificant looking fellow I ever saw; but he has so much good-nature, and such obliging manners, that one is soon reconciled to his appearance" (Scrope to George Selwyn, January 12, 1752).

[70] This was a characteristic habit of Gibbon's throughout life. In 1780 some verses were written by Richard Tickell, which purport to be addressed by Charles James Fox to his friend the Hon. John Townshend on his election to Parliament by the University of Cambridge. They contain the following lines:—

"Soon as to Brookes's thence thy footsteps bend,
What gratulations thy approach attend!
See Gibbon rap his box: auspicious sign
That classic compliment and wit combine."

Another description is given of Gibbon in "The Luminous Historian; or, Learning in Love," written by George Colman the Younger (Eccentricities for Edinburgh, pp. 73, 74).

"His person look'd as funnily obese
As if a Pagod, growing large as Man,
Had, rashly, waddl'd off its chimney-piece,
To visit a Chinese upon a fan.
Such his exterior; curious 'twas to scan!
And, oft, he rapt his snuff-box, cock'd his snout,
And ere his polish'd periods he began,
Bent forwards, stretching his fore-finger out,
And talk'd in phrase as round as he was round about."

[71] Exilles commanding the valley of the Houlx, Fenestrelle holding the Col de Fenestrelle, and La Brunette guarding the Pas de Suze, were strongly fortified posts on the Italian side of the Alps. The two latter forts were destroyed in 1796 and 1798 respectively.

[72] John Child Tylney, second Lord Tylney, F.R.S., M.P. for Malmesbury.

[73] John Byng, youngest son of the Hon. George Byng, and grandson of the first Viscount Torrington.

[74] La SociÉtÉ du Printemps was the name of the society of young ladies at Lausanne, mentioned in the Memoirs.

[75] Madame Besson.

[76] Captain J. Eliot, R.N., was connected through his sister-in-law, Mrs. Eliot of Port Eliot, (nÉe Catherine Elliston), with Gibbon. He died unmarried, an admiral and governor of Newfoundland.

[77] William Ponsonby (1744-1806), eldest son of Speaker Ponsonby, and first Lord Ponsonby.

[78] Thomas Lyttelton (1744-1779), son of the first Lord Lyttelton, afterwards known as "the wicked Lord Lyttelton," had engaged himself, while at Oxford, to a daughter of General Warburton. He was sent abroad, while the settlements were being arranged. The engagement was broken off in consequence of his bad reputation.

[79] Sir Horace Mann (1701-1786) was appointed Assistant Envoy at the Court of Florence in 1737. Three years later he became Envoy, and held the post till his death in 1786. From Florence he kept a close watch on the movements of Charles Stuart, and carried on his voluminous correspondence with Horace Walpole.

[80] George Nassau, Lord Fordwich (1738-1789), who succeeded his father in 1764 as third Earl Cowper, married in 1775 Miss Hannah Gore, and died at Florence in 1789.

[81] The Princess Augusta, eldest child of Frederick, Prince of Wales, born August 11, 1737, married the Duke of Brunswick.

[82] Near Stansted in Sussex, purchased in 1746 from the Earl of Tankerville by Sir Matthew Featherstonhaugh, M.P. for Portsmouth.

[83] The Manor and Mansion-house of Lenborough, in the county of Bucks, passed, by purchase from the families of Ingoldsby and Dormer, into the hands of Mr. John Rogers, of Buckingham, who, about the year 1730, sold them to the grandfather of Edward Gibbon. The "Mansion" was converted into a farmhouse for the tenant of the farm.

[84] The grandfather of Edward Gibbon died in 1736, leaving one son and two daughters. Catherine, the eldest of these two daughters, married Mr. Elliston, of South Weald, Essex, and her only child married, in 1756, Mr. (created in 1784 Lord) Eliot, of Port Eliot in Cornwall. Their three sons were Gibbon's nearest male relatives.

[85] Henry Ellis (1721-1806) wrote an account of an expedition in which he served to discover the North-West passage. His Voyage to Hudson's Bay, by the Dobbs Galley and California in the years 1746 and 1747, for Discovering a North-West Passage, was published in 1748. He was afterwards appointed successively Governor of Georgia and Nova Scotia.

[86] Mr. (afterwards Sir William) Hamilton (1730-1803) was appointed Envoy at the Court of Naples in 1764. In September, 1791, he married, as his second wife, Amy Lyon, who as Emma Hamilton became famous.

[87] John Murray, Resident at Venice, was appointed in November, 1765, ambassador at Constantinople. He died at Venice in August, 1775.

[88] Sir T. Worsley.

[89] Gibbon's Essai sur l'Étude de la LittÉrature was published in 1761. The essay, translated into English, was published in 1764.

[90] Madame Necker, writing to Madame de BrentÈs, November 7, 1765, thus describes this visit of Gibbon to her married home: "Je ne sais, madame, si je vous ai dit, que j'ai vu Gibbon; J'ai ÉtÉ sensible À ce plaisir au-delÀ de toute expression, non qu'il me reste aucun sentiment pour un homme qui je vois n'en mÉrite guÈre; mais ma vanitÉ fÉminine n'a jamais eu un triomphe plus complet et plus honnÊte. Il a restÉ deux semaines À Paris; Je l'ai eu tous les jours chez moi; it Étoit devenu doux, souple, humble, dÉcent jusqu'À la pudeur; tÉmoin perpÉtuel de la tendresse de mon mari, de son esprit et de son enjouement, admirateur zÉlÉ de l'opulence, it me fit remarquer pour la premiÈre fois celle qui m'entoure, ou du moins jusqu'alors elle n'avoit fait sur moi qu'une sensation dÉsagrÉable" (Lettres diverses recueillies en Suisse, par le Comte FÉdor Galovkin, pp. 265, 266: Geneva, 1821).

[91] Theophilus Bolton, who was making the tour with Mr. Holroyd and Major Ridley, died of consumption at Genoa.

[92] Son of Sir Matthew Ridley, Bart., Major in the Welsh Fusiliers. He had served in Germany during the Seven Years' War, and was at this time Mr. Holroyd's travelling companion.

[93] M. Deyverdun had known Gibbon at Lausanne, and from 1766-69 was a frequent guest at Beriton. With his assistance Gibbon published the MÉmoires LittÉraires de la Grande Bretagne pour l'an 1767 (Londres: Chez T. Becket and P. A. de Hondt dans le Strand, 1767), which were discontinued in 1768, when Deyverdun, on his friend's recommendation, left England as tutor to the son of Sir T. Worsley, afterwards the Right Hon. Sir Richard Worsley. In 1783 Gibbon took up his abode with Deyverdun at the latter's house at Lausanne. Deyverdun died in July, 1789, leaving his house and land by will to Gibbon for his life.

[94] Lady Diana Spencer married in 1757 Frederick St. John, Lord Bolingbroke, the "Bully" who figures in George Selwyn's correspondence, from whom she was divorced, March 10, 1768. Two days later she married Topham Beauclerk, grandson of the first Duke of St. Albans, the friend of Dr. Johnson, and the collector of a magnificent library. During his long illness she nursed him, as Johnson, no friendly witness, admits, "with very great assiduity." He died in 1780. Lady Diana, whose skill as an artist is frequently alluded to by Walpole, died in 1808.

[95] Hugh, Lord Warkworth, eldest son of Sir Hugh Smithson, Bart., of Stanwick, who was created Duke of Northumberland in 1766, married July 2, 1764, Lady Anne Stuart, third daughter of the Earl of Bute. They were divorced in 1779. As Earl Percy he served in the American War at the battle of Lexington and elsewhere.

[96] See note to Letter 126.

[97] Sir James Lowther, Bart., first Earl of Lonsdale, married (1761) Lady Mary Stewart, eldest daughter of the Earl of Bute, and sister of Lady Warkworth.

[98] Dr. William Heberden (1710-1801), one of the most famous physicians of the century, and a distinguished scholar. He was called by Dr. Johnson "Ultimus Romanorum" (a title which might be as justly applied to Sir H. Halford), as being "the last of our learned physicians." He is hailed by Cowper as "virtuous and faithful," perhaps because, as Dr. G. B. Hill suggests, he bought and destroyed an unpublished manuscript by Dr. Middleton on The Inefficacy of Prayer.

[99] Up Park, near Stansted in Sussex, the seat of Sir Matthew Featherstonhaugh, F.R.S., formerly M.P. for Morpeth, at this time M.P. for Portsmouth; Port Eliot, St. Germans, Cornwall, that of Gibbon's cousin, Mr. Edward Eliot, M.P. for Liskeard, afterwards for Cornwall, created in 1784 Baron Eliot of St. Germans; and Hartley Manduit that of Sir Simeon Stuart, M.P. for the county of Southampton.

[100] Under Lord Bute, the Ministerial Club, as it was at first called, used to meet at the Cocoa Tree Tavern, in St. James's Street. In 1745 it had been the great resort of the Jacobites. Gibbon describes a supper at the club in his Journal for November, 1762. [Memoirs of My Life and Writings—Miscellaneous Works, vol. i. p. 154 (second edition, 1814).] By the "School of Vice" it is more than probable Gibbon meant White's Club, formed in 1736, at this time the great Tory gaming club. It contained within its walls an Old and a Young Club, the Old being recruited from among the members of the Young. Hence, perhaps, arose its name of the "School of Vice."

[101] The Stamp Act, charging stamp duties on all legal documents executed in the Colonies, received the royal assent March 22, 1765, and came into operation November 1, 1765. When Parliament reassembled on January 14, 1766, Pitt attacked the policy of the Act. General Conway, one of the Secretaries of State, who replied to him, said that the sentiments which he had expressed were substantially those of the ministers, and that, for his own part, he would gladly resign his office if Pitt would take it. Grenville, who followed, defended the Act, and it was in reply to him, on the same evening, that Pitt delivered one of the most eloquent and famous of his speeches. Ireland took a keen interest in the question, and the debate happens to be fully reported by two Irish gentlemen, Sir Robert Dean and Lord Charlemont; otherwise, like many others of the time, it might have passed without record. In the same session, February 24 to March 17, two resolutions were carried in both Houses, one declaring the right of Great Britain to tax the Colonies, the other repealing the Stamp Act. Two Acts of Parliament expressed these resolutions in legislative form.

[102] The name was so spelt in the newspapers. John Baker Holroyd married in 1767 Miss Abigail Way, only daughter of Lewis Way, of Richmond, Surrey.

[103] The motto of the regiment of light dragoons, called Royal Foresters, in which Mr. Holroyd had been captain, and which was disbanded in 1763.

[104] A nickname for Mr. Guise.

[105] At Southampton Gibbon attended every spring the monthly exercise of the militia, of which, by the resignation of his father and the death of Sir T. Worsley (1768), he eventually became lieutenant-colonel commandant.

[106] Parliament was dissolved March 11, 1768, and the elections took place in March. Gibbon seems to have assisted the Worsleys in the Isle of Wight against the Castle interest and that of the Holmes family. In 1586, when the Crown sought to create a parliamentary party in the House of Commons, six members were returned to Parliament by the three boroughs of Newport, Newtown, and Yarmouth, because in the Isle of Wight, through its military captain and governor, the influence of the Crown was paramount. Gradually the leading families of the island acquired control over the three boroughs, and at this period they were disputed by the Worsley, Barrington, and Holmes families, the latter being descended from Sir Robert Holmes, who took New York from the Dutch, and "first bewitched our eyes with Guinea gold." At the election of 1768 the following members were elected for the respective boroughs:—Newport: Hans Sloane, Esq., and John Eames, Esq., one of the Masters in Chancery. Newtown: Sir J. Barrington, Bart., and Harcourt Powell, Esq. (re-elected). Yarmouth: Jervoise Clarke, Esq., and William Strode, Esq.

[107] A convivial club, meeting once a week, established by Gibbon and other travellers.

[108] Gibbon was a member of Boodle's Club, known as the Savoir vivre.

[109] Ranelagh Gardens, now part of Chelsea Hospital Gardens, stood on the site of a villa belonging to Lord Ranelagh, the Jones of Grammont's Memoirs. The Rotunda, an amphitheatre, with an orchestra in the centre, surrounded by "balconies full of little alehouses," was opened to the public May 24, 1742. The last entertainment given there was the installation ball of the Knights of the Bath in 1802. The gardens were closed in 1803. A staple, fixed in one of the trees of the avenue, preserved, till a few years ago, the traditions of the glories of Ranelagh when the gardens were lighted by a thousand lamps.

[110] The Earl of Abingdon married, on June 7, 1768, the daughter of Admiral Sir Peter Warren.

[111] Serjeant Glynn, well known as the advocate of Wilkes, was afterwards elected as second member for Middlesex at a by-election. He married a daughter of Sir J. Oglander, of Nunwell, in the Isle of Wight, and had been an unsuccessful candidate for one of the Isle of Wight constituencies at the general election of 1768.

[112] John Dunning, afterwards Lord Ashburton.

[113] Sir Peter Leycester and Sir Frank Standish were found, November 29, 1768, not duly elected.

[114] The return for Yarmouth, I.W., was amended by order of the House of Commons, dated January 19th, 1769, by erasing the names of Jervoise Clarke and William Strode, and substituting those of George Lane Parker and Thomas Lee Dummer.

[115] On February 14, 1769, Sir George Osborne was found not duly elected, and Thomas Howe was declared duly elected. The return of Sir George Rodney was held to be valid. A note by Sir Denis le Marchant, appended to Lord Orford's Memoirs, states that the expenses of the contest and petition cost Lord Spencer £70,000.

[116] John Wilkes was expelled from the House of Commons in January, 1764, and outlawed in the following August. He returned to England in February, 1768, and was at the bottom of the poll for the City (March 23). He headed the poll for Middlesex, March 28, 1768. His outlawry was reversed as technically illegal by the Court of King's Bench in the same year; but his two convictions for republishing No. 45 of the North Briton, and the Essay on Woman, were affirmed, and he was sentenced to two years' imprisonment. He was expelled the House February 3, 1769; re-elected February 16 and expelled February 27; re-elected March 16 and expelled March 17. At the election on April 13 he polled 1147 votes to the 296 of Colonel Luttrell; but the House resolved (April 15) that the election of Wilkes was void, and Luttrell duly elected. He was discharged from his imprisonment in 1770.

[117] Lord Baltimore was charged with decoying to his house a young milliner named Sarah Woodcock, and with rape. On February 12, 1768, he was committed for trial at the spring assizes at Kingston, and acquitted in the following March.

[118] "Il y a," writes Madame du Deffand to Walpole, speaking of La Princesse de Babylon (April 3, 1768), "quelques traits plaisants, mais c'est un mauvais ouvrage, et, contre son ordinaire, fort ennuyeux."

[119] During Gibbon's stay at Lausanne in 1763, the duke, brother of the reigning duke, occupied a villa called La ChabliÈre, a short distance from the town.

[120] Sir Simeon Stuart, Bart., M.P. for the county of Southampton, died in November, 1779.

[121] The bulk of the letters for the years 1768 and 1769 relate to the pecuniary affairs of the Gibbon family. Mr. Gibbon was the owner of estates at Maple Durham, in the parish of Beriton near Petersfield, at Lenborough in Buckinghamshire, and a house, garden, and lands at Putney. He had also inherited shares in the New River Company, and other investments. But he had for years lived beyond his income, and it was only to the wreck of this fortune that the historian succeeded in 1770.

[122] On January 2, 1769, Wilkes was chosen alderman of the ward of Faringdon-Without against Bromwich, a paper-maker on Ludgate Hill.

[123] The Baron de Wentzel was the most famous oculist of the day, and the discoverer of operations for cataract. He died in London in 1790.

[124] In 1769 John Baker Holroyd purchased from Lord de la Warr the estate of Sheffield Place in Sussex.

[125] Richard Cambridge (1717-1802) married in 1741 Miss Trenchard, and in 1751 settled at Twickenham in a villa which became the resort of many of the most distinguished men of the day. In 1751 he published the Scribleriad, a poem in six books, and from 1753 to 1756 wrote essays for the World. He was an intimate friend and old schoolfellow of Dr. Cooke, the father of Mrs. Way, sister-in-law to Mrs. Holroyd. Gibbon, accepting one of Mr. Cambridge's invitations to Twickenham, speaks of the Thames as an "amiable creature." On his way he was upset into the water, and obliged to return home. The ducking was, said Cambridge to Miss Burney, "God's revenge against conceit" (Madame d'Arblay, Diary and Letters, ii. 278).

[126] On October 2, 1769, the Annual Register notes that "part of the Russian fleet cast anchor at the mouth of the Humber. The whole fleet, consisting of twenty ships of the line, is to rendezvous at Spithead, where one or two straggling ships are already arrived. This fleet was separated in a storm, but has received no considerable damage."

[127] The letters signed "Junius" began to appear in the Public Advertiser on January 21, 1769: the last was published on January 21, 1772. The letter to which Gibbon alludes is that dated December 19, 1769, addressed to the king. "The prÆtorian bands, enervated and debauched as they were, had still strength enough to awe the Roman populace; but when the distant legions took the alarm, they marched to Rome and gave away the empire." The point of the allusion is the case of Major-General Gansel (September 21, 1769), who, after being arrested for debt, was rescued by a sergeant and file of musqueteers, acting under command of an officer of the Guards.

[128] Gibbon and Sir Richard Worsley were endeavouring to obtain for M. Deyverdun a tutorship. He eventually went abroad with the young Stanhope, afterwards Lord Chesterfield.

[129] Probably Mr. Jolliffe, M.P. for Petersfield, and a country neighbour of Gibbon. He married, in November, 1769, the only daughter and heiress of Sir R. Hylton, Bart., of Hylton Castle, Durham.

[130] On the 9th of January, 1770, the Earl of Chatham returned to public life, from which he had retired in October, 1768. His reappearance, and his attacks upon the Government, determined the Duke of Grafton, who had succeeded him as Prime Minister, to resign office. On January 28, Lord North, who was already Chancellor of the Exchequer, accepted the post of First Lord of the Treasury, which he held for eleven years.

[131] On March 14 the Lord Mayor (Beckford) presented to the King at St. James's "an Address, Remonstrance, and Petition of the Lord Mayor, aldermen, and livery of the city of London," praying for the dissolution of Parliament as not representing the people, and for the removal of "evil ministers." On March 15 a motion was carried by 271 to 108 for a copy of the Remonstrance to be laid on the table of the House. On March 19 it was resolved by 284 to 127 that the Remonstrance tended to disturb the peace of the kingdom. Beckford died June 21, 1770.

[132] The Spring Gardens at Vauxhall (properly Fulke's Hall, the manor of Fulke de BreautÉ) were formed in the reign of Charles II. From 1732 onwards, under the management of Jonathan Tyers, the music, vocal and instrumental, and the masquerades, or Ridottos al fresco, attracted the fashionable world of London. The gardens were closed in 1859. The name of their enterprising manager is preserved in Tyers Street.

[133] Arabella Mallet, a daughter of David Mallet's second wife, married Captain Williams, of the royal engineers. The second Mrs. Mallet was Lucy, daughter of Lewis Elstob, steward to the Earl of Carlisle.

[134] Anthony Addington (1713-1790), father of the Prime Minister, was originally a physician at Reading. In London he became Chatham's doctor, and was in 1788, after his retirement from practice, consulted on the condition of George III., whose early recovery he alone predicted.

[135] Madame Celesia's play of Almida, acted at Drury Lane.

[136] The Ridotto al fresco was introduced at Vauxhall in 1732. The word is said to be derived from the Latin reductus, and to mean "music reduced to a full score." It came to mean an entertainment of music and dancing, and was used as a synonym for masquerades. Bramston, in The Man of Taste, speaks of the way in which the use of a foreign word sanctioned things which in plain English would have seemed objectionable—

"In Lent, if masquerades displease the town,

Call 'em ridottos, and they still go down."

The word survived in the Redoutensaal of Vienna and the RedoutentÄnze of famous composers. Other authorities derive the use of the word from the sense in which it is employed by Dante, i.e. a "shelter," or "place of refuge." Hence it came to mean a "place of convivial meeting." In Udino's Italian-French-German Dictionary (Frankfurt, 1674) the German equivalent is given as Spielhaus. The transition from this to "ball-room" is not difficult. Byron in Beppo correctly defines the popular meanings of the word—

"They went to the Ridotto—'tis a hall
Where people dance and sup, and dance again;
Its proper name, perhaps, were a masked ball,
But that's of no importance to my strain."

[137] Ralph Verney, Viscount Fermanagh, and second Earl Verney in the Peerage of Ireland, formerly M.P. for Carmarthen, was at this time M.P. for Buckinghamshire. At his death, in 1791, the title became extinct.

[138] On March 14, 1771, the House of Commons ordered that the printer of the London Evening Post be taken into the custody of the sergeant-at-arms. He was arrested by the messenger of the House under the Speaker's warrant; but was discharged from custody, and the messenger committed, by the city magistrates. For this breach of privilege Alderman Richard Oliver, M.P. for the City, was committed to the Tower by order of the House of Commons, March 25, 1771. Thu Lord Mayor, Brass Crosby, was committed on March 27.

[139] The Soho masquerades were given at Carlisle House by Mrs. Theresa Cornelys, whom Walpole calls "the Heidegger of the age." It was here that, the year before, the Duke of Gloucester appeared as Edward IV. with Lady Waldegrave as Elizabeth Woodville.

[140] Sir John Dalrymple published in 1771 the two first volumes of his Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland. His style was parodied by Dr. Johnson, who said, "Nothing can be poorer than his mode of writing; it is the mere bouncing of a schoolboy!"

[141] Mr. Holroyd owned property in Ireland, and at Greave Hall, near Ferrybridge, in Yorkshire.

[142] William Robertson (1721-1793) published in 1758 his History of Scotland during the Reigns of Queen Mary and James VI., and in 1769 his History of the Reign of the Emperor Charles the Fifth.

[143] Lieutenant-Colonel Nugent, of the 1st Foot Guards, son to Viscount Clare, and groom of the bedchamber to the king, died at Bath, April 26, 1771. The Eliots were connected with Lord Clare through the Craggs family.

[144] The Hon. John Damer, eldest son of Lord Milton, afterwards created Earl of Dorchester. His mother was Lady Caroline Sackville, daughter of the first Duke of Dorset, and sister of the then existing Duke; married, in 1742, to Joseph Damer, Lord Milton.

[145] Denham, Bucks, built in 1667 by Sir Roger Hill, came to Lewis Way through his marriage with Abigail Locke, Sir Roger's granddaughter. Lewis Way, who died January 24, 1771, left by his first wife one son, Benjamin, who succeeded to Denham, and one daughter, Abigail, wife of J. B. Holroyd. By his second wife he left another son, Gregory Lewis Way, the translator of Fabliaux; or, Tales abridged from French Manuscripts of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries (edited by George Ellis, and published in two volumes in 1796-1800), who is more than once mentioned in these letters. Denham Place was the "pastoral retreat" of Sir Humphrey Davy.

[146] Lord Henley, M.P. for the county of Southampton, succeeded his father as second and last Earl of Northington in January, 1772. At the election to fill this vacancy Sir Henry Paulet St. John was elected.

[147] Caroline Matilda, posthumous child of Frederick, Prince of Wales, was born in July, 1751. She married in October, 1766, Christian VII., King of Denmark. Before her departure from England, her portrait was painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds, who complained that she was so constantly in tears that he could do justice neither to her nor to himself. The marriage proved unhappy. Her husband appears to have been a low brute, whose excesses impaired whatever mind he originally possessed. The queen, on her side, was guilty, at the least, of imprudences which were used against her by her enemies. During his travels, the king had made a favourite of a young physician named Struensee, who practically became Prime Minister, and, with his friend Brandt, governed Denmark. The Queen Dowager, Juliana Maria, stepmother of the king, placed herself, with her son Frederick, at the head of the malcontents. In January, 1772, Struensee and Brandt were arrested, and, after a protracted inquiry, executed in the following April. The queen was imprisoned at the Castle of Cronenbourg. From this prison she was released by the intervention of her brother, George III., and passed the few remaining years of her life at Zell, in Hanover, where her great-grandmother, Sophia Dorothea, had died in captivity. There she died in 1775, at the age of twenty-four.

[148] The Princess Dowager (1719-1772), youngest daughter of Frederick II., Duke of Saxe Gotha, widow of Frederick, Prince of Wales, mother of George III. and the Queen Caroline of Denmark, died at Carlton House on February 8, 1772.

[149] Either Joseph Cradock's adaptation of Voltaire's play Les Scythes, acted at Covent Garden under the title of ZobeÏde, with a prologue by Goldsmith, or Cumberland's Fashionable Lover, as acted at Drury Lane. Both plays were published early in 1772.

[150] The History of the Famous Preacher, Friar Gerund de Campazas, otherwise Gerund Zotes. London, 1772. 2 vols., 8vo.

[151] George Wilbraham, of Delamere Lodge, Cheshire.

[152] Godfrey Bagnal Clarke, M.P. for Derbyshire, who had made the tour of Italy at the same time as Gibbon.

[153] The name by which Mr. Holroyd's son called himself.

[154] Colonel Isaac BarrÉ (1726-1802), succeeded Lord Fitzmaurice as M.P. for Chipping Wycombe in 1761. He afterwards sat for Calne. He had served under Wolfe at Quebec, and appears in West's famous picture of the death of Wolfe. At the battle he lost his left eye, and in his picture by Sir Joshua Reynolds the right side of his face is turned towards the spectator. He was a prominent opponent of Lord North, and held office under the first Pitt, and subsequently in the Rockingham and Shelburne administrations.

[155] The Duke of Cumberland married, in October, 1771, Mrs. Horton, a daughter of Simon Luttrell, Lord Irnham (afterwards Earl of Carhampton), "a young widow of twenty-four, with the most amorous eyes in the world, and eyelashes a yard long." The Duke of Gloucester, a few months later, avowed his clandestine marriage with Maria, an illegitimate daughter of Sir Edward Walpole, and widow of the second Earl of Waldegrave. The Royal Marriage Bill was brought in, in consequence of these marriages, on February 20, 1772, and became law in the following March.

[156] Colonel Luttrell (1743-1821), brother of the Duchess of Cumberland, had been declared by the House to be elected for Middlesex against Wilkes in April, 1769, although the latter polled 1143 votes to Colonel Luttrell's 296. He was made adjutant-general of the land forces in Ireland; but in 1772, being discontented with the post, threatened to resign his seat for Middlesex, and so renew the struggle with Wilkes. The circumstances in which the appointment was made are noticed by Junius (August 22, 1770).

[157] Walpole, writing in May, 1770, speaks of "a winter-Ranelagh erecting in Oxford Road at the expense of sixty thousand pounds." "Imagine Balbec in all its glory!" he writes, when it was approaching completion in April, 1771. The Pantheon, built by Wyatt, was opened on January 27, 1772, "to a crowded company of between fifteen hundred and two thousand people. In point of consequence, the company were an olio of all sorts; peers, peeresses, honourables, and right honourables, jew brokers, demireps, lottery insurers, and quack doctors" (Annual Register). It was destroyed by fire on January 16, 1792.

Gentlemen and ladies could only subscribe to the Pantheon on the recommendation of a peeress, in order to prevent, as the proprietors announce in the Gazetteer (December 17, 1771), "such persons only from obtaining subscriptions whose appearance might not only be improper but subversive of that elegance and propriety which they wish on every occasion to preserve." On the other hand, once admitted to be subscribers, they could introduce friends of any or no character. The struggle between the two factions was decided by the efforts of a number of gentlemen, headed by Mr. William Hanger, who, with drawn swords, succeeded in forcing an entrance for Mrs. Baddeley. Possibly Gibbon meant, instead of repeating "Gentlemen Proprietors," to mark the contrast by writing "Gentlemen Subscribers" in the second sentence. The dispute is alluded to in a poem published in 1772, called The Pantheon Rupture; or, A Dispute between Elegance and Reason. In their dialogue Elegance says—

And hate the very name of a divorce;
Besides the Managers admit none in,
That e'er were known to have committed sin;—
The needy dame, who makes of love a trade,
These Realms of Virtue must not dare invade;
The company's selected from a class
Too chaste to suffer demireps to pass.

Reason.

But, Elegance, before more time you waste,

Inform me, pray, are all those Ladies chaste?

Elegance.

Chaste! surely yes.—The Managers admit
None but chaste Ladies, in their virtuous set;
Besides, if any one a slip hath made,
A Title hides it with oblivion's shade."

[158] Parliament met January 21, 1772. On February 6, Sir W. Meredith presented a petition from the "Feathers Tavern Association," signed by two hundred and fifty clergymen, lawyers, and physicians, praying that their professions might be relieved from the necessity of subscription to the XXXIX. Articles. The House decided, by 217 to 71, not to receive the petition.

[159] Afterwards the third Lord Coleraine.

[160] Lord Archibald Hamilton, M.P. for Lancashire, accepted the stewardship of the Manor of East Hendred, January, 1772. Sir T. Egerton was elected in his place.

[161] An allusion to the Welsh opinion that Sir Watkin Williams Wynn was as great a person. On the death of Sir John Astley, M.P. for Shropshire, Sir Watkin was elected.

[162] Maria Theresa did not die till November, 1780.

[163] i.e. The Princess of Wales.

[164] Her eldest child, Augusta (1737-1813), married, in 1764, the Duke of Brunswick-WolfenbÜttel.

[165] Henrietta Vernon, married to Lord Grosvenor in July, 1764, was seduced by the Duke of Cumberland. Lord Grosvenor brought an action against the duke for criminal conversation, July 5, 1770, and recovered damages in the sum of £10,000. Lady Grosvenor, who was separated, not divorced, married, in 1802, General Porter, M.P. for Stockbridge.

[166] Lord Apsley.

[167] Lord Chesterfield died March 24, 1773.

[168] Fox only retired from the Government on the Royal Marriage question. In January, 1773, he resumed office as one of the Lords of the Treasury.

[169] Afterwards Lord Sydney. Dr. Nowell's sermon, which, it was alleged, inculcated passive obedience, was preached January 30, 1772, at St. Margaret's, Westminster. The vote of thanks was voted January 31, and the sermon printed by desire of the House. On February 21 it was moved that, for the future, the thanks of the House should not be voted till the sermon was printed and delivered. The motion here attributed to Townshend was an expression of his opinion, given in the course of the debate. Lord North evaded the motion by moving the order of the day. On February 25 a motion was proposed and carried to expunge the entry of the vote of thanks.

[170] Sir R. Worsley succeeded to the baronetcy on the death, in 1768, of Sir Thomas Worsley. He was M.P. for Newport, Isle of Wight, 1774-84, and for Newtown, Isle of Wight, 1790-1802. He was sworn a privy councillor, and made Governor of the Island in January, 1780. He was also Comptroller of the Royal Household. He published his History of the Isle of Wight in 1781. In 1782, on the accession to office of the Rockingham administration, he was deprived of the Governorship of the Island in favour of the Duke of Bolton. As Diplomatic Resident at Venice, he made the collections and sketches which are reproduced in the Museum Worsleyanum (2 vols., 1794-1803). He died in 1805. His only son predeceased him. His estates passed, through his only sister, Henrietta Frances (married to John Bridgman-Simpson, Esq.), to her only child, Henrietta, who married the Earl of Yarborough.

[171] This letter affords a curious, though extreme, instance of Lord Sheffield's editorial methods. The letter numbered XXXII. in Lord Sheffield's edition of "Letters to and from Edward Gibbon, Esq." (1814), is dated October 13, 1772. It begins with the first four lines of this letter, which was written on April 21, 1772. The next nine lines are taken from the commencement of the letter written on October 3, 1772. The five following lines consist of the letter written on November 3, 1772. The next four lines are taken from the letter dated October 30, 1772. The two following lines are from the letter written on October 15, 1772. Thus what purports to be a real letter in itself, proves to be a patchwork composed from five letters extending over a period of six months.

[172] May 27, 1772.—"This afternoon three ships belonging to his Britannic Majesty cast anchor in the road of Elsineur. They are to convoy her Danish Majesty to Stade in her way to Zell" (Annual Register).

[173] Probably Mr. Benjamin Way, the brother of Lady Sheffield. His wife was a daughter of Dr. Cooke, Provost of King's College, Cambridge.

[174] In Poland, desultory hostilities had been carried on for several years between the Roman Catholics, favoured by France, and the Dissidents (i.e. those embracing any other form of Christian faith), supported by Russia. Taking advantage of the anarchy which King Stanislaus Poniatowski was powerless to control, Frederick the Great, the Empress Catherine, and the Emperor Joseph II. proposed to occupy those provinces which were respectively most contiguous to their own dominions. The result was the partition of Poland, August, 1772. Field-Marshal Laudohn (1716-1790) is said to have been of Scottish origin. During the Seven Years' War he had proved himself, at the head of the Austrian forces, a formidable antagonist to Frederick the Great.

[175] John William Holroyd, at that time the only son of Mr. Holroyd.

[176] Eldest son of Sir Matthew Featherstonhaugh, and his successor in the baronetcy.

[177] Sir John Rous, M.P. for Suffolk, died October 31, 1771, and from his widow Gibbon took 7 Bentinck Street, where he lived till September, 1783.

[178] William Jolliffe, M.P. for Petersfield, Commissioner of Trade and Plantations.

[179] Parliament adjourned from December 23, 1772, to January 22, 1773.

[180] An allusion to Lord North's habit of sleeping in the House of Commons. He slumbered, as Gibbon says in his Autobiography, between the Attorney-General (Thurlow) and the Solicitor-General (Wedderburn), who roused him when it was necessary that he should speak. On one occasion a member of the Opposition exclaimed, in reproach of his somnolence, "Even now the noble lord is slumbering over the ruin of his country!" "I wish to Heaven," muttered Lord North, slowly opening his eyes, "that I was!"

[181] Her daughter, Sophia Matilda (1773-1844), was born May 29, 1773.

[182] See note to Letter 204.

[183] The duel in question was fought between Lord Bellamont and Lord Townshend. The cause, according to the London Evening Post, was the offence taken by Lord Bellamont at the abrupt refusal of Lord Townshend, then Viceroy of Ireland, to see him at Dublin. As soon as Lord Townshend arrived in England, Lord Bellamont sent him a message that he would be glad if the affair could be "settled À la militaire." The duel took place February 2nd, in the Mary-le-bone Fields, when Lord Bellamont received a shot near the groin, and then fired his pistol in the air. Lord Ligonier was Lord Townshend's second, and Mr. Dillon acted for Lord Bellamont.

[184] Isaac Holroyd, who, by his wife, Dorothy Baker, was the father of John Baker Holroyd, lived at Bath, where he died in May, 1778. With him lived his only surviving daughter, Sarah Martha Holroyd, who died unmarried, some years later, at Bath. She translated, says Miss Burney, from the French version a German work, in four thick volumes—Sturm's Religious Meditations and Observations for every Day in the Year. Both Mr. and Miss Holroyd are frequently mentioned in the letters.

[185] The charges against Lord Clive, the famine in Bengal (1770), and the financial embarrassments of the East India Company, had for many months attracted public attention. In April, 1772, a Select Committee of the House of Commons was appointed to investigate the Company's affairs. During the recess (June 10 to November 26) the directors applied to Lord North for a loan of £1,500,000. On November 26 Parliament met, being specially summoned to discuss the state of India, and Lord North proposed and carried a motion for a Secret Committee of Inquiry. Four months later (March 9, 1773), Lord North proposed to lend to the Company £1,400,000, on condition that its dividends were restricted, and its surplus revenues appropriated to the liquidation of the debt. On these conditions, the Company was to enjoy possession of the territorial acquisitions till 1779, when its exclusive charter expired.

On May 3, the General Court of Proprietors of East India Stock petitioned Parliament against arbitrary interference with their territorial rights. The petition was ordered to lie on the table, and Lord North introduced the outlines of his scheme for the reconstitution of the Company. The chief changes were the appointment by the Crown of a governor-general and the establishment at Calcutta of a Supreme Court of Judicature. These changes and the provisions for the loans were embodied in two Bills, which received the royal assent on June 21 and July 1 respectively (13 Geo. III. cc. 63 & 64).

On May 10, whilst Lord North's proposals were under discussion, General Burgoyne moved three resolutions: (1) That all acquisitions made by military force or by treaty with foreign powers do of right belong to the State; (2) that to appropriate such acquisitions to private use is illegal; (3) that such acquisitions have been appropriated by private persons.

The first two resolutions, which virtually transferred to the Crown the territorial acquisitions made by the Company in India, were carried that night without a division. The third, which was practically an indictment of Lord Clive, was rejected on May 21.

John Burgoyne (1722-1792) married Lady Charlotte Stanley in 1743, and through Lord Derby's influence was now M.P. for Preston. He was made a major-general in 1772. His motion on the East India Company was his chief political achievement, his surrender at Saratoga (October 17, 1777) the most striking episode in his military career, and his comedy, The Heiress (1786), his chief literary success.

[186] Alexander Wedderburn (1733-1805), Solicitor-General (January 22, 1771), succeeded Edward Thurlow (Lord Chancellor, 1778) as Attorney-General, became Lord Chief Justice of the common Pleas and Lord Loughborough in June, 1780, was Lord Chancellor from 1793 to 1801, created Earl of Rosslyn in 1801, and died in 1805.

[187] The king left Kew on Tuesday, June 22, 1773, and reached Portsmouth between ten and eleven the same morning, in order to review the fleet at Spithead, consisting of twenty ships of the line, two frigates, and three sloops. He returned to Kew on Saturday, June 26. "A very great number of yachts, and other sailing vessels and boats, many of them full of nobility and gentry," followed the royal yacht Augusta, and "an incredible multitude of people" lined the shores.

[188] On June 11, 1773, the Court of Proprietors of East India Stock determined to reject the loan and conditions offered by the Government; but on June 19 the East India Loan Bill was read a third time in the Lower House. Parliament was prorogued from July 1, 1773, to January 13, 1774. Sujah Dowlah was the Nawab of Oude (see note to Letter 192).

[189] Thomas Amory, into whom, says Hazlitt, "the soul of Rabelais passed," published (1756-66) The Life of John Buncle, Esq.—a curious book, which is in part autobiographical.

[190] Miss Anne Eliot, sister to Mr. Eliot, of Port Eliot, married Captain Hugh Bonfoy, R.N. Two portraits of her by Sir Joshua Reynolds are in existence—one painted in 1746, the other in 1754.

[191] David Hume, who was now living at Edinburgh, was, from 1763 to 1766, Secretary to the Embassy at Paris under the Earl of Hertford. The description is quoted from Mason's satire (published in 1773), An Heroic Epistle to Sir William Chambers on his Book of Gardening—

"David, who there supinely deigns to lie,
The fattest hog in Epicurus' sty,
Though drunk with Gallic wine and Gallic praise,
David shall bless Old England's halcyon days."

[192] William Robertson, the historian (1721-1793), whose History of Scotland (1758) and History of Charles the Fifth (1769) had already appeared, was now engaged on his History of America (1777).

[193] After the death of Goldsmith in 1774, Gibbon seems to have succeeded to his place as Sir Joshua's companion to places of amusement, masquerades, and ridottos (Life and Times of Sir Joshua Reynolds, vol. ii. p. 273).

[194] The family of Richard Owen Cambridge.

[195] Samuel Foote's Bankrupt was produced at the Haymarket in July, 1773, Foote himself taking the part of Sir Robert Riscounter. The play was published in 1776, with a dedication to the Marquis of Granby. It contains a vigorous attack on the licence of the press and of the "impudent, rascally Printer." "The tyranny exercised by that fellow," says Sir Robert, "is more despotic and galling than the most absolute monarch's in Asia.... I wonder every man is not afraid to peep into a paper, as it is more than probable that he may meet with a paragraph that will make him unhappy for the rest of his life."

[196] Gibbon quotes incorrectly from Juvenal (Sat. 2, 1. 24)—

"Quis tulerit Gracchos de seditione querentes?"

[197] Gibbon's housekeeper.

[198] Alluding to negotiations between Mr. Eliot and himself for a seat in Parliament.

[199] Lord Chesterfield's letters to his son, Philip Stanhope, were sold by that son's widow, Mrs. Eugenia Stanhope, and published in 1774, "from the originals in her possession." M. Deyverdun was at this time tutor to the young Lord Chesterfield [1755-1815], a distant kinsman of the deceased Earl. According to Walpole, an injunction was applied for to prevent the publication of the letters. Terms were, however, arranged by which the publication was permitted, on condition that the family expunged certain passages, and regained possession of such copies as had been made of the unpublished Portraits, or Characters (Walpole to Mason, April 7, 1774).

[200] Probably Sir William Guise.

[201] Shute Barrington, afterwards Bishop of Durham.

[202] A tax had been proposed in the Irish Parliament of two shillings in the pound on the estates of absentee landlords. The motion was lost by 122 to 102.

[203] Mrs. Holroyd, through her sister-in-law, Miss Holroyd, who lived at Bath, had apparently hinted to Mrs. Gibbon at a possible attachment between Edward Gibbon and Miss Fuller, niece to Mr. Rose Fuller, of Rosehill, Sussex, M.P. for Rye.

[204] The Cambridges, the "eloquent Nymphs of Twickenham."

[205] Lord George Sackville, son of Lionel, Duke of Dorset, assumed, in 1770, the name of Germain on succeeding to the Northamptonshire estates of his aunt, Lady Betty Germain (died December 16, 1769), second wife of Sir John Germain, Bart., whose first wife, Lady Mary Mordaunt, brought him the property. Lord George was dismissed from the army for his conduct at the battle of Minden (August 1, 1759). He was at this time M.P. for East Grinstead. He became Secretary of State for the Colonies in Lord North's administration, was created Lord Sackville in 1782, and died in 1785.

[206] The Hon. Stephen Fox, eldest son of Lord Holland, succeeded his father, July, 1774. He died December 26, 1774.

[207] Miss Fuller.

[208] The School of Wives, a comedy by Hugh Kelly (1739-1777), was produced at Drury Lane on December 11, 1773. Walpole speaks of it as "exceedingly applauded," though "Charles Fox says" it "is execrable."

[209] Thomas, Lord Pelham of Stanmer (afterwards first Earl of Chichester), was at this time surveyor-general of the Customs of London. He married Miss Anne Frankland, granddaughter of Sir Thomas Frankland, Bart.

[210] "The Noblemen and Gentlemen's Catch Club" was founded in 1761, to encourage the composition and performance of catches and glees. Members were elected by ballot. It met every Tuesday from February to June at the Thatched House Tavern. The club still flourishes. Gibbon speaks as if he were a member; but his name does not occur in the lists of the club.

[211] By the death of Sir R. Ladbroke a vacancy occurred in the representation of the City. The candidates were the Lord Mayor (Bull) and Roberts. The result of the poll, by which the Lord Mayor was elected, was declared on December 4, 1773. A scrutiny was demanded on behalf of Roberts, but it was abandoned.

[212] James Hare, the politician and wit ("the Hare and many friends"), was M.P. (1772-74) for Stockbridge, and (1781-1804) for Knaresborough. He married (January 21, 1774) Miss Hannah Hume, sister of Sir Abraham Hume, Bart., F.R.S., the famous collector of minerals and pictures, and one of the founders of the Geological Society.

[213] Godfrey Clarke, M.P. for Derbyshire.

[214] The British Coffee-house, in Cockspur Street, was a favourite resort of Scotchmen. The Duke of Bedford, soliciting the votes of the sixteen Scottish peers in 1750, is said to have enclosed all the letters under one cover, and addressed it to the British Coffee-house.

[215] Garrick and Colman were managers of the two rival theatres, Covent Garden and Drury Lane.

[216] George Colman (1732-1794) was at this time a formidable rival to Garrick. His five-act comedy, The Man of Business, was produced at Covent Garden in January, 1774. It is, as Gibbon describes it, made up from Terence and other writers; "so full of modern lore," writes H. Walpole, "of rencounters, and I know not what, that I scarce comprehended a syllable."

[217] Goldsmith (1728-1774), whose play, She Stoops to Conquer, had been produced at Covent Garden under Colman's management (January, 1773), died April 4, 1774, scarcely more than two months after this dinner. Gibbon signed the Round Robin, drawn up at Sir Joshua Reynolds's by Burke, asking Dr. Johnson to write Goldsmith's epitaph in English instead of Latin.

[218] Probably James Macpherson (1736-1796), whose Fragments of Ancient Poetry collected in the Highlands were published in 1760. At this time he was settled in London, where he was engaged in historical literature, a translation of the Iliad, and political writing on behalf of the Government.

[219] John Home (1722-1808), the author of Douglas (1756), had helped to bring Macpherson's Ossianic poems before the public. His Douglas was played at Covent Garden (1757); his Agis (1758) and Siege of Aquileia (1760) were given at Drury Lane.

[220] Gibbon refers not to the essay on National Characters, but to that on Polygamy and Divorces. Hume quotes a story from Madame d'Aunoy's MÉmoires de la Cour d'Espagne. "When the mother of the late King of Spain was on her road towards Madrid, she passed through a little town in Spain famous for its manufactory of gloves and stockings. The magistrates of the place thought they could not better express their joy for the reception of their new queen, than by presenting her with a sample of those commodities for which alone their town was remarkable. The major domo, who conducted the princess, received the gloves very graciously; but, when the stockings were presented, he flung them away with great indignation, and severely reprimanded the magistrates for this egregious piece of indecency. Know, says he, that a queen of Spain has no legs. The young queen, who at that time understood the language but imperfectly, and had often been frightened with stories of Spanish jealousy, imagined that they were to cut off her legs. Upon which she fell a-crying, and begged them to conduct her back to Germany, for that she could never endure the operation; and it was with some difficulty they could appease her" (Hume's Philosophical Works, ed. 1854, vol. iii. p. 205).

[221] Probably a reference to Lancelot Brown (1715-1783), the landscape gardener, known as "Capability Brown."

[222] William Parsons (1746-1817) was appointed Master of the King's Band of Music in 1786, was knighted in 1795, became instructor in music to the princesses in 1796, and acted as a stipendiary police magistrate at Great Marlborough Street.

[223] Johann Christian Bach (1735-1782) was organist at Milan Cathedral, 1754-59. He married an Italian prima donna, and came to London, where he held the appointment of Director of Public Concerts.

[224] The Rev. Dr. Dive Downes.

[225] Two recent events had brought American affairs into prominence. The news of the attack upon the tea-ships in Boston Harbour (December 16, 1773) had just reached England, and the Privy Council had voted the Petition of the House of Assembly of Massachusetts for the recall of Governor Hutchinson and Lieutenant-Governor Oliver to be "groundless, vexatious, and scandalous."

[226] The Boston Port Bill was brought in by Lord North on March 14, 1774, and received the royal assent on the 31st. It was followed on March 28 by the Bill for regulating the government of Massachusetts Bay. A third Bill was introduced (April 15) for "the impartial administration of justice;" it provided for the transfer of persons accused of being concerned in the late riots for trial in England. All three Bills were passed during the session. Governor Hutchinson was superseded by General Gage, who was sent out with four regiments.

[227] Mrs. Horneck, wife of Captain Charles Horneck, Goldsmith's "Captain-in-Lace" ("Verses in Reply to an Invitation to Dinner at Dr. Baker's:" Works, ed. Cunningham, vol. i. p. 110), was one of the most abandoned women of the time. She eloped with her husband's brother-officer, Captain Scawen, who had in the previous year fought a celebrated duel with "Fighting Fitzgerald."

[228] In 1773, the East India Company at Madras and the Nabob of the Carnatic were allies: the Rajah of Tanjore, though nominally an ally, was known to be in correspondence with Hyder Ali and the Mahrattas. The Company agreed for a sum of money to reduce the Rajah and transfer his dominions to the Nabob. The bargain was fulfilled, and the news, transmitted to the Board of Directors, reached London, March 26, 1774. In October, 1773, Sujah Dowlah, Nawab of Oude, offered Warren Hastings a large sum of money if the Company would conquer and transfer to him the Rohilla country, north of his dominions and east of the Ganges. At the same time the provinces of Corah and Allahabad were sold to Sujah Dowlah by the Company.

[229] Captain David Roche sailed with his wife on board the Vansittart, East Indiaman, in May, 1773, in order to take up an appointment in the Company's service at Bombay. On the voyage he quarrelled with Lieutenant James Ferguson, whom he killed at the Cape in September, 1773. It was alleged that Roche had treacherously assassinated his antagonist; but, on his trial at Cape Town, it was proved that Ferguson was the assailant, and that Roche had killed him in self-defence. Strong feeling was aroused about the affair, because Roche was wrongly identified with a notorious duellist of the day. The governor of the Cape obtained a passage for Roche in a French frigate to Mauritius, whence he reached Bombay. On arrival there, he was arrested and sent home to England. Examined before the Privy Council on July 10, 1775, he was committed to Newgate. A special commission was issued (August 5) to try him, and at the Old Bailey, on December 11, 1775, he was again acquitted of the charge of murder. (See A Plain and Circumstantial Account of the Transactions between Captain Roche and Lieut. Ferguson, etc. London, 1775.)

[230] Lord Midleton was the son of the third Lord Midleton and his wife, Albinia, eldest daughter of the Hon. Thomas Townshend.

[231] Thomas Townshend (1733-1800), son of the Hon. Thomas Townshend and grandson of the second Viscount Townshend, was the "Tommy Townsend" of Goldsmith's Retaliation, in which he describes Edmund Burke as—

"Though fraught with all learning, yet straining his throat,

To persuade Tommy Townsend to lend him a vote."

He was M.P. for Whitchurch in four successive Parliaments, and held a series of important or lucrative offices. He was created Baron Sydney in 1783, and Viscount Sydney in 1789.

[232] This probably refers to an attempt on the part of the English to collect sugar duties at the island of Toracola (Crabb Island) near Porto Rico, and the reply of the governor of Porto Rico that the island belonged to Spain. In the Morning Chronicle for April 12, 1774, it was reported "that the Spaniards had bombarded the town of Kingston in Jamaica."

[233] The masquerade was given at the Pantheon, by Boodle's Club.

[234] Gibbon was always careful, if not elaborate, in his dress. George Colman the younger, in his Random Records (1830), vol. i. pp. 121, 122, describes his meeting as a boy with Gibbon and Johnson:—

"On the day I first sat down with Johnson, in his rusty brown, and his black worsteads, Gibbon was placed opposite to me in a suit of flower'd velvet, with a bag and sword." The "costume," he adds in a note, "was not extraordinary at this time, (a little overcharged, perhaps, if his person be considered,) when almost every gentleman came to dinner in full dress." "Each," he continues, "had his measured phraseology; and Johnson's famous parallel, between Dryden and Pope, might be loosely parodied, in reference to himself and Gibbon. Johnson's style was grand, and Gibbon's elegant; the stateliness of the former was sometimes pedantick, and the polish of the latter was occasionally finical. Johnson march'd to kettle-drums and trumpets; Gibbon moved to flutes and hautboys; Johnson hew'd passages through the Alps, while Gibbon levell'd walks through parks and gardens. Maul'd as I had been by Johnson, Gibbon pour'd balm upon my bruises, by condescending, once or twice, in the course of the evening, to talk with me; the great historian was light and playful, suiting his matter to the capacity of the boy;—but it was done more suÁ (sic); still his mannerism prevail'd;—still he tapp'd his snuff-box,—still he smirk'd, and smiled; and rounded his periods with the same air of good-breeding, as if he were conversing with men.—His mouth, mellifluous as Plato's, was a round hole, nearly in the centre of his visage."

[235] Word erased.

[236] Appearances proved deceitful. Amy Lyon, afterwards Emma Hamilton, became the mistress of Sir H. Featherstonhaugh at Up-Park in 1780, and was discarded by him just before the birth of her second child.

[237] The second son of Mr. Eliot, of Port Eliot.

[238] The Weald of Sussex [S.].

[239] Louis XV. died May 10, 1774, of small-pox. "Two of the King's daughters," writes Walpole (May 15, 1774), "though they never had the small-pox, attended him." Both the princesses caught the disease, but recovered. Louis XVI. and his two brothers were vaccinated, and the successful results did much to establish the practice on the Continent.

[240] Since the days of the Spectator, the Grecian, Squire's, and Serle's Coffee-house had been the resort of lawyers.

[241] The fÊte was given by Lord Stanley at The Oaks, near Epsom, in Surrey, on June 9, to celebrate his approaching marriage with Lady Betty Hamilton, June 23, 1774. The fÊte was the subject of Burgoyne's Maid of the Oaks, played at Covent Garden in November, 1774.

[242] In the list of marriages for 1774 appears the following:—"Dec. 8, 1774. Sir Stanier Porten, Knt., to Miss Mary Wibault of Titchfield St." (Ann. Register). Sir Stanier Porten, Gibbon's uncle, was in 1760 made Consul-General at Madrid. In 1772 he was knighted in order to qualify him to act as proxy to Sir George (afterwards Lord) Macartney, K.B. In May, 1774, he was an Under Secretary of State, and was appointed Keeper and Registrar of His Majesty's papers and records for the business of State at Whitehall. He became a Commissioner of the Customs, and died at Kensington Palace, June 7, 1789.

[243] Thomas Cadell was born in 1742, in Wine Street, Bristol. He was apprentice, partner, and ultimately (1767) successor, to Andrew Millar, the bookseller and publisher of the Strand, one of "the Gentlemen Partners" who published Johnson's Dictionary. In conjunction with Strahan, Cadell brought out the works of Johnson, Robertson, Blackstone, Henry, and other writers. He was printer to the Royal Academy from 1778 to 1793. He died in 1802.

[244] The Russian forces under Peter Alexandrovich Romanzow (1725-1796) drove back the Turks and surrounded their camp at Shumla, sixty miles south of Silistria, and one of the keys of Constantinople. Peace was, in consequence of these successes, signed July 21, 1774, between Russia and Turkey at Kainardji, by which Azof was ceded to Russia and the freedom of the Black Sea established.

[245] Mr. Holroyd proposed to stand for the county of Sussex. He apparently hoped that he might represent the eastern half, and relied on the influence of the Duke of Dorset at Buckhurst. But the Richmond influence carried both east and west, and Mr. Holroyd withdrew his candidature. The members returned were Sir Thomas S. Wilson and Lord George H. Lennox.

[246] The Duke of Richmond.

[247] Probably Lord Ashburnham, of Ashburnham Place, near Battle in Sussex.

[248] Probably William Hall, second Viscount Gage, who married Elizabeth Gideon, sister of Sir Sampson Gideon, afterwards Baron Eardley of Spalding, and is said to have introduced the greengage into Sussex. See Letter 210.

[249] Lord George Germain.

[250] John Frederick, third Duke of Dorset, who succeeded his uncle in 1769, was appointed Ambassador at Paris in 1783. He died in 1799.

[251] Probably refers to Lord George Germain, who was M.P. for East Grinstead, and possessed estates in Sussex. See note to Letter 181.

[252] See note to Letter 209.

[253] The Russian Ambassador in London.

[254] Probably the Cambridges of Twickenham.

[255] ibbon was M.P. for Liskeard.

[256] Parliament was dissolved on September 30, "six months before its natural death.... The chief motive is supposed to be the ugly state of North America, and the effects that a cross winter might have on the next elections" (Walpole to Mann, October 6, 1774). The result of the elections was, on the whole, favourable to Lord North.

[257] Lord G. Cavendish and Godfrey Bagnal Clarke were elected members for Derbyshire.

[258] Sir Thomas Spencer Wilson, with Lord G. H. Lennox, was returned for Sussex.

[259] On March 7, 1770, a Bill for regulating the proceedings of the House of Commons on controverted elections was introduced, and became law in April, 1770. It was subsequently known as the Grenville Act, from its chief supporter, George Grenville. The decision of controverted elections was under the Act transferred from the committee of the whole House to a select committee specially chosen for each case. Originally passed for five years, it was made perpetual in 1774.

[260] John Wilkes was elected Lord Mayor, October 8, 1774.

[261] Sir James Peachy, Bart., was bottom of the poll for Sussex.

[262] I.e. Mr. Isaac Holroyd and Miss Sarah Holroyd.

[263] The new Parliament met November 29, 1774.

[264] Lord Clive died November 22, 1774.

[265] Sir Fletcher Norton was re-elected speaker, November 29, 1774.

[266] James Whitshed, M.P. for Cirencester.

[267] The Address was carried on December 5, 1774. An amendment, claiming the fullest information on American affairs, was moved in the Lower House by Lord John Cavendish.

[268] David Hartley, M.P. for Kingston-upon-Hull.

[269] Sir W. Maine, Bart., of Gatton Park, Surrey, M.P. for Canterbury.

[270] Sir Thomas Miller, Bart., of Chichester, M.P. for Lewes.

[271] Benjamin Lethieullier, at this time M.P. for Andover, whom Gibbon met at Up Park in 1762, was brother to Lady Featherstonhaugh, and a relation of Smart Lethieullier, the antiquary.

[272] Israel Mauduit, pamphleteer and woollen-draper, best known for his Considerations on the Present German War (1760), was agent for Massachusetts Bay. It was on his application that Wedderburn was heard before the Privy Council, in answer to the petition for the recall of Hutchinson and Oliver.

[273] "Lawyer Batt," whose name often occurs in these letters, was John Thomas Batt, of Newhall near Salisbury, successively a Master in Chancery, and a Commissioner for the auditing of the Public Accounts. He was a "prime favourite" of Miss Burney, and a friend of Walpole, Lord Malmsbury, and Sir J. Reynolds.

[274] Delegates from eleven Colonies met at Philadelphia, September 5, 1774, and constituted themselves a Congress. A Declaration of Rights was drawn up, in which it was shown that recent Acts of Parliament had infringed those rights. Resolutions were passed to suspend all imports from, or exports to, Great Britain and Ireland and their dependencies, till American grievances were redressed. An association was formed to carry out these resolutions and on October 26 Congress dissolved.

[275] Thomas Hutchinson, Governor of Massachusetts, and Andrew Oliver, Lieutenant-Governor, had corresponded with a private friend in England, Thomas Whately, formerly secretary to George Grenville. Their letters were purloined and placed in the hands of Franklin, who sent copies to the House of Assembly of Massachusetts. The House petitioned for their recall in consequence of the language they had used in these letters. The petition was dismissed by the Privy Council. Hutchinson, however, returned home early in 1774. He had already published (1764-68) two volumes of his History of the Colony of Massachusetts. He died in 1789, at the age of seventy-eight. The third volume of his history was published from his manuscripts in 1828.

[276] The work in question is La verdadera Hystoria del rey Don Rodrigo: compuesta por Abulcacim Tarif Abentarique. Nuevamente traduzida de la lengua Arabiga por M. de L[una]. In two parts. Granada, 1592-1600, 8vo. It was really written by Miguel de Luna, and, as Gibbon points out, the Arabic MS. is imaginary. The book was translated into English as The Life of Almanzor, translated into Spanish by M. de Luna. London, 1693. 8vo.

[277] Probably a nephew of Mr. Benjamin Way, of Denham, Mrs. Holroyd's brother, who married Miss Elizabeth Cooke.

[278] Parliament met January 19, 1775.

[279] Sir M. Featherstonhaugh married, in 1746, Sarah Lethieullier, who died in 1788. One of her brothers was Benjamin Lethieullier, M.P. for Andover. See note to Letter 230.

[280] Lord Beauchamp, at this time a widower, married, in May 22, 1776, as his second wife, Lady Isabella Shepheard, eldest daughter of the last Lord Irvine.

[281] Lady Mary Fitzpatrick, daughter of the first Earl of Upper Ossory, married, in 1766, Stephen Fox, second Lord Holland. She died October 6, 1778, without marrying a second time.

[282] Lord North proposed (February 10) a Bill restricting the trade of America with Great Britain, Ireland, and the West Indies, and excluding the colonists from the Newfoundland fisheries.

[283] The two members returned for Downton, Thomas Dummer and Thomas Duncombe, were declared not duly elected, and Sir Philip Hales and John Cooper declared duly elected.

[284] Sir Harbord Harbord, afterwards Lord Suffield, M.P. for Norwich.

[285] Efforts were made by Lord North to secure the loyalty of the province of New York, which at first repudiated the non-importation agreement of Congress, refused to print letters of the committee of correspondence appointed to carry out that policy, and declined to choose delegates to the second Congress which was to be held in May, 1775. Patriotic feeling, however, prevailed, and New York decided in April, 1775, to fall into line with the other colonies.

[286] On February 1, 1775, Lord Chatham, in the House of Lords, brought in a Bill for settling the troubles in America, by which it was enacted, inter alia, that no tax should be imposed on the colonists by the British Parliament without the consent of their own representative assembly. The Bill was rejected; but it probably influenced Lord North, who, on February 20, brought forward, in the Lower House, his conciliatory scheme. This was a resolution proposing that, if the colonists should make a satisfactory provision for the defence and government of the province, the right of taxing them should be suspended. Sir G. Elliot represented the Bedford party in the House of Commons.

[287] On February 22 Wilkes proposed a motion rescinding every step which the late Parliament had taken with reference to the Middlesex election. Gibbon voted for the motion against the Government. The motion was lost by 239 to 171.

[288] Wilkes.

[289] Robert Jephson's successful tragedy Braganza was played at Drury Lane in February, 1775, Mrs. Yates taking the part of Louisa, Duchess of Braganza. Gibbon is probably referring to this play in comparing Mrs. Holroyd to the spirited Duchess. The answer of "My Lady" is in keeping with the character of the Duchess as depicted in the play—

"I have a woman's form, a woman's fears,

I shrink from pain and start at dissolution.

.........

Yet summoned as we are, your honour pledged,
Your own just rights engaged, your country's fate,
.....Still would I on,
Still urge, exhort, confirm thy constancy,
And, though we perished in the bold attempt,
With my last breath I'd bless the glorious cause,
And think it happiness to die so nobly."

[290] Mrs. Gibbon's residence at Bath.

[291] See note to Letter 184.

[292] May 15, 1775.

[293] May 18, 1775. This Act, passed in the spring of 1774, sanctioned the free exercise of the Roman Catholic religion in Canada.

[294] On April 18, 1775, General Gage despatched several hundred British troops from Boston to destroy some military stores collected at Concord. On the 19th they reached Concord; but, on the return, they were attacked by the Colonial Minute-men, and were only saved from annihilation by the detachment which Gage had sent to their support at Lexington. The battle was immediately followed by the investment of Boston by the American militia.

[295] I.e. Hutchinson.

[296] The sloop sent by General Gage from Boston.

[297] A new edition of Madame de SÉvignÉ's letters appeared at Paris in 1775—Recueil des lettres de Madame la Marquise de SÉvignÉ À Madame la Marquise de Grignan sa fille.

[298] Sir R. Worsley married, September 20, 1775, Miss Seymour Dorothy Fleming, daughter and coheiress of Sir John Fleming, Bart., of Rydal, Westmoreland, and Brompton Park, Middlesex.

[299] William Strahan (1715-1785), Printer to His Majesty, was at this time M.P. for Malmesbury. At the election of 1780 he was returned for Wootton Bassett; but did not seek re-election after the dissolution in 1784. He purchased in 1770 from Mr. Eyre a share in the King's Patent as a printer. His character is sketched in Nichols' Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century, vol. iii. pp. 390-397.

[300] General Fraser (1726-1782), the eldest son of the Simon, Lord Lovat, who was executed in 1747, was himself included in the Act of Attainder for his share in the '45. Pardoned in 1750, he raised a regiment of Highlanders (afterwards the 78th), and commanded it in Canada during the Seven Years' War. He became a major-general in 1771. Three years later, the estates which his father's treason had forfeited were restored to him, in consideration of his services in the late war. He was M.P. for Inverness from 1761 to 1782. He married Miss Catherine Bristow, who survived him many years.

[301] Charles James Fox was Clerk of the Pells in Ireland. The place was purchased from him by the Government, who conferred it upon Charles Jenkinson in order that the latter might vacate his office of Vice-Treasurer of Ireland in favour of Henry Flood.

[302] Lord Ely married, on September 18, 1775, the daughter of the late Captain Hugh Bonfoy, R.N., and Mrs. Bonfoy (nÉe Anne Eliot).

[303] A great expedition against the Barbary States was organized by the Spaniards, and on July 2, 1775, a powerful fleet landed their army at Algiers. After a fight of thirteen hours the Spaniards were obliged to retreat.

[304] The famous Duchess of Kingston, formerly Miss Chudleigh, married the Duke of Kingston, while her first husband, Augustus Hervey, then a lieutenant in the navy, afterwards (1775) Earl of Bristol, was living. She was tried for bigamy and convicted in 1776. Foote proposed to tell her story in a play called A Trip to Calais, and to introduce her under the name of "Kitty Crocodile." Lord Hertford, as Chamberlain, interdicted the piece, which Foote brought out in 1777 as The Capuchin.

[305] After the battle of Bunker's Hill (June 17, 1775) General Gage was recalled, and General Howe appointed to the chief command in America.

[306] Gibbon speaks of Miss Bonfoy, the future Lady Ely.

[307] Doubtless a reference to Mr. Holroyd's character of Lord Ely.

[308] George III. negotiated ineffectually with the Empress Catharine for the hire of twenty thousand Russian mercenaries for service in America. Sir Robert Gunning (1731-1816), the British envoy at St. Petersburg, was at first led to believe by both Panin, the Russian Foreign Minister, and the empress herself, that the troops would be provided. The negotiations were broken off on the ground that the Russian officers could not take the required oath of allegiance to George III.

[309] In May, 1775, Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold surprised the Forts of Ticonderoga on Lake George and Crown Point on Lake Champlain. General Carleton, the Governor of Canada, was in command of very inadequate forces, and it was feared that the province would join the Colonists against the British.

[310] Addresses from the principal trading towns of England poured in, asking the king to prosecute the war with vigour. Walpole (Journal of the Reign of George III., 1771-83, vol. i. pp. 501, 502, Dr. Doran's edition) says that the addresses were bought.

[311] The Government endeavoured to raise a regiment of Irish Catholics; but these, says Walpole, "would not list, nor could they in the whole summer get above 400 recruits in England" (Journal of the Reign of George III., vol. i. p. 500).

[312] Dr. Wesley, on the other hand, published, in 1775, his Calm Address to our American Colonies, in which he urged arguments similar to those of Dr. Johnson in his Taxation no Tyranny.

[313] Mr. Stephen Sayer, a London banker, and one of the sheriffs of the City, was accused by one Richardson, a young American officer in the Guards, of a plot to seize the Tower, and attack the king as he went to open Parliament. The guards were trebled, and Sayer, brought before Lord Rochford, Secretary of State for the Southern Department, was committed to the Tower. Another "mad enthusiast for liberty" and "one or two dissenting Divines" were also apprehended. The meeting of Parliament, however, passed off quietly, and the temporary panic subsided. On October 28, 1775, Sayer was brought before Lord Mansfield on a Habeas Corpus, and admitted to bail. On December 13 he was discharged from his recognizances.

[314] The negotiations with Russia failed. But the Landgrave of Hesse, the Duke of Brunswick, and other petty German potentates supplied seventeen thousand mercenaries.

[315] The address was moved on October 26, 1775, by Mr. Acland (eldest son of Sir Thomas Acland), and seconded by the Hon. William Lyttleton. M.P. for Bewdley, formerly Governor of Jamaica, and minister at Lisbon, An amendment proposed by Lord John Cavendish, demanding the fullest information on the subject of America, was rejected by 278 to 108.

[316] Mr. Eliot, on the death of Sir J. Molesworth, was elected M.P. for Cornwall. Miss Burney, in 1781, speaks of meeting "Mr. Eliot, knight of the shire of Cornwall, a most agreeable, lively, and very clever man." He was one of the pall-bearers at the funeral of Sir Joshua Reynolds. He was also a friend of Johnson, to whom he lent Defoe's Memoirs of Captain Carleton, a book which the Doctor had never seen (Boswell's Life of Johnson, ed. G. B. Hill, 1887, vol. iv. pp. 334-344).

[317] Colonel Gould.

[318] On November 14, 1775, Benedict Arnold made an unsuccessful attempt to capture Quebec by surprise. Reinforced by a considerable body of troops under General Montgomery, he renewed his attack on December 31. Montgomery was killed, Arnold wounded, and the assault repulsed. The siege was, however, continued, and it was not till May, 1776, that General Carleton was able to assume the offensive and drive the Americans out of Canada.

[319] Gibbon alludes to the story, that the Countess of Nottingham kept back a ring which Essex, before his execution, sent by her hand to Elizabeth. The ring, which had formerly been worn by the queen, is probably now in the possession of Mr. Francis Thynne, to whom it descended through Lady Mary Devereux. It is a cameo head of Elizabeth, cut in a sardonyx, and set in a gold ring, enamelled at the back. It has been enlarged with soft solder, as though Essex had only trusted it to a jeweller working in his presence. Walpole makes no allusion to the alleged discovery.

[320] The Duke of Grafton resigned the Privy Seal November 9, 1775. Lord Dartmouth succeeded him, and Lord George Germain took Lord Dartmouth's place as Secretary of State for the Colonies.

[321] Horace Walpole, writing November 23, 1775, says, "A Monsieur Tessier, of whom I have heard much in France, acted an entire play of ten characters, and varied his voice, and countenance, and manner, for each so perfectly, that he did not name the persons that spoke, nor was it necessary. I cannot decide to which part he did most justice, but I would go to the play every night if I could see it so acted."

[322] Topham Beauclerk and Lady Diana Beauclerk (see note to Letter 47).

[323] The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, by Edward Gibbon, Esq. Vol. i., London, 1776, 4to, was published by W. Strahan and T. Cadell in February.

[324] Madame Necker, formerly Suzanne Curchod (see note to Letter 26), and her husband were at this time in London. "M. et Madame Necker se prÉparent À un voyage en Angleterre; ils partiront le semaine de PÂques, et ils m'assurent qu'ils seront ici de retour À la fin de mai" (Madame du Deffand to Walpole, March 17, 1776).

[325] The Duchess of Kingston was Countess of Bristol, her previous marriage with Augustus Hervey (afterwards Earl of Bristol) having been declared legal. See note to Letter 259.

[326] Sir John Russell, Bart., of Chequers, Bucks., married on October 25, 1774, Miss Carey, daughter of General Carey, and granddaughter of Lord Falkland.

[327] Two commissioners, Admiral Lord Howe and his brother, General Howe, were empowered, in May, 1776, to treat with the colonists, receive submissions, grant pardons, and inquire into grievances. Lord Howe reached Sandy Hook on July 12th. On July 4 the Declaration of Independence had been adopted by Congress, and the mission was too late.

[328] Lord Palmerston was elected a member of the Catch Club in 1771.

[329] Almack's Club, in Pall Mall, surpassed White's in the extravagance of its gambling. Brooks, a money-lender and wine-merchant, took up the management of the club, which was dispersed when he opened the new premises of Brooks' Club, in St. James's Street, in 1778.

[330] Mr. Child (The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, part iii. p. 199, Boston, 1885) says that Mallet passed off as his own, with very slight changes, a ballad called William and Margaret, a copy of which, dated 1711, has been discovered. But the resemblances between the two poems scarcely seem to justify Mr. Child's criticism, though Gibbon's statement confirms it. The writer of the article on Mallet, in the Dictionary of National Biography, throws no doubts upon Mallet being the author of William and Margaret, nor does the writer on Marvell, in the same series, lay any claim for Marvell to its authorship. Thomas, better known as "Hesiod," Cooke, who published his Life and Writings of Andrew Marvell in 1726, and who not only disliked Mallet, but characterised his William and Margaret as "trash," nowhere suggests that Mallet was not the author. The first stanza is taken from Beaumont and Fletcher's comedy of The Knight of the Burning Pestle, where old Merrythought sings—

"When it was grown to dark midnight,

And all were fast asleep,

In came Margaret's grimly ghost,

And stood at William's feet."

In Percy's Reliques, vol. iii. p. 331 (ed. Dodsley, 1759), Mallet's poem is printed with the following note: "This Ballad, which appeared in some of the public Newspapers in or before the year 1724, came from the pen of David Mallet, Esq.; who in the edition of his poems, 3 vols., 1759, informs us that the plan was suggested by the four verses quoted above ***, which he supposed to be the beginning of some ballad now lost."

[331] The report of General Lee's capture was false. He was taken prisoner December 13, 1776.

[332] Beilby Porteus, Bishop of Chester, afterwards Bishop of London, had been chaplain to Archbishop Secker, whose Charges he published in 1769. He did not publish any reply to Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

[333] Sir Guy Carleton was gazetted K.B., July 6, 1776.

[334] The Hon. John Damer, son of Lord Milton, shot himself, August 15, 1776. To his widow, the daughter of General Conway, Horace Walpole left Strawberry Hill for her life.

[335] On August 27, 1776, General Howe defeated the Americans at the battle of Brooklyn or Long Island.

[336] Louisa, second daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Holroyd.

[337] An Apology for Christianity, in a Series of Letters to Edward Gibbon, Esq., by Richard Watson, D.D. (afterwards Bishop of Llandaff). Gibbon had a great respect for Dr. Watson, at this time Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, as "a prelate of a large mind and liberal spirit." He writes (November 2, 1776) to "express his sense of the liberal treatment which he has received from so candid an adversary."

[338] On September 15 General Howe occupied New York, which had been evacuated by the American troops; a few days later a great part of the city was destroyed by incendiaries.

[339] Lord Chatham boasted that he had conquered America in Germany. Wilkes, in March, 1776, had said, alluding to Lord G. Germain's misconduct at Minden and Chatham's boast, that Lord George might conquer America, though, he believed, it would not be in Germany. Gibbon apparently refers to this remark, and to Lord George's hope that he might recover his lost reputation by the reconquest of America.

[340] Parliament met October 31, 1776. An amendment to the address, expressing pacific sentiments, was negatived by 242 to 87, and the address carried by 232 to 83.

[341] The proclamation, issued September 19, 1776, was addressed to the people of America, promised a revision of recent legislation, and was designed to induce separate colonies to negotiate with the commissioners independently of Congress. It was not published in the official Gazettes, which had appeared on November 4 and 5, 1776.

[342] J. B. Antoine Suard (1733-1817), whose acquaintance Gibbon made at Paris in 1763, had translated Robertson's History of Charles V. in 1771, and was now at work on a translation of his History of America, which was published in 1778.

[343] In a letter, dated "Ferney, July 19, 1776," and addressed to M. d'Argenteuil, Voltaire wrote strongly against a projected translation of Shakespeare. He claims that he himself had first pointed out to the French some pearls which he found on Shakespeare's "enormous dung-heap." "I little thought," he continues, "that I should help to tread under foot the crowns of Racine and Corneille, in order to adorn the head of a barbarian and a buffoon." The letter was read aloud before the Academicians. Mrs. Montague, who was present, when she heard the words "Énorme fumier," exclaimed, "C'est un fumier qui a fertilisÉ une terre bien ingrate."

[344] On November 22, letters arrived from Sir Guy Carleton giving an account of the destruction of the American fleet on Lake Champlain, October 11-13, 1776. Arnold, after destroying Crown Point, retired to Ticonderoga. General Burgoyne returned to England on December 9, 1776.

[345] Remarks on the Two Last Chapters of Mr. Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, by James Chelsum, D.D. London, 1776. 8vo.

[346] With Lord and Lady Ossory.

[347] The translation, commenced by M. Le Clerc de SeptchÊnes, and completed by other hands, passed through numerous editions in France. It was the foundation of an Italian version published at Pisa in 1779-86.

[348] After the battle of Brooklyn, Washington withdrew his troops to the heights of Haarlem. General Howe, towards the end of October, engaged in several skirmishes with the Americans, but made no effort to bring them to a decisive engagement. On November 16, 1776, Fort Washington was taken by the British, and 2600 of the American troops, exclusive of officers, surrendered as prisoners of war. Following up his advantage, Howe advanced into New Jersey, Washington retreating beyond the Delaware.

[349] General Fraser lived in Downing Street, and died there, February 8, 1782.

[350] Mrs. Fraser.

[351] General Fraser.

[352] On December 7, 1776, a fire broke out in Portsmouth Dockyard, and in the hemp warehouse a quantity of combustibles were found; at Plymouth an attempt to set the dockyard on fire was discovered; at Bristol several houses close to the quay were set on fire. The incendiary was "John the Painter," whose real name was Aitken. He confessed his guilt, and asserted the complicity of Silas Deane, the American agent at Paris. He was tried at Winchester Assizes, convicted, and hanged at Portsmouth.

[353] I.e. probably the Abigail of Mrs. Abigail Holroyd.

[354] John Hunter (1728-1793) began his Anatomy Lectures in 1773. Originally delivered to his pupils, they were afterwards thrown open to the public on payment of a fee of four guineas. They were delivered annually from October to April, on alternate evenings at 7 to 8 p.m.

[355] Washington crossed the Delaware on Christmas Day, 1776, surprised two regiments of Hessians at Trenton, and in the following January again reduced the Jerseys, while Howe remained inactive at New York.

[356] In June, 1776, after the fall of Turgot, Necker was associated with Taboureau des RÉaux, the Controller-General, in the management of the finances of France, and given the title of Directeur du trÉsor. In June, 1777, he succeeded Taboureau des RÉaux, but, because of his religion, only received the title of Directeur GÉnÉral.

[357] The Marquis de la Fayette, born 1757, married the second daughter of the Duc d'Ayen, eldest son of the MarÉchal de Noailles, and brother of the Marquis de Noailles, the French ambassador. La Fayette came to London on a visit to his wife's uncle early in 1777, and was presented to George III. A few days later he returned to Paris, sailed from Passages with several young Frenchmen for America, landed in June, and immediately received the rank of major-general in the American army. A lettre de cachet was sent after him to Bordeaux; but he avoided it by crossing into Spain.

[358] On April 9, 1777, a message from the king was delivered to both Houses, asking for the payment of his debts, which amounted to £600,000. At the same time a Bill "for the better support of the Royal Household" was introduced, to increase his revenue by £100,000 a year. A motion for a committee to inquire into the accounts was rejected; the king's debts were discharged, and the Government Bill carried.

[359] Lord Pigot, Governor of Madras, was arrested in April, 1776, by the Madras Council for his support of the Rajah of Tanjore against the Nabob of the Carnatic, and his opposition to an iniquitous claim upon the Rajah's revenue made by Paul Benfield. He died while still under arrest, in May, 1777. The Court of Proprietors voted by a large majority for his release and restoration to his governorship. The Directors were almost equally divided upon the question. Meanwhile the Government exercised all its influence to carry through the Court of Proprietors three resolutions—one recalling Lord Pigot, a second ordering home his friends in the council, a third ordering home his enemies. These resolutions were carried. Lord Pigot's case was then taken up in Parliament, and on May 22, 1777, Governor Johnston moved several resolutions approving Lord Pigot's action, and condemning the Madras Council. The resolutions were rejected by 90 to 67. See note to Letter 371.

[360] The Prince of Orange, packet from Harwich to Helvetsluys, was captured by the Surprise, an American privateer commanded by Captain Cunningham, carrying four guns and ten swivels.

[361] This letter was begun one Sunday and finished the next.

[362] Marie de Vichy-Chamrond (1697-1781) married, in 1718, Jean Baptiste Jacques de la Lande, Marquis du Deffand. Separated from her husband in 1722 for her relations with the Regent duc d'OrlÉans, the President HÉnault, and others, she lived chiefly at Sceaux till the death of her husband in 1750. In 1753 she opened her salon at the Convent of St. Joseph. A year later she became totally blind. She had stayed at La Source with Lord Bolingbroke in 1721, and since then had known some of the most distinguished men and women in France and England. But the following extracts from her correspondence with Walpole, who had introduced Gibbon to her, show her appreciation of the historian as a member of society:—"Je suis fort contente de M. Gibbon; depuis huit jours qu'il est arrivÉ, je l'ai vu presque tous les jours; il a la conversation facile, parle trÈs-bien franÇais; j'espÈre qu'il me sera de grande ressource" (May 18, 1777). "Je lui crois beaucoup d'esprit, sa conversation est facile, et forte de choses, comme disait Fontenelle; il me plaÎt beaucoup, d'autant plus qu'il ne m'embarrasse pas" (May 27). "Je m'accommode de plus en plus de M. Gibbon; c'est vÉritablement un homme d'esprit; tous les tons lui sont faciles, il est aussi FranÇais ici que MM. de Choiseul, de Beauvau, etc. Je me flatte qu'il est content de moi; nous soupons presque tous les jours ensemble, le plus souvent chez moi; ce soir ce sera chez Madame de Mirepoix" (June 8). "M. Gibbon me convient parfaitement; je voudrais bien qu'il restÂt toujours ici; je le vois presque tous les jours; sa conversation est trÈs facile, on est À son aise avec lui" (June 22). "M. Gibbon a ici le plus grand succÈs, on se l'arrache; Je ne sais pas si tous les jugements qu'il porte sont bien justes, mais il se comporte avec tout le monde d'une maniÈre qui ne donne point de prise aux ridicules; ce qui est fort difficile À Éviter dans les sociÉtÉs qu'il frÉquente" (September 21).

[363] Gabrielle Charlotte FranÇoise d'Alsace-HÉnin-LiÉtard married, in November, 1755, Jacques FranÇois, Vicomte de Cambis. She was the sister of the Prince de Chimay, and niece of the Marquise de Boufflers. She knew English well, and translated into French several of the Portraits of Lord Chesterfield. Her conquest of the Duke of Richmond was well known in Paris. Gibbon himself was her victim. "Le Gibbon," writes Madame du Deffand to Walpole, April 20, 1780, "Était aussi un peu Épris; elle fait plus de conquÊtes À prÉsent qu'elle n'en a fait dans sa premiÈre jeunesse; sa coquetterie est sÈche, froide et piquante; c'est un nouveau genre qu'a sa sÉduction." The Vicomtesse de Cambis died at Richmond in 1808. Madame de Genlis, who disliked her, says (MÉmoires, vol. ii. pp. 30, 31) that she was deeply pitted with the small-pox, and that "elle avoit l'air le plus dÉdaigneux et le plus impertinent qu'on ait jamais osÉ porter dans le monde."

[364] The Duc de Choiseul (1719-1785) was Minister of Foreign Affairs, and afterwards War Minister and Naval Minister, to Louis XV. during the ascendency of Madame de Pompadour. He was disgraced in 1770, when Madame du Barri became the royal favourite.

[365] Madame du Deffand describes a small party at the Neckers', where she met the Emperor Joseph II. and Gibbon.

[366] Louis Jules Mancini, Duc de Nivernois (1716-1798), was ambassador in England from 1762 to 1763. In that capacity he had given Gibbon introductions to leaders of Parisian society during his first visit to the capital.

[367] Marie Sylvie de Rohan-Chabot married, as her first husband, the Marquis de Chermont d'Amboise. Left a widow in 1761, she married in 1764, as his second wife, the MarÉchal de Beauvau, fourth son of the Prince de Craon (died 1793), and was, therefore, stepmother of his daughter the Princesse de Poix. She and her husband belonged to the Liberal party, who supported the Duc de Choiseul and opposed the ascendency of Madame du Barri. For this reason she was nicknamed "la mÈre des MachabÉes." The Princesse de Beauvau, one of the most charming women of her time, wrote an Eloge of her husband. She died in 1807. Her own character is sketched in the Hommage À la mÉmoire de Madame la princesse de Beauvau of Madame de Luynes. "Elle Étoit, a mon avis, la femme la plus distinguÉe de la sociÉtÉ, par l'esprit, le ton, les maniÈres, et l'air franc et ouvert qui lui Étoit particulier" (Madame de Genlis, MÉmoires, vol. i. p. 357).

[368] Count de Viry, the Sardinian ambassador, as Baron de la PerriÈre, was formerly Sardinian ambassador in England. There he married Miss Harriet Speed, a niece of Lady Cobham, and one of the heroines of Gray's Long Story who were sent from Lady Cobham's house to rid the country of the "wicked imp they call a poet." "My old friend Miss Speed," writes Gray to Wharton in 1761, "has done a very foolish thing; she has married the Baron de la PerriÈre, son to the Sardinian Minister, the Count de Viry. He is about twenty-eight years old (ten years younger than herself), but looks nearer forty." In September, 1777, Viry was recalled from Paris, and disgraced, because, as was alleged, his wife had been bribed by Lord Stormont to betray the diplomatic secrets of the court of Turin. Another account is given in Lescure's Correspondence SecrÈte sur Louis XVI., Marie Antoinette, etc.: "M. le Comte de Viry, ambassadeur de Sardaigne, est rappelÉ À Turin. On croit qu'il y a de la disgrace" (vol. i. p. 74). A secret treaty was signed early in 1777 between Austria, France, Spain, and Sardinia against England, and the secretary of the Comte de Viry "a vendu une copie du traitÉ À milord Stormont" (ibid., vol. i. p. 82). See also, for a third account, Dutensiana (Londres, 1806), pp. 216-219.

[369] "American privateers," writes Walpole, July 17, 1777, "infest our coasts; they keep Scotland in alarms, and even the harbour of Dublin has been newly strengthened with cannon." On August 7 the crew of a privateer landed at Penzance and plundered several farmers of their live stock. It was in the following year, April, 1778, that Paul Jones first harried the English and Scottish coasts.

[370] In The Private Correspondence of David Garrick (vol. ii. pp. 255, 256) is printed a letter from Gibbon to Garrick, written from the "HÔtel de ModÈne, rue Jacob, Fauxbourg St. Germain," at Paris, and dated August 14th, 1777. Gibbon begins by thanking Garrick for a kindly mention of his name. "It is pleasant to find one's-self mentioned with friendship by those whom posterity will mention with admiration. Foreign nations are a kind of posterity, and among them you already reap the full reward of your fame." "You have reason," he continues, "to envy me, for I can truly declare that I reckon the three months which I have now passed in Paris among the most agreeable of my life. My connection with a house, before which the proudest of the Gallic nobles bow the knee, my familiar acquaintance with the language, and a natural propensity to be pleased with the people and their manners, have introduced me into very good company; and, different in that respect from the traveller Twiss, I have sometimes been invited to the same houses a second time. If besides these advantages your partiality should ascribe any others to your friend, I am not proud enough entirely to disclaim them. I propose to stay at Paris about two months longer, to hook in (if possible) a little of the Fontainebleau voyage, and to return to England a few days before the meeting of Parliament, where I suppose we shall have some warm scenes. You cannot surely be satisfied with the beginning, or rather no beginning, of the American campaign, which seems to elevate the enemies as much as it must humble the friends of Great Britain.

"At this time of year, the society of the Turk's-head" (in Gerrard Street, where the Literary Club met) "can no longer be addressed as a corporate body, and most of the individual members are probably dispersed; Adam Smith in Scotland; Burke in the shades of Beaconsfield; Fox, the Lord or the devil knows where, &c., &c. Be so good as to salute in my name those friends who may fall in your way. Assure Sir Joshua, in particular, that I have not lost my relish for manly conversation and the society of the brown table. I hope Colman has made a successful campaign. May I beg to be remembered to Mrs. Garrick? By this time she has probably discovered the philosopher's stone; she has long possessed a much more valuable secret,—that of gaining the hearts of all who have the happiness of knowing her.

"I am, dear Sir, most affectionately yours,

"E. Gibbon."

[371] FranÇoise Lambertine, daughter of Baron Kolbel, married, September 1, 1767, "a rich West Indian," Ralph Payne (knighted in 1771), a son of the Governor of St. Christopher's, and himself Governor of the Leeward Islands (1771-75). Sir Ralph represented various constituencies in Parliament from 1768 to 1799, and, with his wife, was prominent in London society. He was created Viscount Lavington. Lady Lavington survived her husband, who died in 1807, as Governor of Antigua and a bankrupt.

[372] The Hon. Fred. Cornwallis, Archbishop of Canterbury.

[373] Lord Mansfield, Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench.

[374] General (afterwards Sir William) Howe defeated Washington at Brandywine on September 11, 1777, and took possession of Philadelphia on the 27th.

[375] The Parliamentary session opened on November 18.

[376] Lord Chatham, in the House of Lords, moved an amendment to the address, that the army should be recalled, the late Acts rescinded, and every effort used to reunite with America. The same motion was made in the Lower House. But the amendments were rejected by large majorities in both Houses. On December 2, Fox moved for a committee of the whole House to inquire into the state of the nation, including the expenses and resources of the nation, the loss of men, the state of trade, the present situation of the war, our foreign relations, and the progress made by the Commissioners in bringing about peace. Lord North accepted the motion, and the committee sat for the first time on February 2, 1778. Parliament was adjourned from December 11, 1777, to January 20, 1778.

[377] General Burgoyne, after capturing Ticonderoga, pushed forwards towards the Hudson River, intending to invade the United States from the side of Canada. His supplies began to fail. The American forces gathered at Saratoga, and after several days' fighting, surrounded the British troops, whose strength was reduced to three thousand five hundred men. On October 17, 1777, Burgoyne surrendered to General Gates.

[378] Simon Fraser had served under Wolfe at Quebec with the Fraser Highlanders, and commanded a brigade during Burgoyne's campaign. Mortally wounded on October 7, 1777, he died October 8, and was buried, under a heavy fire, in one of the British redoubts.

[379] John Dyke Acland, best known by the devotion of his wife, Lady Harriet, was wounded and taken prisoner at Saratoga (October 9). He died in October, 1778, from a cold caught at a duel on Bampton Down, in Devonshire. He was then M.P. for Callington, in Cornwall.

[380] Wedderburn.

[381] Stephanie FÉlicitÉ Ducrest de St. Aubin (1746-1830) married, in 1761, the Comte de Genlis. Through her aunt, who was secretly married to the Duc d'OrlÉans, she became "gouvernante" to the duke's children by his first wife, a daughter of the Duc de PenthiÈvre,—Madame Adelaide, Louis Philippe, and three others. She was a voluminous and versatile writer. Her AdÈle et ThÉodore was published in 1782. "J'eus une liaison assez intime," she says in her MÉmoires (ii. 351), "avec M. Gibbon, auteur de la chute de l'empire romain, ouvrage anglais que nos philosophes ont beaucoup louÉ, parce qu'il renferme de trÈs mauvais principes, mais qui est, a tous Égards, un mauvais ouvrage, trÈs diffus, sans vues nouvelles, et fort ennuyeux."

[382] William Melmoth (1710-1799), "Pliny" Melmoth, as Miss Burney says he was nicknamed, was an author, commissioner of bankrupts, and a good classical scholar. In 1753 he published Cicero's Ad Familiares; in 1773, the De Senectute; and in 1777, the work referred to in the letter, De Amicitia.

[383] Lady George Germain (formerly Miss Diana Sambrooke) died of the measles, January 15, 1778.

[384] Gibbon voted against the Government (February 2) for Fox's motion, "That no more of the Old Corps be sent out of the Kingdom." The motion was rejected by 259 to 165.

[385] Probably, A Reply to the Reasonings of Mr. Gibbon, etc., by Smyth Loftus, M.A., Vicar of Coolock. Dublin, 1778.

[386] The Bills proposed by Lord North were: (1) "For removing all doubts and apprehensions concerning taxation by the Parliament of Great Britain in any of the Colonies;" (2) for the appointment of five commissioners to treat with the Colonies. By the first the claim of taxation was abandoned. A third Bill, for the express repeal of the Massachusetts Charter Act, was also supported by the Government. The three Bills received the royal assent on March 11, 1778. Walpole, writing to Mason, February 18th, 1778, says, "You perhaps, who have all ecclesiastical history at your finger-ends, may recollect something approaching to the transaction of yesterday, the 17th of February, a day of confession and humiliation that will be remembered as long as the name of England exists. Yesterday, Feb. 17th, did the whole Administration, by the mouth of their spokesman, Lord North, no, no, not resign; on the contrary, try to keep their places by a full and ample confession of all their faults, and by a still more extraordinary act, by doing full justice both to America and to the Opposition,—by allowing that the former are no cowards nor conquerable,—that they are no Rebels, for the new Commissioners are to treat with the Congress or anybody, and, by asking pardon by effects, i.e. the cancelling all offensive acts, and by acknowledging the independence of the 13 provinces, not verbally yet virtually."

[387] A solemn fast was kept on February 27, 1778.

[388] The treaty was also one of friendship. It was signed on February 6.

[389] Mr. Powys moved a clause to repeal expressly and by name the Massachusetts Charter Act. This clause was opposed by Lord North, and on a division was rejected. Lord North, however, supported a separate Bill for the attainment of the same object.

[390] The five commissioners, appointed on April 13, 1778, were Lord Carlisle, Lord Howe, Sir W. Howe, William Eden (afterwards Lord Auckland), and George Johnstone (ex-governor of Florida).

[391] M.P. for Cambridgeshire.

[392] The note formally announcing the Treaty of Commerce and Friendship between France and the United States, was delivered to Lord Weymouth on March 13, 1778. "On Saturday," writes Sir Gilbert Elliot to Lord Malmesbury, March 20, 1778, "all the French in London were sent to the opera, plays, clubs, coffee-houses, ale-houses, and spill-houses, to publish the intelligence, which they did with all their natural impertinence."

[393] On March 19 Fox moved three resolutions: (1) that the Canadian expedition was ill concerted, (2) that it was impossible it should succeed, (3) that no sufficient instructions to co-operate had been sent to General Howe. The resolutions were lost by 164 to 44. Fox then tore up the paper on which he had written the fourth resolution, a censure on Lord G. Germain.

[394] M. de Noailles left London at six in the morning to avoid insults. He and his wife were pelted by the mob as they passed through Canterbury; but the Government ordered a salute to be fired in his honour as he left Dover.

[395] David, seventh Viscount Stormont, who succeeded (1793) his uncle as second Earl of Mansfield, was at this time ambassador at Paris. In October, 1779, he was made one of the Secretaries of State. He was afterwards President of the Council under Pitt. He died in 1796.

[396] The three American deputies were presented to Louis XVI. on March 21, 1778, by M. de Vergennes, the Minister for Foreign Affairs.

[397] On December 30, 1777, the Elector of Bavaria died. With him was extinguished the male line of his house. Austria took the opportunity of occupying portions of Lower Bavaria, and the King of Prussia supported against her the claims of the elector's general heir and nearest male relation, the Elector Palatine of the Rhine. War began in July, 1778; but before negotiations were abandoned, Bohemia, Silesia, and Saxony were occupied by the forces of Austria and Prussia.

[398] Mr. Holroyd served as major in the Sussex Militia under the Duke of Richmond. The militia was in 1778 organized as a permanent force for the defence of the country.

[399] Miss Sarah Holroyd.

[400] Apparently an allusion to Dr. Delacour, Mrs. Gibbon's doctor at Bath.

[401] The Comte d'Estaing with the French fleet left Toulon on April 13, and arrived off Sandy Hook on July 8, 1778.

[402] General Burgoyne was refused admission to the royal presence. The Court of Enquiry was not held, as the general officers reported that they could not take cognizance of the conduct of an officer who was a prisoner on parole to the Congress. A court-martial was on similar grounds refused. Finally, on May 26, a motion was proposed for a committee of the whole House on Saratoga, which gave Burgoyne the opportunity of defending himself. The motion was opposed by the Government and rejected.

[403] Counsel and evidence were heard on Irish trade; but, by a compromise between the opponents and supporters of the projected bills for the relaxation of the commercial code, and in consequence of the opposition of English traders, Lord North's projected concessions were reduced to the smallest proportions and carried without divisions.

[404] Lord Chatham died May 11, 1778. The body lay in state in the Painted Chamber on the 7th and 8th of June, and was buried in Westminster Abbey on June 9. Parliament was adjourned from June 3 to November 26.

[405] Admiral Keppel, who left Portsmouth early in June, fell in with two French frigates, the Licorne and the Belle Poule, on June 17, 1778. The first he captured, the second was driven ashore. This action began the war with France.

[406] Summer encampments were established at Salisbury, Bury St. Edmunds, Winchester, Warley, and Coxheath in Kent. At the last-named place were stationed the 1st battalion of Royals, 2nd, 14th, 18th, 59th, and 65th Regiments of Foot, the 1st Regiment of Dragoons, and twelve regiments of militia. Coxheath was visited by the king and queen in November, 1778.

[407] Papers captured on a French frigate showed Keppel that a fleet superior to his own lay in Brest harbour. He therefore retired to Portsmouth. "And now," writes Walpole, July 4, 1778, "Mr. Keppel is returned, we learn that the East and West Indian fleets, worth four millions, are at stake, and the French frigates are abroad in pursuit of them."

[408] Lord Thurlow became Lord Chancellor in June, 1778, succeeding Earl Bathurst.

[409] William Gerard Hamilton ("Single-Speech"), at this time M.P. for Wareham, lived in Upper Brook Street. He was a brilliant talker. If Dr. Johnson was unwilling to part with a friend, he accompanied him down the first pair of stairs in hope of his return. With Hamilton he went as far as the street door. "Single-Speech Hamilton has been giving suppers to all the fine ladies," writes Storer to George Selwyn, April, 1779.

[410] After a fruitless search for the French fleet, Admiral Keppel returned to Portsmouth. "Admiral Keppel is very unlucky in having missed them, for they had not above twenty-five ships" (H. Walpole, October 8, 1778).

[411] War was declared in June, 1779, between Great Britain and Spain.

[412] Sir Charles Hardy, already over sixty years of age, as governor of Greenwich Hospital had retired from active service. He had not been to sea for many years, till he was now placed in command of the fleet.

[413] Wedderburn succeeded Thurlow as Attorney-General when the latter was made Chancellor (June, 1778).

[414] "The court of Denmark, when they gave orders for the release of our ships taken by Paul Jones, were very explicit in their declaration in our favour against America" (C. Townshend to G. Selwyn, October, 1778).

[415] Parliament met November 26, 1778. Gibbon refers to a pamphlet called Anticipation, which appeared the day before the opening of Parliament, and gave a summary of what would be said by the chief speakers. The author was Richard Tickell, grandson of Addison's contemporary, and a dependent of Lord North.

[416] The outbreak of a war with Holland at this time seemed probable. At the close of 1778 a number of petitions were presented from Dutch merchants to their High Mightinesses the States-General of the United Provinces, protesting against the right of search for contraband of war which was exercised by the British ships. In September, 1780, an American packet was captured, on board of which was Mr. Laurens, President of the Congress. A box of letters, which he threw overboard, floated, and was found to contain a draft treaty between the United States and Holland, and various letters from the "patriotic party," showing that Amsterdam at least wished for alliance as early as August, 1778. A memorial reciting these letters was delivered to the States-General in November, 1780, but no answer was returned. In December the British ambassador was recalled, and the Dutch ambassador left London, December 30, 1780.

[417] Ragoba or Ragonaut RÁo, an exiled Peshwah of Poonah, was supported by the English, and an expedition to reinstate him was despatched by Warren Hastings in the autumn of 1778.

[418] Pondicherry had already (October 17, 1778) surrendered to Sir Hector Munro, and Chandernagore had also fallen.

[419] Sir Henry Clinton, who had succeeded Sir W. Howe in the chief command in America, had sent five thousand men in October, 1778, to the Indies with Commodore Hotham.

[420] William Wildman, second Viscount Barrington (1717-1793), was succeeded as Secretary at War by Charles Jenkinson in December, 1778.

[421] The Admirals referred to were Sir Hugh Palliser and Admiral Keppel, both members of Parliament; Keppel being a Whig and opposed to Lord North, Palliser a staunch supporter of the Government. The dispute arose over the battle of Ushant. The English fleet under Keppel had met the French fleet under Count d'Orvilliers off Ushant on July 27, 1778. An indecisive engagement was fought. Keppel signalled to Sir Hugh Palliser to come up and renew the battle next morning; but Sir Hugh, whose own ship had suffered severely, was unable to do so. The French retired on the 29th to Brest, and Keppel to Portsmouth. Palliser made charges against Keppel, which led to a court-martial on the latter. The charges against him were pronounced to be malicious and ill founded, and his conduct was declared to have been that of a brave and experienced officer. Similar charges were made by the Comte d'Orvilliers against the Duc de Chartres, who commanded the Blue Squadron of the French fleet, and did not obey the signal of his superior officer.

[422] The expedition against Poonah failed. The English were surrounded, and the Convention of Wargaum restored to the Mahrattas all territory acquired since 1756, and Ragoba was given up to Scindiah (January, 1779).

[423] In November, 1778, the French fleet sailed for the West Indies. But St. Lucia was successfully defended by the British forces.

[424] Gibbon was on July 1, 1779, made a Lord Commissioner of Trade and Plantations—a place which he retained until 1782, when the Board was abolished, the work being transferred to the Secretaries of State. He had at one time hoped to obtain the Secretaryship to the Embassy at Paris (see Letter 476). The following lines were written on his acceptance of the Commissionership by, it is said, Charles Fox:—

"King George, in a fright

Lest Gibbon should write

The story of England's disgrace,

Thought no way so sure,

His pen to secure,

As to give the historian a place.

"But the caution is vain,—

'Tis the curse of his reign

That his projects should never succeed;

Though he wrote not a line,

Yet a course of decline

In the author's example we read.

"His book well describes

How corruption and bribes

O'erthrew the great empire of Rome;

And his ratings declare

A degeneracy there,

Which his conduct exhibits at home."

[425] In 1778 appeared An Examination of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Chapters of Mr. Gibbon's History, etc., by Henry Edward Davis, M.A., of Balliol College, Oxford. The author charged Gibbon with inaccuracy and plagiarism. He replied early in 1779 with his Vindication of some Passages in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Chapters of the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Walpole calls it "the quintessence of argument, wit, temper, spirit, and consequently of victory."

[426] The court-martial held at Portsmouth entirely acquitted Admiral Keppel on February 11. The news reached London that night. It was treated as a triumph for the Opposition. Ladies appeared at the opera in caps À la Keppel, and blue cockades bearing the Admiral's name were worn. His "Head" became a favourite alehouse sign. Houses were illuminated; guns discharged; bells rung; the windows of the houses of Sir H. Palliser, Lord North, Lord G. Germain, and Lord Sandwich were broken. Sir H. Palliser resigned his seat for Scarborough as well as all his employments, and asked for a court-martial, which acquitted him from any charge of misconduct. He underwent the operation to which Gibbon alludes. "Here are the exact, and all the words which the King said to him, the first time he was at Court afterwards—'Sir Hugh, how does your leg do?'" (Warner to Selwyn, May, 1779).

[427] The Opposition used every effort to make political capital out of the dispute between Keppel and Palliser. Motions were proposed by them on December 11, 1778, for the trial of Sir Hugh Palliser; on February 19, 1779, for the dismissal of Sir H. Palliser from the Navy; March 3, for a censure on the Admiralty for sending out Admiral Keppel with too small a force; on April 19, for the removal of the Earl of Sandwich from the Admiralty.

[428] The Sussex Militia were ordered to Exeter.

[429] Admiral Pigot, M.P. for Bridgnorth, brother of Lord Pigot. See Letter 311.

[430] Mr. Stratton was a member of the Madras Council, by which Lord Pigot was arrested.

[431] The House resolved on an address to the Crown for the prosecution of Stratton and other members of the Council. The case was tried in the Court of King's Bench, before Lord Mansfield, Wedderburn being for the prosecution and Dunning for the defence. The jury convicted (December 20, 21), and on February 10, 1780, Messrs. Stratton, Brooke, Floyer, and Mackay were fined £1000 apiece.

[432] In the daily papers of May 15, 1779, it was announced that "fourteen ships of the line" had sailed from Brest to attack Admiral Arbuthnot, who lay with a much smaller force at Torbay. Orders were sent to Portsmouth to fit out every available ship for his support.

[433] Sir Joshua Reynolds, in May to July, 1779, painted a portrait of Gibbon. But the picture here referred to is probably that by Wharton.

[434] On June 21 Lord North proposed a Bill for doubling the militia. The Bill was read a third time on June 24. The Lords (June 30) threw out the second clause, which empowered his Majesty "to direct the number of private men to serve in the militia to be doubled." On recommitment to the Commons, it was argued that the amendment was a breach of privilege, as the Bill was a Money Bill. Eventually the amendment was accepted, and the Bill, as amended, received the royal assent on July 3.

[435] Bamber Gascoyne, M.P. for Truro, was made a Commissioner of the Admiralty.

[436] M.P. for Lanarkshire.

[437] His colleagues were Soame Jenyns, Lord R. Spencer, Hon. Charles Greville, William Eden, and Thomas de Grey.

[438] Sir Francis Wronghead, of Bumper Hall, M.P. for Guzzledown, in The Provoked Husband; or, A Journey to London (Vanbrugh and Cibber).

[439] I.e. as a Commissioner of Trade.

[440] Mrs. Gibbon had recently paid a visit to Abergavenny.

[441] Major Holroyd had raised a regiment of horse, called the Sussex, or 22nd Regiment of Light Dragoons, of which he was colonel.

[442] Lord Macartney (1737-1806) was at that time Governor and Captain-General of the Caribbee Islands, and was at his post at Grenada in July, 1779, when that island was attacked, and, after a gallant defence, was captured by the French. Macartney was carried as prisoner of war to France, but was soon exchanged. Count d'Estaing's terms were that he should hold Macartney personally responsible for all the consequences of his refusal to surrender. Such of the inhabitants as were taken in arms would irrecoverably lose their estates and properties, and the free coloured people would be reduced to slavery.

[443] The ladies, returning from Spa, embarked at Ostend on the Fly sloop for Calais. On the voyage the sloop was attacked (September 17) by two French cutters. After a long engagement the French were beaten off.

[444] In 1779 a MÉmoire Justificatif was put forth both at Paris and Madrid to explain the zeal of two despotic monarchies for the new-born republic of the United States. Gibbon was requested by the Lord Chancellor and Lord Weymouth, then Secretary of State, to vindicate, against the French manifesto, the justice of the British arms. His MÉmoire, written in French, was approved by the Cabinet, and delivered as a State Paper to the courts of Europe. The MÉmoire is published in English in the Annual Register for 1779 (pp. 397-412), preceded by translations of the Spanish and French manifestoes. Beaumarchais wrote a reply to the MÉmoire, which he attributes to Lord Stormont (Observations sur le MÉmoire Justificatif de la cour de Londres. Œuvres de Beaumarchais. Edition 1809, vol. v. pp. 1-50).

[445] Parliament met November 25, 1779.

[446] On December 1, Lord Shelburne in the Lords, and, on December 6, Lord Ossory in the Commons, moved a vote of censure on the Government for their conduct in Ireland. The Volunteer movement spread rapidly; a French invasion was dreaded; the cry for "free trade" rose higher and higher; a non-importation agreement was entered into; and the relief of Dissenters from the sacramental test was demanded. In consequence of this pressure, Lord North (December 13, 1779) proposed and carried a series of resolutions granting free export trade to Ireland.

[447] "The character of my friend (Mr. Holroyd)," says Gibbon in his autobiography, "had recommended him to a seat in Parliament for Coventry, the command of a regiment of light dragoons, and an Irish peerage." The seat for Coventry was vacant by the death of Walter Waring, M.P.

[448] Towards the end of 1779, and in January, 1780, Yorkshire, Middlesex, Hampshire, and many other counties petitioned the House of Commons to grant no more taxes till the expenses of Government were reduced and sinecure places abolished. The tone of several of these county meetings seemed almost to threaten Civil War. Devonshire is said to have voted a fund for buying arms. The Yorkshire petition was presented by Sir George Saville, February 8, 1780.

[449] In Lord Sheffield's edition of this letter (Gibbon's Miscellaneous Works, vol. ii. p. 239), the words are given as "I hear your Sussex protest gathers signatures in the country." The protest was suggested and promoted by Colonel Holroyd.

[450] Brooks's Club, originally in Pall Mall, was moved to 60, St. James's Street, in 1778. Gibbon, proposed by Mr. St. John, was elected in 1777. In Richard Tickell's verses celebrating the Hon. John Townshend's return for Cambridge in 1780, occur the following lines:—

"And, know, I've bought the best champagne from Brookes.
From liberal Brookes, whose speculative skill
Is hasty credit, and a distant bill;
Who, nursed in clubs, disdains a vulgar trade,
Exults to trust and blushes to be paid."

[451] On February 11, Burke brought forward his scheme for securing the independence of Parliament, and for Economical Reform, in a speech which Lord North said was "such as no other member could have made." Besides other reductions of expense, he proposed to abolish altogether the Board of Trade, the Civil Branch of the Ordnance, and the third Secretaryship of State. Lord North allowed the Establishment Bill to be brought in, the only member who opposed its introduction being Lord George Gordon. The House of Commons went into Committee on the Bill, March 8, 1780.

[452] On January 16, 1780, Rodney encountered the Spanish Admiral Langara off Cape St. Vincent, won a complete victory, relieved Gibraltar, supplied Minorca, and proceeded to the West Indies. The San Domingo (70 guns) blew up; the flagship Phoenix (80 guns), and three other ships of 70 guns, were taken. The San Julian (70 guns), after her prize crew was put on board, ran ashore. Another ship, after her officers were shifted, was totally wrecked. Four, more or less damaged, escaped into Cadiz.

[453] On March 13, 1780, the Board of Trade was declared to be useless by 207 to 199. Burke alluded to the literary value of the Board, which had its separate professor for every department of literature, and paid a sneering compliment to the "historian's labours, the wise and salutary results of deep, religious researches." As an Academy of Belles Lettres he held the commissioners hallowed; as a Board of Trade he wished them abolished.

[454] In the debate on the Army Estimates and the new Levies (April 5, 1780), Fox commented on the manner in which Colonel Holroyd had raised his Regiment of Horse. It is to Holroyd's reply, and his explanation that the regiment was raised by him for active service, and not as a "fencible corps," that Gibbon refers.

[455] On June 2, 1780, Lord George Gordon presented the petition of the Protestant Association against the relaxation of the Penal Laws against the Roman Catholics. The "No Popery" riots took place on the 6th and 7th, when London was for some hours in the hands of the mob.

[456] On Wednesday night, June 7, the riot was quelled by military force. The Northumberland Militia, which reached London on June 7 by a forced march of twenty-five miles, were led by Colonel Holroyd into the thick of the riot at High Holborn, to prevent the mob advancing westward, and to protect, if possible, Mr. Langdale's distillery. By Thursday morning the tumult was entirely suppressed. "To Colonel Holroyd, since deservedly raised to the British peerage as Lord Sheffield, the Country was eminently indebted for repelling the fury of the Mob at the Bank" (Wraxall's Historical Memoirs, 3rd edit., vol. i. p. 351).

[457] The session ended July 8, 1780.

[458] Lord Mansfield.

[459] Sir Henry Clinton had captured Charleston, May 12, 1780. Early in June, he re-embarked on Admiral Arbuthnot's fleet and returned to New York. Sir Henry was married to Miss Harriett Carter, a first cousin of Colonel Holroyd.

[460] Admiral (cr. 1794 Lord) Graves sailed, June, 1780, with six ships of the line, to reinforce Admiral Arbuthnot at Long Island, and joined him in July. The French fleet under d'Estaing was at the same time strengthened.

[461] Parliament was dissolved September 1, 1780.

[462] The Hon. Wilbraham Tollemache was elected in Gibbon's place for Liskeard.

[463] The newly elected Parliament met October 31, 1780. Gibbon was elected, at a by-election, M.P. for Lymington, June 25, 1781.

[464] Alexander Wedderburn succeeded Sir W. de Grey (afterwards Lord Walsingham) as Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, with the title of Lord Loughborough (June, 1780).

[465] Admiral Rodney and Charles Fox were elected for Westminster, September 22, 1780, against Lord Lincoln.

[466] Admiral Keppel was returned for Surrey, after being defeated at Windsor by Portlock Powney. George III. canvassed for the latter. "The pony with the powerful rider has carried away the plate" (Warner to G. Selwyn, September, 1780).

[467] Edward James Eliot, eldest son of Mr. Eliot, was elected for St. Germains. He was made a Commissioner of the Treasury in July, 1782.

[468] William Eden, M.P. for Woodstock, was appointed in October, 1780, principal secretary to the Lord Lieutenant and Privy Council of Ireland.

[469] Benjamin Langlois, M.P. for St. Germains in the last Parliament, made room for Mr. Dudley Long. He was made keeper of his Majesty's stores, ordnance, and ammunition of war in June, 1778, and was appointed a Commissioner for Trade and Plantations vice Soame Jenyns.

[470] The Gazette for December, 1780, announces that the grant of the dignity of a baron of the kingdom of Ireland was conferred on John Baker Holroyd, Esq.—Baron Sheffield, of Dunamore, in the county of Meath. "I had a long conversation," writes Miss Burney in 1781, "with the new Lord Sheffield. He gave me a long account of his Coventry affairs, and of the commitment of the sheriffs to Newgate. He is a spirited and agreeable man, and, I doubt not, will make himself conspicuous in the right way."

[471] At the general election in September, 1780, Colonel Holroyd's re-election for Coventry was prevented by no return being made. After a hearing before the House, the sheriffs of Coventry were committed to Newgate, and a new election ordered. The poll began towards the end of November, and remained open for thirty days. At the close, though a large majority voted for Colonel Holroyd and Mr. Yeo, Sir Thomas Hallifax and Mr. Thomas Rogers were declared duly elected. The unsuccessful candidates petitioned against the return. The first day on which a committee could be balloted for was June 26, 1781. But on the motion of Lord Beauchamp (January 23) the petition of Lord Sheffield and Mr. Yeo was referred to a committee for February 15. The return was amended by an order of the House, dated February 27, 1781, by substituting for Hallifax and Rogers the names of Colonel Holroyd (who in the interval had been created Lord Sheffield) and Mr. Edward Roe Yeo.

[472] Lord Buckinghamshire was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. The reference is to Colonel Holroyd's elevation to the Irish peerage as Lord Sheffield.

[473] The Empress Maria Theresa died November 29, 1780.

[474] The second and third volumes of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Gibbon had presented his first volume of the Decline and Fall to the Duke of Gloucester. When the second volume appeared, it was, in like manner, presented to the Duke, who "received the author with much good nature and affability, saying to him, as he laid the quarto on the table, 'Another d—mn'd thick, square book! Always scribble, scribble, scribble! Eh! Mr. Gibbon?'" (Best's Personal and Literary Memorials, p. 68). "You will be diverted to hear," writes Walpole to Mason, January 27, 1781, "that Mr. Gibbon has quarrelled with me. He lent me his second volume in the middle of November. I returned it with a most civil panegyric. He came for more incense; I gave it, but alas! with too much sincerity; I added, 'Mr. Gibbon, I am sorry you should have pitched on so disgusting a subject as the Constantinopolitan History. There is so much of the Arians and Eunomians, and semi-Pelagians; and there is such a strange contrast between Roman and Gothic manners, and so little harmony between a Consul Sabinus and a Ricimer, Duke of the Palace, that though you have written the story as well as it could be written, I fear few will have patience to read it.' He coloured: all his round features squeezed themselves into sharp angles; he screwed up his button-mouth, and rapping his snuff-box, said, 'It had never been put together before'—so well, he meant to add—but gulped it. He meant so well certainly, for Tillemont, whom he quotes in every page, has done the very thing. I well knew his vanity, even about his ridiculous face and person, but thought he had too much sense to avow it so palpably."

[475] "When he ascended the throne, his pride was sometimes cruelly mortified by the reflection that the slaves who would not dare to censure his defects were not worthy to applaud his virtues" (Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. iii. ch. xxii.). Gibbon quotes the sentiments from the words of Julian himself (Ammianus, xxii. 10).

[476] Probably General Sir Richard Pearson, K.B., who died suddenly at Bath of gout in the stomach, February 13, 1781.

[477] Mrs. Hutcheson, whose maiden name was Lawrence, married as her first husband Colonel Steward. Her second husband, Archibald Hutcheson, M.P. for Hastings, at the time of his death (1740) commended her to the guidance of William Law. She was joined by Miss Hester Gibbon, and the two ladies, in 1743, settled at King's Cliffe, in a house belonging to Law. There Mrs. Hutcheson founded a school for boys. She died at the age of ninety-one, in January, 1781, and, at her own request, was buried at the feet of Mr. Law.

[478] William Hayley (1745-1820) was a voluminous poet. Byron (English Bards and Scotch Reviewers) attacks him with severity—

"Whether he spin poor couplets into plays,
Or damn the dead with purgatorial praise,
His style in youth or age is still the same,
For ever feeble and for ever tame."

In 1780 he had addressed to Gibbon An Essay on History, in Three Epistles. He married, in 1769, Eliza Ball, daughter of the Dean of Chichester. The marriage proved unhappy; but it should be added that Mrs. Hayley adopted her husband's illegitimate son, who, born in 1780, afterwards became the sculptor, and treated him as her own child. In 1789 Hayley was separated from his wife, whose mind had become affected. Hayley was at this time living at Eartham, in Sussex, a property which he had inherited from his father.

Transcriber's note:

Variations in spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been retained.

Corrections have been made for Volume 1 as listed in the Errata.

Page 44: The original had a blank area where the transcriber has inserted a dash as follows:

"and the accession of a just and righteous prince. Lord —— was ..."

The following two sidenotes appear in the margin of page 395 next to the pararaphs which follow. All other sidenotes appear at the top of alternate pages:

[Sidenote: December 31st, 1780.]

A profane historian will depart from Bentinck Street, London, and drink tea, sup and lye at Newbury in Berkshire.

[Sidenote: January 1st, 1781.]

The same historian will gently proceed from Newbury to Bath till he reaches the aerial cell of the Fairy of the Green, or more probably the white mountain. It is apprehended that the said Fairy will not be able to dine that day before four o'clock in the afternoon.

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