'Your most obedient humble servant, 'DEBBY.
This is the very model of a dun, and proves how handsomely such ugly things can be done when one has to deal with a noble instead of a plebeian creditor.
But Selwyn had not only to endure such indignities, but also to inflict them, as appears by the following letter to him from the Honourable General Fitzpatrick, in answer to a dun, which, we are assured, was 'gentle and moderate.'
'I am very sorry to hear the night ended so ill; but to give you some idea of the utter impossibility of my being useful on the occasion, I will inform you of the state of my affairs. I won L400 last night, which was immediately appropriated by Mr Martindale, to whom I still owe L300, and I am in Brookes' book for thrice that sum. Add to all this, that at Christmas I expect an inundation of clamorous creditors, who, unless I somehow or other scrape together some money to satisfy them, will overwhelm me entirely. What can be done? If I could coin my heart, or drop my blood into drachms, I would do it, though by this time I should probably have neither heart nor blood left. I am afraid you will find Stephen in the same state of insolvency. Adieu! I am obliged to you for the gentleness and moderation of your dun, considering how long I have been your debtor.
'Yours most sincerely, 'R. F.'(119)
(119) Apud Selwyn and his Contemporaries by Jesse.
Selwyn is said to have been a loser on the whole, and often pillaged. Latterly he appears to have got the better of his propensity for play, if we may judge from the following wise sentiment:—'It was too great a consumer,' he said, 'of four things—time, health, fortune, and thinking.' But a writer in the Edinburgh Review seems to doubt Selwyn's reformation; for his initiation of Wilberforce occurred in 1782, when he was 63; and previously, in 1776, he underwent the process of dunning from Lord Derby, before-mentioned, and in 1779 from Mr Crawford ('Fish Crawford,' as he was called), each of whom, like Mr Shafto, 'had a sum to make up'—in the infernal style so horridly provoking, even when we are able and willing to pay. However, as Selwyn died comparatively rich, it may be presumed that his fortune suffered to no great extent by his indulgence in the vice of gaming.
The following are some of George Selwyn's jokes relating to gambling:—
One night, at White's, observing the Postmaster-General, Sir Everard Fawkener, losing a large sum of money at Piquet, Selwyn, pointing to the successful player, remarked—'See now, he is robbing the MAIL!'
On another occasion, in 1756, observing Mr Ponsonby, the Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, tossing about bank-bills at a Hazard table at Newmarket—'Look,' he said, 'how easily the Speaker passes the money-bills!'