After noticing the changes in the ministry, and conferring of honours on, and the granting of pensions to persons of no great public importance, Mrs. Scott turns to the death of the great master of the ceremonies at Bath, Beau Nash, and to the conduct of the great statesman, Mr. Pitt. “Mr. Nash, I believe, died since I wrote to you, and all his effects are to be sold for the benefit of his creditors, but will not prove sufficient to pay his debts. Collett now officiates as his successor, though others are talked of for that noble post; but as neither the corporation nor the keeper of the rooms seem disposed to annex any salary to it, I imagine Collett will continue in possession; for I think no one else will do it without other reward than the honour and profit arising therefrom.”
Collett, after brief possession of the post so long held by Nash, was succeeded by Derrick, an adventurer in whom Bath was as much interested as England was in Pitt, of whom Mrs. Scott thus writes: “Mr. Pitt still continues in his post. Without connections of any sort, without the power of conferring honours or places, he commands imperiously, and forces obedience from mere superiority of parts and integrity. As a statesman he is self-existent, and depends on none, nor has any dependent on him. He does not see his oldest friends but when they have business to impart, obliges none by private benefits, nor engages any by social intercourse. His mind seems too great for any object less than a whole nation. There is something very new and extremely surprising in his conduct. He is an Almanzor in politicks. He is himself alone. How long he can stand thus, only time can show. As there was scarcely ever an instance of the like, we have no precedents by which to form conjectures. National prejudices about Scotchmen are lulled asleep. Lord Bute is high in favour; the city is pleased with him; the Tories much attached to him. The king is still generally applauded. Our sex went in such numbers to the House of Lords at the closing of the session, to see his Majesty on the throne, that good part of the company fainted away, and not above three lords had room to sit down....
“My brother Matt is at present prosecuting the minister of Lyminge for non-residence, in revenge for some offence he has given him about the tithes; and my father bids fair for being engaged in prosecuting a clergyman at Canterbury, for saying he was in the Rebellion in the year ’16.... Report says that the Duchess of Richmond and some other ladies, whose husbands are going or gone to Germany, are going there likewise, and are to be at Brunswick. I much question whether their husbands will rejoice in their company, but certainly Prince Ferdinand will not be fond of such auxiliaries. It is the oddest party of pleasure I ever heard of. Thomas Diaforus, who invites his mistress to the lively amusement of making one at a dissection, would be an agreeable lover to these ladies.... Perhaps they think Germany may afford them more of their husbands’ company than they can obtain in England; for some among them would think that a valuable acquisition, and possibly they may not be mistaken, for a drum that leads to battle may not be so powerful a rival to a wife as one that leads its followers only to coquetry.”
Mrs. Scott’s reference to Pitt, secretary of state and soul of the ministry, of which the old imbecile Duke of Newcastle was the nominal head, seems to have been made with Almanzor’s lines in her memory.
“Know, that I alone am king of me!
I am as free as Nature first made man,
Ere the base laws of servitude began,
When wild in woods the noble savage ran.
I saw th’ oppress’d, and thought it did belong
To a king’s office to redress the wrong,” etc.