190.
To J. B. Holroyd, Esq.
Boodle's, Wednesday Evening, March 16th, 1774.
Your Epistle of Sunday was not received till Monday night 12 o'Clock, Consequently your Commissions ceased of Course.
*I was this morning with Newton. He was positive that the attempt to settle the preliminaries of Arbitration by Letters, would lead us on till the middle of the Summer, and that a Meeting was the only practicable Measure. I acquiesced, and we blended his Epistle and yours into one, which goes by this post. If you can contrive to suit to it your Oxford journey, your presence at the Meeting would be received as the descent of a Guardian Angel.
THE BOSTON PORT BILL.
Very little that is satisfactory has transpired of America. On Monday Lord N[orth] moved for leave to bring in a Bill to remove the Customs and Courts of Justice from Boston to New Salem; a step so detrimental to the former town, as must soon reduce it to your own terms; and yet of so mild an appearance, that it was agreed to, without a division, and almost without a debate.[226] Something more is, however, intended, and a Committee is appointed to inquire into the general state of America. But administration keep their Secret as well as that of Free Masonry, and, as Coxe profanely suggests, for the same reason.
Don't you remember that in our Pantheon Walks we admired the modest beauty of Mrs. Horneck?[227] Eh bien! alas! she is * * *. You ask me with whom? with Scawen, of the Guards; both the Storers, Hodges, a Steward of Lady Albemarle's, her first love, and half the town besides. A Meeting of Horneck's friends assembled about a Week ago, to consult of the best method of acquainting him with his frontal honours. Edmund Burke was named as the Orator, and communicated the transaction in a most Eloquent speech.