Upon my arrival at Besançon I saw Mr. Acton[50] directly. He has received me with a degree not only of civility but of friendship which astonished me, insisted upon my taking an appartment in his house, and since my seeing him, himself and his three sons (our Southampton friend is one) have been only taken up in procuring me every kind of amusement, in carrying me to all my father's friends here who have all enquired much after him, in seeing publick places, and in parties at home and abroad. The only inconvenience is that I have not an instant to myself and that I am forced to write this scrawl at half an hour after one in the morning. The day after to-morrow I set out for Lausanne, where I shall be a little quieter. The Acton family desire to be remembered to my father.
I am, Dear Madam,
Yours and my father's with the truest affection,
E. G., Junior.
25.
To his Father.
Lausanne, May the 31st, 1763.
Dear Sir,
BESANÇON.
I staid four or five days at Besançon longer than I intended, so that I got here only the 25th. It was even with some difficulty that I could disengage myself so soon from Mr. Acton's civilities. Indeed nothing could exceed them. Not only they insisted upon my lodging in the house, but during the time I passed in it, the sole business of the family seemed to be finding out amusements for me. They carried me to the best houses in the place, showed me whatever was worth seeing, and made several parties for me in the country. What I saw of Besançon pleased me so much, that, could I have stayed there without being an inconvenience to them, I should have liked to have stayed a few days or even weeks longer. Mr. Acton is the best sort of man in the world, and is bent on doing everything most agreable. He has a great deal of business, many friends and a very high reputation. He has indeed unluckily been too long out of England to remember his own language, and not long enough in France, to have learnt that of the country. He talked a vast deal of you, and tho' it is so long since you have been there, I have found your memory very fresh & many people who have enquired after you. The two sisters in particular of your écuyer (I have forgot their names) talked to me by the hour of their old friend Monsieur de Guibon. As to Acton's wife, you know the character Mrs. Darrel gives of her, and I was sorry to find it is pretty well established at Besançon; but she is certainly a very agreable and sensible woman, and I should have taken her for a very good-natured one. If she is a termagant I never saw such a Wolf in sheep's cloathing.
At last, Dear Sir, I am got to Lausanne and established very agreably among my old acquaintance, and in a way of life I like extremely, a moderate mixture of society and study. News from a place so very quiet and obscure you cannot expect. I have however seen an old friend of ours who has just left us; Sir Willoughby Aston.[51] He had been here about a twelfmonth with Lady Aston and his numerous [family], and are just gone to Tours in France. Nobody could guess why. They lived very cheap here; Lady Aston had as many rubbers of Whist, and Sir Willoughby as many bottles of wine every day as they wanted. What could they have more? Sir Willoughby asked much after you, and was glad to see me to talk over Winchester camp and Reading court martial.