[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.