[172] May 27, 1772.—"This afternoon three ships belonging to his Britannic Majesty cast anchor in the road of Elsineur. They are to convoy her Danish Majesty to Stade in her way to Zell" (Annual Register).
[173] Probably Mr. Benjamin Way, the brother of Lady Sheffield. His wife was a daughter of Dr. Cooke, Provost of King's College, Cambridge.
[174] In Poland, desultory hostilities had been carried on for several years between the Roman Catholics, favoured by France, and the Dissidents (i.e. those embracing any other form of Christian faith), supported by Russia. Taking advantage of the anarchy which King Stanislaus Poniatowski was powerless to control, Frederick the Great, the Empress Catherine, and the Emperor Joseph II. proposed to occupy those provinces which were respectively most contiguous to their own dominions. The result was the partition of Poland, August, 1772. Field-Marshal Laudohn (1716-1790) is said to have been of Scottish origin. During the Seven Years' War he had proved himself, at the head of the Austrian forces, a formidable antagonist to Frederick the Great.
[175] John William Holroyd, at that time the only son of Mr. Holroyd.
[176] Eldest son of Sir Matthew Featherstonhaugh, and his successor in the baronetcy.
[177] Sir John Rous, M.P. for Suffolk, died October 31, 1771, and from his widow Gibbon took 7 Bentinck Street, where he lived till September, 1783.
[178] William Jolliffe, M.P. for Petersfield, Commissioner of Trade and Plantations.
[179] Parliament adjourned from December 23, 1772, to January 22, 1773.
[180] An allusion to Lord North's habit of sleeping in the House of Commons. He slumbered, as Gibbon says in his Autobiography, between the Attorney-General (Thurlow) and the Solicitor-General (Wedderburn), who roused him when it was necessary that he should speak. On one occasion a member of the Opposition exclaimed, in reproach of his somnolence, "Even now the noble lord is slumbering over the ruin of his country!" "I wish to Heaven," muttered Lord North, slowly opening his eyes, "that I was!"
[181] Her daughter, Sophia Matilda (1773-1844), was born May 29, 1773.