[381] Stephanie Félicité Ducrest de St. Aubin (1746-1830) married, in 1761, the Comte de Genlis. Through her aunt, who was secretly married to the Duc d'Orléans, she became "gouvernante" to the duke's children by his first wife, a daughter of the Duc de Penthièvre,—Madame Adelaide, Louis Philippe, and three others. She was a voluminous and versatile writer. Her Adèle et Théodore was published in 1782. "J'eus une liaison assez intime," she says in her Mémoires (ii. 351), "avec M. Gibbon, auteur de la chute de l'empire romain, ouvrage anglais que nos philosophes ont beaucoup loué, parce qu'il renferme de très mauvais principes, mais qui est, a tous égards, un mauvais ouvrage, très diffus, sans vues nouvelles, et fort ennuyeux."
[382] William Melmoth (1710-1799), "Pliny" Melmoth, as Miss Burney says he was nicknamed, was an author, commissioner of bankrupts, and a good classical scholar. In 1753 he published Cicero's Ad Familiares; in 1773, the De Senectute; and in 1777, the work referred to in the letter, De Amicitia.
[383] Lady George Germain (formerly Miss Diana Sambrooke) died of the measles, January 15, 1778.
[384] Gibbon voted against the Government (February 2) for Fox's motion, "That no more of the Old Corps be sent out of the Kingdom." The motion was rejected by 259 to 165.
[385] Probably, A Reply to the Reasonings of Mr. Gibbon, etc., by Smyth Loftus, M.A., Vicar of Coolock. Dublin, 1778.
[386] The Bills proposed by Lord North were: (1) "For removing all doubts and apprehensions concerning taxation by the Parliament of Great Britain in any of the Colonies;" (2) for the appointment of five commissioners to treat with the Colonies. By the first the claim of taxation was abandoned. A third Bill, for the express repeal of the Massachusetts Charter Act, was also supported by the Government. The three Bills received the royal assent on March 11, 1778. Walpole, writing to Mason, February 18th, 1778, says, "You perhaps, who have all ecclesiastical history at your finger-ends, may recollect something approaching to the transaction of yesterday, the 17th of February, a day of confession and humiliation that will be remembered as long as the name of England exists. Yesterday, Feb. 17th, did the whole Administration, by the mouth of their spokesman, Lord North, no, no, not resign; on the contrary, try to keep their places by a full and ample confession of all their faults, and by a still more extraordinary act, by doing full justice both to America and to the Opposition,—by allowing that the former are no cowards nor conquerable,—that they are no Rebels, for the new Commissioners are to treat with the Congress or anybody, and, by asking pardon by effects, i.e. the cancelling all offensive acts, and by acknowledging the independence of the 13 provinces, not verbally yet virtually."
[387] A solemn fast was kept on February 27, 1778.
[388] The treaty was also one of friendship. It was signed on February 6.
[389] Mr. Powys moved a clause to repeal expressly and by name the Massachusetts Charter Act. This clause was opposed by Lord North, and on a division was rejected. Lord North, however, supported a separate Bill for the attainment of the same object.
[390] The five commissioners, appointed on April 13, 1778, were Lord Carlisle, Lord Howe, Sir W. Howe, William Eden (afterwards Lord Auckland), and George Johnstone (ex-governor of Florida).