George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life

by George Augustus Selwyn

[1774,] July 30, Saturday night, Almack's.—I write my letter from hence, from the habitude of making this place my bureau, not that there is anybody here, or that there was the least probability of my finding anybody here. The last post night I was obliged to have an amanuensis, as you will know to-morrow morning when the post comes in. I had got a small particle of shining sand in my eye that during the whole day, but particularly at night, gave me most exquisite pain, and prevented me from writing to you, which, next to receiving your letters, is one of my great pleasures. So this was un grand evenement pour moi, par une petite cause. While the writer was writing, Hare came in, and he said that he would finish the letter for me, but what they both wrote God knows.

Storer I suppose set out yesterday for Castle H(oward), and I take for granted will be with you before this letter. March has been out of town ever since Monday till to-day. He has been at a Mr. Darell's in Cambridgeshire, who has a wife I believe with a black eye and low forward [forehead]. I guessed as much by his stay, and young Thomas who came up with him to town told me it was so.

I supped last night at Lady Hertford's with the two Fitzroys, Miss Floyd, and Lord F. Cavendish;(110) and to-day, Lady Hertford, Miss Floyd, and Lord Frederick and I dined at Colonel Kane's, who is settled in the Stable Yard, and in a damned good house, plate, windows cut down to the floor, elbowing his Majesty with an enormous bow window. The dog is monstrously well nipped; he obtrudes his civilities upon me, malgre que j'en ai, and will in time force me not to abuse him. He would help me to-day to some venison, and how he contrived it, I don't know, but for want of the Graces he cut one of my fingers to the bone, that I might as well have dined at a cut-fingered ordinary.

I am diverted with your threats that I shall have short letters, because you are plagued with Northumberland disputes. You say that you have every post letters to write, and so you will have them to write for some time, for the Devil take me if I believe that you have wrote or will write one of them. A good ronfle for that, an't please your Honour, with about twenty sheets of paper spread about upon the table, and on each of them the beginning of a letter.

You know me very well also in thinking that my heart fails me as the time of my going to Gloucester approaches. I made a very stout resistance a fortnight ago, notwithstanding Harris's importunate summons, and now he plainly confesses in a letter which I received from him to-day, that my coming down upon that pretended meeting would have been nugatory, as he calls it. The Devil take them; I have wished him and his Corporation in Newgate a thousand times. But there will be no trifling after the end of this next week. The Assizes begin on Monday sevennight. Then the Judges will be met, a terrible show, for I shall be obliged to dine with them, and be in more danger from their infernal cooks than any of the criminals who are to be tried, excepting those who will be so unfortunate as to have our jurisconsult for their advocate.

I would not advise you to be unhappy about Caroline's(111) want of erudition; a very little science will do at present, and much cannot be poured into the neck of so small a vessel at once. I agree with you that it is not to be wished that she should be a savante, and she will know what others know. I have no doubt there is time enough for her to read, and little Morpeth(112) to walk.

There is, I grant you, more reason to fear for Hare. Boothby(113) assures me that as yet no prejudice has been done to his fortune. I have my doubts of that, but am clear that he runs constant risk of being very uneasy. But there is no talking to him; he has imbibed so much of Charles's ton of qu'importe, que cela peut mener a l'hopital.

Lady Holland(114) will be removed on Monday, and my thief one of her outriders. All Lord Holland's servants, since he had that house at Kingsgate, have been professed smugglers, and John, as I am informed, was employed in vending for them some of their contraband goods, for which he was to be allowed a profit. He sold the goods, and never accounted with his principals for a farthing; and so now they place him to sit up with the corps[e] of the family, and to act as one of their undertakers, that they may be in part reimbursed. This is the dessous des cartes, qui est veritablement comique, et singulier. Ste, &c., will be here about the end of the week.

I hear that the night that Charles sat up at White's, which was that preceding the night of Lady Holland's death, he planned out a kind of itinerant trade, which was going from horse race to horse race, and so, by knowing the value and speed of all the horses in England, to acquire a certain fortune.

I learned from Bore to-day, that Sir G. M'Cartney is a debtor to the family as well as myself, and his debt is to the amount of five thousand pounds, which I am afraid he will find it difficult to raise.