(1247) Charles, fifth Lord Cornwallis. He was created an earl in 1753, and died in 1762.-D.
(1248) James, sixth Duke of Hamilton: died in 1758.-D.
(1249) "The Duke," says Sir Walter Scott, " was received with all the honours due to conquest; and all the incorporated bodies of the capital, from the guild brethren to the butchers, desired his acceptance of the freedom of their craft, or corporation." Billy the Butcher was one of his by-names.-E.
(1250) Charles Stuart, fifth Earl of Traquair.-D.
494 Letter 212 To George Montagu, Esq. Arlington Street, Aug. 2, 1746.
Dear George, You have lost nothing by missing yesterday at the trials, but a little additional contempt for the High Steward; and even that is recoverable, as his long, paltry speech is to be printed; for which, and for thanks for it, Lord Lincoln moved the House of Lords. Somebody said to Sir Charles Windham, "Oh! you don't think Lord Hardwicke's speech good, because you have read Lord Cowper's."—"No," replied he; "but I do think it tolerable, because I heard Serjeant Skinner's."(1251) Poor brave old Balmerino retracted his plea, asked pardon, and desired the Lords to intercede for mercy. As he returned to the Tower, he stopped the coach at Charing-cross to buy honey-blobs as the Scotch call gooseberries. He says he is extremely afraid Lord Kilmarnock will not behave well. The Duke said publicly at his levee, that the latter proposed murdering the English prisoners. His Highness was to have given Peggy Banks a ball last night; but was persuaded to defer it, as it would have rather looked like an insult on the prisoners, the very day their sentence was passed. George Selwyn says that he had begged Sir William Saunderson to get him the High Steward's wand, after it was broke, as a curiosity; but that he behaved so like an attorney the first day, and so like a pettifogger the second, that he would not take it to light his fire with; I don't believe my Lady Hardwicke is so high-minded.
Your cousin Sandwich(1252) is certainly going on an embassy to Holland. I don't know whether it is to qualify him, by new dignity, for the head of the admiralty, or whether (which is more agreeable to present policy) to satisfy him instead of it. I know when Lord Malton,(1253) who was a young earl, asked for the garter, to stop his pretensions, they made him a marquis. When Lord Brooke, who is likely to have ten sons, though he has none yet, asked to have his barony settled on his daughters, they refused him with an earldom; and they professed making Pitt paymaster, in order to silence the avidity of his faction.
Dear George, I am afraid I shall not be in your neighbourhood, as I promised myself. Sir Charles Williams has let his house. I wish you would one day whisk over and look at Harley House. The inclosed advertisement makes it sound pretty, though I am afraid too large for me. Do look at it impartially: don't be struck at first sight with any brave old windows; but be so good as to inquire the rent, and if I can have it for a year, and with any furniture. I have not had time to copy out the verses, but you shall have them soon. Adieu, with my compliments to your sisters.
(1251) Matthew Skinner, afterwards a Welsh judge.-E.
(1252) John, the fourth Earl of Sandwich; son of Edward Richard, Viscount Hichinbrooke. He signed the treaty of peace at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748.