We know nothing certainly of the young Pretender, but that he is concealed in Scotland, and devoured with distempers - I really wonder how an Italian constitution can have supported such rigours! He has said, that "he did not see what he had to be ashamed of; and that if he had lost one battle, he had gained two." Old Lovat curses Cope and Hawley for the loss of those two, and says, if they had done their duty, he had never been in this scrape. Cope is actually going to be tried; but Hawley, who is fifty times more culpable, is saved by partiality: Cope miscarried by incapacity; Hawley, by insolence and carelessness.
Lord Cromartie is reprieved; the Prince asked his life, and his wife made great intercession. Duke Hamilton's intercession for Lord Kilmarnock has rather hurried him to the block: he and Lord Balmerino are to die next Monday. Lord Kilmarnock, with the greatest nobleness of soul, desired to have Lord Cromartie preferred to himself for pardon, if there could be but one saved; and Lord Balmerino laments that himself and Lord Lovat were not taken at the same time; "For then," says he, "we might have been sacrificed, and those other two brave men escaped." Indeed Lord Cromartie does not much deserve the epithet; for he wept whenever his execution was mentioned. Balmerino is jolly with 'his pretty Peggy. There is a remarkable story of him at the battle of Dunblain, where the Duke of Argyll, his colonel, answered for him, on his being suspected. He behaved well; but as soon as we had gained the victory, went off with his troop to the Pretender: protesting that he had never feared death but that day, as he had been fighting against his conscience. Popularity has changed sides since the year '15, for now the city and the generality are very angry that so Many rebels have been pardoned. Some of those taken at Carlisle dispersed papers at their execution, saying they forgave 'all men but three, the Elector of Hanover, the pretended Duke of Cumberland, and the Duke of Richmond, who signed the capitulation at Carlisle.(1273)
Wish Mr. Hobart joy of ])is new lordship; his father took his seat to-day as Earl of Buckingham -. Lord Fitzwilliam is made English earl with him, by his old title. Lord TankerVille(1274) goes governor to Jamaica: a cruel method of recruiting a prodigal nobleman's broken fortune, by sending him to pillage a province! Adieu!
P. S. I have taken a pretty house at Windsor and am going thither for the remainder of the summer.
(1264) Charles Sackville, eldest son of Lionel, Duke of Dorset, a Lord of the Treasury.
(1265) She was born at Vienna, in February, 1724-5, and married to Garrick, the celebrated actor, in June, 1749. She died in October, 1822, in the ninety-eighth year of her age.-E.
(1266) Second daughter of Thomas, Earl of Pomfret, and sister of Lady Granville.
(1267) William Finch, brother of the Earl of Winchilsea, had been ambassador in Holland.
(1268) Son of the Earl of Harrington, Secretary of State.
(1269) Eldest daughter of Charles, Duke of Grafton, Lord Chamberlain.