I begin a new sheet to you, which does not match with the other, for I have no more of the same paper here. Dr. Cameron is executed, and died with the greatest firmness. His parting with his wife the night before was heroic and tender: he let her stay till the last moment, when being aware that the gates of the Tower would be locked, he told her so; she fell at his feet in agonies: he said, "Madam, this was not what you promised me," and embracing her, forced her to retire; then with the same coolness, looked at the window till her coach was out of sight, after which he turned about and wept. His only concern seemed to be at the ignominy of Tyburn: he was not disturbed at the dresser for his body, or at the fire to burn his bowels.(400) The crowd was so great, that a friend who attended him could not get away, but was forced to stay and behold the execution: but what will you say to the minister or priest who accompanied him? The wretch, after taking leave, went into a landau, where, not content with seeing the Doctor hanged, he let down the top of the landau for the better convenience of seeing him embowelled! I cannot tell you positively that what I hinted of this Cameron being commissioned from Prussia was true, but so it is believed. Adieu! my dear child; I think this is a very tolerable letter for summer!
(397) It was a view of the south side towards the northeast.
(398) An ancestor of Sir Robert Walpole, who was knight of the garter.
(399) An allusion to Mr. Pelham.
(400) "The populace," says Smollet, though not very subject to tender emotions, were moved to compassion, and even to tears, by his behaviour at the place of execution; and many sincere well-wishers to the present establishment thought that the sacrifice of this victim, at such a juncture, could not redound either to its honour or security."-E.
173 Letter 81 To George Montagu, Esq. Strawberry Hill, July 17, 1753.
Dear sir, You are so kind, that I am peevish with myself for not being able to fix a positive day for being with you; as near as I can guess, it will be some of the very first days of the next month: I am engaged to go with Lady Ailesbury and Mr. Conway to Stowe, the 28th of this month, if some little business which I have here does not prevent me; and from thence I propose to meet Mr. Chute at Greatworth. If this should at all interfere with your schemes, tell me so; especially, I must beg that you would not so far depend on me as to stay one minute from doing any thing else you like, because it is quite impossible for me to be sure that I can execute just at the time I propose such agreeable projects. Meeting Mrs. Trevor will be a principal part of my pleasure; but the summer shall certainly not pass without my seeing you.
You will, I am sure, be concerned to hear that your favourite, Miss Brown, the pretty Catholic, who lived with Madame d'Acunha, is dead at Paris, by the ignorance of the physician. Tom Harvey, who always obliges the town with a quarrel in a dead season, has published a delightful letter to Sir William Bunbury,(401) full of madness and wit. He had given the Doctor a precedent for a clergyman's fighting a duel, and I furnished him with another story of the same kind, that diverted him extremely. A Dr. Suckling, who married a niece of my father, quarrelled with a country squire, who said, "Doctor, your gown is your protection." "Is it so?" replied the parson; "but, by God! it shall not be yours;" pulled it off, and thrashed him—I was going to say damnably, at least, divinely. Do but think, my Lord Coke and Tom Harvey are both bound to the peace, and are always going to fight together: how comfortable for their sureties!
My Lord Pomfret is dead; George Selwyn says, that my Lord
Ashburnham(402) is not more glad to get into the parks than
Lord Falkland is to get out of them. You know he was forced to
live in a privileged place.
Jack Hill(403) is dead too, and has dropped about a hundred legacies; a thousand pound to the Dowager of Rockingham; as much, with all his plate and china, to her sister Bel. I don't find that my uncle has got so much as a case of knives and forks, he always paid great court, but Mary Magdalen, my aunt, undid all by scolding the man, and her spouse durst not take his part.