270) Mr. Fox was Created Baron Holland of Foxley.-E.
Letter 151 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, April 14, 1763. (page 210)
I have received your two letters together, and foresaw that your friendly good heart would feel for us just as you do. The loss is irreparable,(271) and my poor niece is sensible it is. She has such a veneration for her lord's memory, that if her sister and I make her cheerful for a moment, she accuses herself of it the next day to the Bishop of Exeter,(272) as if he was her confessor, and that she had committed a crime. She cried for two days to such a degree, that if she had been a fountain it must have stopped. Till yesterday she scarce eat enough to keep her alive, and looks accordingly; but at her age she must be comforted: her esteem will last, but her spirits will return in spite of herself. Her lord has made her sole executrix, and added what little douceurs he could to her jointure, which is but a thousand pounds a-year, the estate being but three-and-twenty hundred. The little girls will have about eight thousand pounds apiece; for the teller's place was so great during the war, that notwithstanding his temper was a sluice of generosity, he had saved thirty thousand pounds since his marriage.
Her sisters have been here with us the whole time. Lady Huntingtower is all mildness and tenderness; and by dint of attention I have not displeased the other. Lord Huntingtower has been here once; the Bishop most of the time: he is very reasonable and good-natured, and has been of great assistance and comfort to me in this melancholy office, which is to last here till Monday or Tuesday. We have got the eldest little girl too, Lady Laura, who is just old enough to be amusing; and last night my nephew arrived here from Portugal. It was a terrible meeting at first; but as he is very soldierly and lively, he got into spirits, and diverted us much with his relations of the war and the country. He confirms all we have heard of the villany, poltroonery, and ignorance of the Portuguese, and of their aversion to the English; but I could perceive, even through his relation, that our flippancies and contempt of them must have given a good deal of play to their antipathy.
You are admirably kind, as you always are in inviting me to Greatworth, and proposing Bath; but besides its being impossible for me to take any journey just at present, I am really very well in health, and the tranquillity and air of Strawberry have done much good. The hurry of London, where I shall be glad to be just now, will dissipate the gloom that this unhappy loss has occasioned; though a deep loss I shall always think it. The time passes tolerably here; I have my painters and gilders and constant packets of news from town, besides a thousand letters of condolence to answer; for both my niece and I have received innumerable testimonies of the regard that was felt for Lord Waldegrave. I have heard of but one man who ought to have known his worth, that has shown no concern; but I suppose his childish mind is too much occupied with the loss of his last governor.(273) I have given up my own room to my niece, and have taken myself to the Holbein chamber, where I am retired from the rest of the family when I choose it, and nearer to overlook my workmen. The chapel is quite finished except the carpet. The sable mass of the altar gives it a very sober air; for, notwithstanding the solemnity of the painted windows, it had a gaudiness that was a little profane.
I can know no news here but by rebound; and yet, though they are to rebound again to you, they will be as fresh as any you can have at Greatworth. A kind of administration is botched up for the present, and even gave itself an air of that fierceness with which the winter set out. Lord Hardwicke -was told, that his sons must vote with the court, or be turned out; he replied, as he meant to have them in place, he chose they should be removed now. It looks ill for the court when he is sturdy. They wished, too, to have had Pitt, if they could have had him Without consequences; but they don't find any recruits repair to their standard. They brag that they should have had Lord Waldegrave; a most notorious falsehood, as he had refused every offer they could invent the day before he was taken ill. The Duke of' Cumberland orders his servants to say, that so far from joining them, he believes if Lord Waldecrave could have been foretold of his death, he would have preferred it to an union with Bute and Fox. The former's was a decisive panic; so sudden, that it is said Lord Egremont was sent to break his resolution of retiring to the King. The other, whose journey to France does not indicate much less apprehension, affects to walk in the streets at the most public hours to mark his not trembling. In the mean time the two chiefs have paid their bravoes magnificently: no less than fifty-two thousand pounds a-year are granted in reversion! Young Martin,(274) Who is older than I am, is named my successor; but I intend he shall wait some years: if they had a mind to serve me, they could not have selected a fitter tool to set my character in a fair light by the comparison. Lord Bute's son has the reversion of an auditor of the imprest; this is all he has done ostensibly for his family, but the great things bestowed on the most insignificant objects, make me suspect some private compacts. Yet I may wrong him, but I do not mean it. Lord Granby has refused Ireland, and the Northumberlands are to transport their magnificence thither.(275) I lament that you made so little of that voyage, but is this the season of unrewarded merit? One should blush to be preferred within the same year. Do but think that Calcraft is to be an Irish lord! Fox's millions, or Calcraft's tythes of millions, cannot purchase a grain of your virtue or character. Adieu!
(271) In September 1766, Lady Waldegrave became the wife of his Royal Highness William Henry Duke of Gloucester; by whom she was mother of Prince William and of the Princess Sophia of Gloucester.-E.
(272) Married to a sister of Lady Waldegrave.
(273) Lord Waldegrave had been governor of George the Third.-E.
(274) Samuel Martin, Esq. member for Camelford, one of the joint secretaries of the treasury, named to succeed Walpole as usher of receipts of the exchequer, comptroller of the great roll, and keeper of the foreign receipts.-E.