“2 Feb. 1770. The gaming at Almack’s, which has taken the pas of White’s, is worthy of the decline of our Empire, or Commonwealth, which you please. The young men of the age lose five, ten, fifteen thousands pounds in an evening there. Lord Stavordale, not one and twenty, lost eleven thousand there, last Tuesday, but recovered it by one great hand at hazard: he swore a great oath,—‘Now, if I had been playing deep, I might have won millions.’ His cousin, Charles Fox, shines equally there, and in the House of Commons.”
“18 Aug. 1776. To-day I have heard the shocking news of Mr Damer’s death, who shot himself yesterday, at three o’clock in the morning, at a tavern in Covent Garden. My first alarm was for Mr Conway; not knowing what effect such a horrid surprise would have on him, scarce recovered from an attack himself; happily, it proves his nerves were not affected, for I have had a very calm letter from him on the occasion. Mr Charles Fox, with infinite good nature, met Mrs Damer coming to town, and stopped her to prepare her for the dismal event. It is almost impossible to refrain from bursting into commonplace reflections on this occasion; but, can the walls of Almack’s help moralizing, when £5000 a year, in present, and £22,000 in reversion, are not sufficient for happiness, and cannot check a pistol!”
“19 Jan. 1777. Lord Dillon told me this morning that Lord Besborough and he, playing at quinze t’other night with Miss Pelham, and, happening to laugh, she flew in a passion and said, ‘It was terrible to play with boys!’ And our two ages together, said Lord Dillon, make up above a hundred and forty.”
“6 Feb. 1780. Within this week there has been a cast at hazard at the Cocoa Tree, the difference of which amounted to a hundred and four score thousand pounds. Mr O’Birne, an Irish gamester, had won one hundred thousand pounds of a young Mr Harvey, of Chigwell, just started from a midshipman[32] into an estate, by his elder brother’s death. O’Birne said, ‘You never can pay me.’ ‘I can,’ said the youth; my estate will sell for the debt.’ ‘No,’ said O., ‘I will win ten thousand—you shall throw for the odd ninety.’ They did, and Harvey won.”
“29 Jan. 1791. Pray delight in the following story: Caroline Vernon, fille d’honneur, lost, t’other night, two hundred pounds at faro, and bade Martindale mark it up. He said he would rather have a draft on her banker. ‘Oh! willingly’; and she gave him one. Next morning, he hurried to Drummond’s, lest all her money should be drawn out. ‘Sir,’ said the clerk, ‘would you receive the contents immediately?’ ‘Assuredly.’ ‘Why, sir, have you read the note?’ Martindale took it; it was, ‘Pay the bearer two hundred blows, well applied.’ The nymph tells the story herself; and, yet, I think, the clerk had the more humour of the two.”
There can be no doubt but that in the last half of the eighteenth century, gambling for large sums was very rife. We have evidence of it on all hands.
“Ann. Reg., 8 Feb. 1766. We are informed that a lady, at the West end of the town, lost, one night, at a sitting, 3000 guineas at Loo.”
Par parenthèse, the same volume has (p. 191) the following horrible story: “A circumstantial and authentic account of the miserable case of Richard Parsons, as transmitted in a letter from William Dallaway, Esq., High Sheriff of Gloucestershire, to his friend in London.
“On the 20th of February last, Richard Parsons, and three more men met at a private house at Chalford, in order to play at cards, about six o’clock in the evening. They played at loo till about eleven or twelve that night, when they changed their game to whist: after a few deals, a dispute arose about the state of the game. Parsons affirmed, with oaths, that they were six, which the others denied, upon which he wished ‘that he might never enter the kingdom of heaven, that his flesh might rot upon his bones, if they were not six in the game.’ These wishes were several times repeated, both then and afterwards. Upon this, the candle was put out by one James Young, a stander by, who says he was shocked with the oaths and expressions he heard; and that he put out the candle with a design to put an end to the game.
“Presently, upon this, they adjourned to another house, and there began a fresh game, when Parsons and his partner had great success. Then they played at loo again till four in the morning. During this second playing, Parson complained to one Rolles, his partner, of a bad pain in his leg, which, from that time, increased. There was an appearance of a swelling, and, afterwards, the colour changing to that of a mortified state. On the following Sunday, he rode to Minchin Hampton, to get the advice of Mr Pegler, the surgeon in that town, who attended him from the Thursday after February 27. Notwithstanding all the applications that were made, the mortification increased, and showed itself in different parts of the body. On Monday, March 3, at the request of some of his female relations, the clergyman of Bisley attended him, and administered the sacrament, without any knowledge of what had happened before, and which he continued a stranger to, till he saw the account in the Gloucester Journal. Parsons appeared to be extremely ignorant of religion, having been accustomed to swear, to drink (though he was not in liquor when he uttered the above execrable wish), to game, and to profane the Sabbath, though he was only in his nineteenth year. After he had received the Sacrament, he appeared to have some sense of the ordinance; for he said, ‘Now I must never sin again; he hoped God would forgive him, having been wicked not above six years, and that, whatsoever should happen, he would not play at cards again.’