[222] The Hon. Henry Erskine (1746–1817), second son of Henry, tenth Earl of Buchan, and brother of Thomas Erskine, the Lord Chancellor. He held the post of Lord Advocate in the Coalition Ministry, and again in 1806.
[223] George William, Marquess of Lorne (1766–1839), who succeeded his father as sixth Duke of Argyll in 1806.
[224] Thomas Beddoes, M.D. (1760–1808). Reader in chemistry at Oxford for some years. He resigned the post in 1792. The last years of his life were spent at Clifton, where he became a fashionable physician.
[225] The Battle of the Nile was fought on August 1, with the immediate consequence that the French force in Egypt was obliged to fall back upon its own resources and those of the country.
[226] The official letters were published in the course of the year, but the private portions of the letters here quoted have no place in the series.
[227] Joseph Bonaparte. Bourrienne relates (i. 187) that he was the eyewitness of a conversation between Napoleon and Junot on the subject of Josephine’s infidelities at Messoudiah in February 1798. It seems doubtful, however, whether Junot was then with the army. Bourrienne says that Berthier left Egypt for France in January.
[228] John James, ninth Earl and first Marquess of Abercorn (1756–1818), who succeeded his uncle in 1789, was raised to a Marquisate the following year. He married, first, in 1779, Catherine, daughter of Sir Joseph Copley, Bart. She died in 1791, leaving two sons and three daughters, and he married, secondly, in 1792, his first cousin, Cecil, daughter of Hon. and Rev. George Hamilton. This lady, here alluded to, ran away with (and subsequently married after the divorce) Joseph Copley (who succeeded his brother in the Baronetcy in 1806), brother of Lord Abercorn’s first wife. He married, thirdly, in 1800, Lady Ann Hatton. He received the nickname of ‘Blue Beard.’
[229] Wraxall states she had four sisters older than herself.
[230] In Les Muses Rivales, or L’Apothéose de Voltaire, published in 1779.
[231] Lloyd, first Baron Kenyon (1732–1802), appointed Master of the Rolls, 1784, and Lord Chief Justice in 1788.