“At Almack’s, of pigeons I’m told there are flocks,
But it’s thought the completest is one Mr Fox.
If he touches a card, if he rattles a box,
Away fly the guineas of this Mr Fox.”
Fox lost two hundred thousand pounds in a night. Once he played for twenty-two hours and lost five hundred pounds an hour. It was he who said that the greatest pleasure in life, after winning, was losing. His bad luck was notorious, and Walpole wondered what he would do when he had sold the estates of all his friends. How Fox contrived to make a great reputation as a statesman, considering his mode of life, is truly remarkable. It was noticed that he did not shine in the debate on the Thirty-Nine Articles (6th February 1772). Walpole thought it could not be wondered at. “He had sat up playing at hazard at Almack’s from Tuesday evening, the 4th, till five in the afternoon of Wednesday, 5th. An hour before, he had recovered twelve thousand pounds that he had lost, and by dinner, which was at five o’clock, he had ended losing eleven thousand pounds. On the Thursday he spoke in the above debate, went to dinner at half-past eleven at night, from there to White’s, where he drank till seven the next morning; thence to Almack’s, where he won six thousand pounds, and between three and four in the afternoon he set out for Newmarket. His brother Stephen lost ten thousand pounds two nights after, and Charles eleven thousand pounds more on the 13th, so that in three nights the two brothers, the eldest not twenty-five, lost thirty-two thousand pounds.” One night when Fox had been terribly unlucky, Topham Beauclerk followed him to his rooms to offer consolation, expecting to find him perhaps stretched on the floor bewailing his losses, perhaps plunged into moody despair. He was surprised to find him reading Herodotus. “What would you have me do?” he asked his astonished visitor. “I have lost my last shilling.”
“But, hark! the voice of battle shouts from far,
The Jews and Macaronis are at war
The Jews prevail, and thund’ring from the stocks,
They seize, they bind, they circumcise Charles Fox.”
They were good losers in those days, and it was a very necessary quality for the majority to possess, since all played and most lost. Lord Carlisle (who complained of cette lassitude de tout et de moi-même, qu’on appelle ennui), General Fitzpatrick, “Old Q.,” Lord Hertford, Lord Sefton, the Duke of York, and many others squandered vast sums in this amusement. There were not a great many winners. The Duke of Portland was one; and his and Canning’s father-in-law, General Scott, won two hundred thousand pounds. It was said the success of the latter was due not only to his knowledge of the game of whist, but also to his notorious sobriety. General Fitzpatrick and Lord Robert Spencer lost all their money at Brooks’s; but, the members not objecting, with borrowed capital they kept a faro bank. The bank won, and with his share of one hundred thousand pounds Lord Robert bought the estate of Woolbidding, in Sussex. He had learnt his lesson, and he never played again. There were few who had the sense to make or the strength to keep such a resolution. Mrs Delany, however, tells of a Mr Thynne “who has won this year so considerably that he has paid off all his debts, bought a house and furnished it, disposed of all his horses, hounds, etc., and struck his name out of all the expensive subscriptions.” A fortunate man, too, was Colonel Aubrey, who had the reputation of being the best whist and piquet player of his day. He made two fortunes in India and lost them both, and made a third at play from a five-pound note which he borrowed.