She adds that her letters from her husband were with Mr. Cunninghame (the Officer), addressed to Mr. Cleveland, so she let them go, and sent on her black servant “Tom” next day to fetch them, and was going to Portsmouth to meet the Admiral, who thought he should soon be back.
[193] Admiral Boscawen, Major-General Amherst, and Brigadier-General Wolfe were combined in this campaign.
ON THE WAY NORTHWARDS
To return to the Montagus, they set out on August 1 for the North, and the first letter is from her to Lord Lyttelton on August 6, from Darlington—
“I am now about 25 miles short of Newcastle, having travelled above 250 miles since last Tuesday, and am better to-night than I was when I left London, so I will no longer endure that Dr. Monsey shall call me flimsy animal, puny insect, and such opprobrious names. I have had a surfeit of being in a post-chaise, that I have not made many excursions to see the fine places that lay in the road. In my way to Nottingham I went to see Sir Robert Clifton’s,[194] which appears to me for beauty of prospect equal to any place I ever saw. You are led to it from the turnpike road by a fine terrace on the side of the Trent. From a pavillion in the garden you see the town and Castle of Nottingham standing in the most smiling valley imaginable, in which the Trent serpentizes in a most beautiful manner.... I return your Lordship many thanks for having lent me so agreeable a companion as Antonio de Solis.”[195]
[194] Clifton Hall.
[195] “The History of the Conquest of Mexico,” by Antonio de Solis, a Spaniard; born 1610, died 1686.
MARY WEST
To this Lord Lyttelton writes from Hagley on August 17, to say how glad he is she bore the journey so well, and the book entertained her. He had been drinking the waters at Sunning Hill, Berks, and found benefit. In the end of a long letter he writes, “Miss West and Captain[196] Hood will be as happy next Monday as mutual love can make them.” Miss West was Gilbert West’s sister, and her future husband, Captain Hood, became afterwards first Viscount Bridport. Mary West lived till 1786, but had no children. Lord Lyttelton alludes to her not being very young and “having no time to lose.”
[196] He became the celebrated Admiral Hood.