Monsieur de Sartine. Antoine-Raimond-Jean-Gualbert-Gabriel de Sartine (1729-1801), Comte d’Alby, French statesman; Lieutenant-General of Police, 1759-74; Minister of Marine, 1774-80. He was satirized in Tickell’s Green Box of Monsieur de Sartine, 1779; see Bibliography, pp. 88-90.
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Il alte se volto, &c. This defies translation. Tickell perhaps deliberately garbled Barré’s Italian.
Alderman Oliver’s letter. Richard Oliver (1734?-1784), Alderman of Billingsgate Ward and M.P. for the City of London; remembered for his defiance of the House of Commons in the case of the printer Millar, for which he was committed to the Tower, 1771. On 6 September 1778 Oliver wrote a letter, soon published in the papers, declining nomination as Lord Mayor and quitting his seat in Parliament in view of a prospective visit to his property in Antigua, W.I., which he feared stood in danger of seizure by France; The Annual Register for 1778, “Chronicle,” pp. 200-201.
Mr. H. Stanley. Hans Stanley (1720?-1780), M.P. for Southampton, Governor of the Isle of Wight, and Cofferer of the Household. He had lived for some years in France and was regarded as an authority on the affairs of that nation.
Mr. Byng. George Byng (1735-1789), nephew of the third Viscount Torrington; M.P. for Wigan. An ardent supporter of Fox, he here acts in the role of party whip.
Mr. Robinson. John Robinson (1727-1802), M.P. for Harwich and a Secretary of the Treasury. A favorite of George III’s, Robinson managed the Treasury boroughs and served as the King’s personal agent in Parliament. In The Castle of Infamy, 1780, an anonymous satirist describes
how Rob[in]son’s quick Eye
Controll’d the pension’d, plac’d, expectant Fry....
At his shrewd Look, his pregnant Nod, or Wink,