The following additional particulars relating to the connection between Fox and Adair may not be thought out of place here. They are extracted from the highly interesting and important Croker Papers, being the Correspondence and Diaries, 1809–1830, of the Rt. Hon. J. W. Croker, M.P., Edited by Louis J. Jennings. M.P., 3 vols., 8vo., 1884.
The first is in these terms: “When Adair, whose father was a surgeon, went as Fox’s Ambassador to Russia, Lord Whitworth, then the King’s Minister, made a good joke, which tended not a little to lower Adair, and defeat his object. ‘Est-ce un homme très considérable, ce M. d’Adair?’ asked the Empress. ‘Pas trop, Madame,’ replied Lord Whitworth, ‘quoique son père était grand seigneur [saigneur].’” The other is taken from a very long statement on various matters, made by K. George IV., when Prince of Wales, to Croker personally. Adair’s wife, the Prince said, was a Frenchwoman with whom Andreossi, when here as Buonaparte’s Minister, intrigued. The Duchess of Devonshire told him—the Prince of Wales—that Mrs. Adair had offered her a bribe of £10,000 down, and as much more whenever she might want it, if she would communicate the Cabinet secrets, with which the French thought she could not fail to be acquainted, through her intimacy with all the leaders of the Government. This caused a breach between Fox and Adair. But the former could only tell Adair that an obstacle—which he could neither reveal nor overcome, but which did not affect or alter Fox’s personal regard for him—prevented his appointment to be Fox’s Under-Secretary of State.—Croker Papers, i. 293.—Ed.]
No. XIII.
Feb. 5, 1798.
ACME AND SEPTIMIUS; OR, THE HAPPY UNION
CELEBRATED AT THE CROWN AND ANCHOR TAVERN.
Fox,[[98]] with Tooke to grace his side,
Thus address’d his blooming bride—
“Sweet! should I e’er, in power or place,
Another Citizen embrace;