The Duchess's answer to Dundas is so full of piquancy that it helps one to realise the personality of this remarkable woman.
Duchess of Gordon to Right Hon. Henry Dundas.
"Gordon Castle,
"July 13, 1788.
"I have this morning yours, and though not a little confused with the bustle of joy that surrounds me, cannot delay answering it. There is something in the strain of your letters so unlike the ideas that you convey in our conversation that I cannot think they are wrote by the same person.
"Why mention duplicity to me? You know there is not a human being further from it; and I know you don't in your heart believe one word upon the subject. If you do, you have not the penetration the world gives you; for I can assure you with the firmest confidence you are most egregiously mistaken. It would be better for me if I had a little more of that detestable vice, or even the policy to conceal my sentiments, for I am convinced my enemies are the offspring of too much openness; far, very far, from that detested duplicity, or any of its hateful train. I never expressed an idea of you or your conduct that I did not express to yourself. It was the impulse of the moment; and I feel too independent of any man's power, however much I may choose to depend upon their good opinion and friendship, to suppress my sentiments when justly founded. For many years of my life my confidence in you was unbounded. You said you loved me with all the extravagance of passion; at the same time that respect, esteem, and veneration made you express sentiments that did you honour to feel and me to follow. You certainly did not act to my brother as I would have done to yours or to anyone you protected. What Mr. Pitt told you I could not tell him as a secret. You have often told me he has none from you. I do not doubt—I could not doubt—that the Duke and I were the persons on earth you wished most to serve, and yet my brother has met with the most cruel disappointments. In this, my good friend, there is no duplicity. Not even to your enemies did I express an idea that could lead them to think that I ever doubted your honour, your sincerity, or your talents as a statesman. No dark hints and half-sentences; but an open declaration of my friendship and a dependence upon yours. That your friends and that society was where we spent the happiest hours. However impolitic, I always openly declared my decided preference to those parties, and I don't doubt it but it made enemies of those that had felt and expressed very different sentiments—I know it did. But to gain one friend such as I could name, more than repaid a legion of such insipid triflers and ignorant puppies. When I wrote you my note from London I had resolved to obliterate all causes of complaint, and only remember with gratitude the pleasant parties we had enjoyed at your house; but your letter makes it necessary that I bring to your view from how many different sources any dissatisfaction on my part arose. The last cause—your conduct relative to our politics—I thought both impolitic as a statesman and unkind as a friend. You say you thought otherwise, and your kind proposal of the Duke's succeeding to Lord Marchmont's office will more than cancel his disappointment. This is a true picture of my mind. After eighteen years' acquaintance, you would have drawn a much more flattering one; indeed, till the last few months of my life, you certainly thought me all perfection—so no more duplicity, or I must attribute eighteen years of that most horrid vice to you, and only a few months' sincerity. So I know, whatever you may amuse yourself with writing, that it is still, and must be, your firm belief. I would not have said so much upon the subject, but I tremble for I don't know what. I had hints in London. I had forgot them, till your letter brings them with redoubled force to my remembrance. I could not believe them; for you had convinced me Mr. Pitt had some unfavourable impressions of me, and that you had removed them. For no one favour did I feel more grateful. But I shall never have done. I was happy to see all your family in Edinburgh well and happy; I found my little boy the most lovely creature I ever saw. My Duke is most sincerely yours; he cannot doubt your friendship, as that office had long been the object of his wishes and expectations. No one is better entitled and no one more worthy of it. Once more adieu. May the races afford you much amusement, and may the paths of Melville and Duneira be strewed with roses, without one care from public or private life to cause a gloom.
&c., &c.,
"J. Gordon."
The Duchess, in enclosing this correspondence, begs Wilberforce to be her defender if he hears her character attacked on the ground of "duplicity" or "inaccuracy;" his influence with Pitt was one reason for her troubling him with the subject.
Later on she writes to Wilberforce, who was gradually withdrawing himself from fashionable society, a note docketed "before 1800," to say:—
"Am I never to see you more? The Duchess of Leeds and her sister sing here Monday evening. Pray come; I shall be delighted to see you, and much mortified if you don't come.
"Ever yours most truly, &c.,
"J. Gordon."