the House has nothing to do to preserve its consequence, but to vote it shall still be conquered. Palliser's trial has ended as shamefully.* He is acquitted, with honour, of not having obeyed his Admiral's signals; which is termed blameable for not having given the reason why he did not; and that reason was the rottenness of his mast, with which he returned to Portsmouth, without its being repaired yet. The world is expecting his restoration; for, when Keppel risked his own reputation to save Palliser's, ought not the latter to be recompensed for accusing his benefactor? But I am sick of specifying all our ignominy; I wish I had any tittle-tattle of less consequence to fill my letters with. I will go answer yours, and try to forget England, as it has forgotten itself! Oh! but you ask if Byron has beaten D'Estaing and taken Martinico ?+ Not quite; on the contrary, our conquerors are swept away by * Sir Hugh Palliser's trial lasted three-and-twenty days, twenty of which were spent in examining witnesses, and three in debating upon the sentence; during which time it is said the members of the court were sometimes so loud in dispute, that the people were obliged to be turned off the deck of the Sandwich to prevent their overhearing it. In announcing Sir Hugh Palliser's acquittal to George Selwyn, Dr. Warner writes, "Here are the exact and all the words which the King said to him the first time he was at Court, 'Sir Hugh, how does your leg do?""-ED. + Lord Carlisle, speaking of his relation the Admiral, in a letter to George Selwyn, says, "Byron's situation is a very hard one; for ignorant people conceive it is as easy to hinder D'Estaing from coming out of Martinique, as it would be to hinder the Duke of Northumberland driving out of his gate, supposing you were superior in coal-carts and hackney-coaches to make a blockade.”—ED. a mortality in Santa Lucia and in Georgia. Content yourself with privateering; we have no other success. The Presbyterians of Scotland will not condole with you on the Pope's illness; they forswear him tooth and nail.* Mrs. Anne Pitt is confined, and; the last time I heard of her, was very bad. Make many compliments, pray, for me to the House of Lucan; but, between you and me, I am not at all delighted with their intending to bring me a present. I do not love presents, and much less from anybody but very dear friends. That family and I are upon very civil terms; our acquaintance is of modern date, and rather waned than improved. Lady Lucan has an astonishing genius for copying whatever she sees.+ The pictures I lent her from my collection, and some advice I gave her, certainly brought her talent to marvellous perfection in * Walpole here alludes to a motion made on the 5th of this month by Lord George Gordon, that a petition of the Papists of Scotland, which had been recommended by the King to the House through Lord North, might be thrown over the table. As the motion was not seconded, the Speaker declined to read it. The Earl of Carlisle says, in a letter of the 7th, "Lord George Gordon made a speech upon the state of Scotland, for which he ought to be shut up; he wept several times in the course of it, produced an old print of the Marquis of Huntley, offered to make Lord North a present of it, and called upon twenty members by their names." -ED. + Lady Lucan was the daughter and co-heiress of James Smith, Esq., of Cannons Leigh, Devon. She was married, in 1760, to Sir Charles Bingham, who, in 1776, was created Baron Lucan, and, in 1795, advanced to the earldom of Lucan. In 1781, her daughter Lavinia was married to John, first Earl Spencer. She died in 1814. In a notice of Walpole's "Anecdotes of Painting," which appeared in the Annual Register for 1780, Lady Lucan is said to have arrived at copying the most exquisite works of Peter Oliver, Hoskins, and Cooper, with a genius that almost depreciates those masters."-Ed. five months; for before, she painted in crayons, and as ill as any fine lady in England. She models in wax, and has something of a turn towards poetry; but her prodigious vivacity makes her too volatile in everything, and my lord follows wherever she leads. This is only for your private ear. I desire to remain as well as I am with them; but we shall never be more intimate than we are. I am not at all acquainted with your Lord Bishop and my lady, his wife. His mother, who was much my friend, I believe, did not highly reverence his sincerity; I never in my life met him at her house. * • The Honourable and Reverend Frederick Hervey, in 1767 presented to the bishoprick of Cloyne, and in 1769 promoted to the see of Derry. In the December of 1779, he succeeded his brother Augustus as fourth Earl of Bristol. His wife was the daughter of Sir Jermyn Davers, Bart. Hardy, in his Memoirs of the Earl of Charlemont, gives the following striking account of this eccentric nobleman: " In one respect he was not unlike Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, Everything by starts and nothing long.' Generous, but uncertain; splendid, but fantastical; an admirer of the fine arts, without any just selection; engaging, often licentious in conversation; extremely polite, extremely violent. His distribution of church livings must always be mentioned with warm approbation. Though he scarcely ever attended Parliament, and spent most of his time in Italy, he was now (1783) called upon to correct the abuses of Parliament, and direct the vessel of state in that course, where statesmen of the most experience, and persons of the calmest judgment, have had the misfortune totally to fail. His progress from his diocese to the metropolis, and his entrance into it, were perfectly correspondent to the rest of his conduct. Through every town on the road he seemed to court, and was received with, all warlike honours; and I remember seeing him pass by the Parliament-house in Dublin, (Lords and Commons were then both sitting) escorted by a body of dragoons, full of spirits and talk, apparently enjoying the eager gaze of the surrounding multitude, and displaying altogether the self-complacency of a favourite Marshal of France on his way to Versailles, rather than the grave deportment of a Prelate of the Church of England."-ED. Adieu! my dear sir. Do not let rumours, good or bad, agitate you. Bear public misfortunes with firmness. Private griefs hurry away our thoughts, and belong solely to ourselves; but we may be excused taking more than our share in general calamities. LETTER CCCVI. Arlington Street, May 29, 1779. I HAVE two letters from you unanswered of the 14th and 15th of this month. I begin to reply to them; though I believe my response will not set out before June for want of corporality. The best news I know is what you tell me of the Spanish Monarch's resolution of remaining neuter. We seem able to cope with France, who makes war in our own piddling style. We both fish for islets that used to escape through the meshes of former military drag-nets. Some attempt on Ireland we expect; I hope the Prince of Nassau will command it. All this last week we were whispered ministerially into a belief of Byron having demolished, taken, and killed D'Estaing and all his squadron. Some doubted whether it was not an artifice to fill the loan; and so it has proved. The two Admirals looked at one another, but did not hurt a pendant of each other's head. The House of Commons sits from day to day, examining into the conduct of all the other Generals and Admirals that have been looking at the Americans and French for these five years, and of the Ministers who sent them to look the Colonies into unlimited submission. Future historians will have a brave collection of papers to revel in. * You shall certainly have my tragedy when your nephew returns; but I doubt it will shock more than please you, for nothing can be more disgusting than the subject. I approve and exhort you not to preach to your nephew. Wait till you see him, and then you can instil your sentiments by degrees. As he has already corrected many effervescences, I trust to his good sense and good heart for his still improving; but, believe me, there must be a very solid fund to resist the depravation of this country. It is lost, it is distracted. It sinks every day, and yet its extravagance and dissipation rather augment than subside. Though we have danced like Bacchanals all the winter, there is a new subscription on foot for a sumptuous ball at the Pantheon. We are like the Israelites that capered round the golden calf, though they were to fight their way out of the Desert. I check my hand; it is grievous to condemn one's country! I ask myself, if I am not grown old and splenetic; but alas! America is lost, credit supported by gross falsehoods, all comfort hanging on a King of Spain's mood: one had need be very young to dance without reflection! *The Mysterious Mother. |