Part 7 (1/2)
I was at Vauxhall last night with Lady Harrington, Lady Barrimore, Mrs. Damer,(91) Lady Harriot, March, Frances, and Barker. Very fine music, and a reckoning of thirty-six s.h.i.+llings; fine doings. I had rather have heard Walters play upon his hump for nothing. I dined to-day at James's with Boothby, Harry St. John, March, and Panton.
To-morrow Lord Digby and I dine at Holland H(ouse), and on Thursday Harry and I dine at Beckford's with Sir W(illiam) M(usgrave). Rigby gave a dinner to-day to the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Grafton.
(91) Anne, only daughter of General Conway. She ultimately became possessed of Strawberry Hill. She devoted herself to sculpture; the heads that ornament the bridge at Henley-on-Thames are her work.
The Newmarket people go the beginning of next week. I shall then go into Kent, and the beginning of the week after I shall set out for Castle Howard. I long to see you dans votre beau Chateau. But where is it that I do not wish to see you? If anything is published that is not a mere catch-penny, as it is called, I shall send it directly. I believe the account of the D(uke) of G(rafton) and Nancy is of that sort, but I know no more than the advertis.e.m.e.nt.
Almack's is extinct. I am writing from White's, which I have long wished was so too.
Bad news from the Colonies. The P(rince) of Brunswick has another son. The people are come from the Installation at Cambridge, but I know no more of what has pa.s.sed there than you see in the papers.
Harry pursues the Bladen, and March will be talked of for Lady Harriot till he does or does not marry her. I wish it decided one way or other. I own I have his happiness too much at heart not to be anxious about it, and hate to have it in suspense.
Lord Farnham has distributed four hogshead of some vin de Grave, which he had, among his friends, and they prefer it to that which Wion (?) furnishes us with. I cannot help that, all things are good and great and small, &c., by comparison. G.o.d bless you, my dear Lord; I will come, as you have given me leave, as soon as my affairs here will possibly permit it.
I write to-night for ten dozen more of vin de Grave.
CHAPTER 3. 1773-1777, 1779 AND 1780 POLITICS AND SOCIETY
Fox's Debts--Lord Holland--News from London--Interview with Fox--The Fire at Holland House--A Visit to Tunbridge--Provision for Mie Mie --County business and electioneering at Gloucester--Lotteries--Fox and Carlisle--Highway adventures--London Society--Newmarket intelligence--An evening in town--Charles Fox and America--Carlisle declines a Court post--Money from Fox--Selwyn and gambling--A Private Bill Committee--Selwyn in bad spirits--The Royal Society --Book-buying--Political affairs--London parks--Gainsborough--The d.u.c.h.ess of Kingston--Selwyn's private affairs--”The Diaboliad”--A dinner at the French Amba.s.sador's--Politics and the Clubs--In Paris --Electioneering again.
A distinguished man of letters of the present day has called Selwyn the father confessor of the society of his time: it is a tribute to his friendliness and good sense, as well as to his good nature and patience. Without them he could never have been the trusted adviser of Carlisle in those financial difficulties in which the young peer's friends.h.i.+p for Charles Fox involved him. It was in 1773 that the crash came in Fox's affairs. His gambling debts had been acc.u.mulating. The birth of a son to his elder brother--closing, at any rate for the time, Charles Fox's reversionary interests--caused his creditors to press their claims. Lord Holland was obliged to come to the a.s.sistance of his son. It is at this moment that the correspondence which is gathered in the present chapter begins. Lord Holland had raised a large sum with which to pay off his son's debts. Selwyn was indignant because it seemed as if creditors less indulgent than Carlisle would be the first to be paid. So in many letters he presses upon Carlisle that he must not allow his friends.h.i.+p for Charles Fox to outweigh the monetary claims which he had upon him, and in no measured terms he condemns the carelessness with which Fox regarded his financial obligations to his friend.
The correspondence contained in this chapter commences at the end of the year 1773, after an apparent break of four years; there is no doubt, however, that it continued and the letters from Selwyn have not been preserved. The letters in 1773 begin by referring to the financial matters to which brief allusion has just been made, and which formed a subject so full of interest and anxiety for Selwyn.
He has time, however, to give his friend news of the political and social events of London. The American question was becoming more and more important, the Declaration of Independence had startled England in 1776, and in 1774 Charles Fox had finally left the Administration of Lord North, soon to become the leader of the Whig party and the champion of the American Colonists.
(1773, Dec. 1)--This is the severest criticism which I have heard pa.s.sed upon you. In all other particulars be a.s.sured that you have as much of the general esteem of the world as any man that ever came into it, and will preserve the highest respect from it if you will only from this time have such a consideration, and such a management of your fortune, as common prudence requires. Charles has destroyed his, and his reputation also, and I am very much afraid that, let what will be done now, they will in a very few years be past all kind of redemption. You will have been the innocent cause of much censure upon him, because all the friends.h.i.+p in the world which you can show him will never wipe off what he and his family at this instant stands (sic) accused of, which is, setting at nought the solemnest ties in the world and after the maddest dissipation of money possible, the ama.s.sing for his sake 50,000 pounds to pay everybody but those who deserved the first consideration, and without which he could never [be] said to be free, and it would [be]
a constant reproach to be easy. When there was no idea but of his having 20,000 advanced, which sum was otherwise to have been left him, and I said that such and such persons would be paid first, you did not seem to credit it. Was I right? or not? in my conjectures?
If I tell you now, that 16,000 pounds more than the present sum of 50,000 will come, I cannot pretend to say from what quarter, but I mean from the Holland family; and, if I tell you also, that as much more will be borrowed for purposes which do not now exist; I must tell you that I think that these sums will be sent after the others, if you do not strenuously oppose it, and if somebody does not watch over the springs from whence these supplies are to flow.
As to Hare,(92) you will do me the justice to own that I have not said a word to impeach his friends.h.i.+p to you. But I must set him aside as a man capable of transacting this business. It is not de son ressort, and I know that he has difficulties to combat with, if he undertakes it, which are insuperable. Now, when I talk of men of business, I will explain myself. I mean three for example: Mr.
Wallis, if ever you consult him, Mr. Gregg, and Lavie. I would also seriously apply to my Lord Gower for his advice, and make him a confidant in what relates to this business. He has very powerful motives for interesting himself in it. All others I would silence at once by saying that you had fixed upon particular persons to talk with upon this subject, and that you would not listen an instant to any other. After one or two attempts to discuss the point they would give it up, and, knowing in what channel it was, would be more afraid to trifle with you about it. Charles never opens his lips to me upon the subject, and when Hare was last at my house he did not say a single word relative to it. The bond was not so much as mentioned. To speak the truth, I had rather that they would not, for I should not be able to keep my temper if they did.
I have talked this matter over with persons of established reputations in the world for good sense, knowledge, and experience, and with as nice feelings in points of honour and friends.h.i.+p as anybody ever had. It is their opinion which makes me so confident of my own, exclusive of the arguments themselves, qui sautent aux yeux.
Now, as to the expedients. The capital sum,(93) let us call it, 15,000. Let Charles pay immediately 5,000 pounds from the 50,000 pounds. I will endeavour a year hence to raise you five more. Let Charles and Lord Stavordale,(94) by their joint securities (and let Lady Holland contribute hers), try to raise the other 5,000, and then this debt is paid; and when the worst comes to the worst, you will lose yourself only the 5,000, which we shall endeavour to get from your own securities and resources. All this is very practicable with people who are disposed to think of their honour more than of the gratification of their own pleasure.
The Holland family went to Bath yesterday. I took my leave, and it may be a final one, of them on Monday. Charles, it is said, will follow them. What is become of Hare I know not. If you desire a letter to be shown to Lord Holland,(95) Lady H. must shew it. I will speak to you, as I promised, without reserve. I am apt to think that he will comprehend what you say very well. It is not my judgment only, but I have heard it said, that a great deal of his inattention upon these occasions has been affected, and that if the same money was to be received and not to be paid, our faculties would then improve. I wish that if he has any left, he would exert them now for the sake of the reputation of his family as well as of his own; or he will add a load of obloquy to that which has been already derived (?) upon him, on account of the means by which this dissipated wealth has been acquired; and by this last act of indifference to the honour of his son he will seem to justify all that abuse with which he has been loaded, and they will be apt to apply, what he does not certainly merit, but will nevertheless carry an air of truth with it, and they will say that--
”Plundering both his country and his friends, It's thus the Lord of useless thousands ends.”
You see, my dear Lord, with how much confidence I treat you. I have thought aloud, when I have been speaking to you, which perhaps I ought not to have done, but I cannot help it. I hope that you will burn my letters, for if they served as testimonies of the warmth of my friends.h.i.+p to you, they might be ill interpreted by others. . . .
Charles you say has not wrote to you. There is no accounting for that or for him but by one circ.u.mstance, and that is, that the gratification of the present moment is the G.o.d of his Idolatry. You mention his credit with Lord North.(96) I know for a certainty that Lord North disavows that which I know he once gave him. ”He will,”
they say, ”manage this, and will settle that, with the Minister.”
Stuff! The Minister, whoever he happens to be, will settle this matter with Charles, and say, ”Sir, I know you want me, and that I do not want you, but in a certain degree. Speak, and be paid, as Sir W. Young was.” Alas, poor Charles! Aha promissa dederat. You say that you have not had a line from Lady H(olland); have you then wrote to her? I will add more to this if I see occasion, after I have been to talk with Lavie, who really means, I believe, to serve you with great fidelity, and reasons about this matter with great nettete and percision.
(92) James Hare (1749-1804); son of Richard Hare, apothecary, of Limestone; grandson of Bishop Francis Hare; at Eton with Fox and Carlisle, and afterwards entered Balliol College, Oxford. As a young man he was considered more brilliant than Fox, and more was expected of his future. He sat for Stockbridge from 1772-1774, and for Knaresborough from 1781 to his death. Like all of the fas.h.i.+onable men of his day, he played heavily. In 1779 he had become deeply involved in debt, but obtained the post of Minister Plenipotentiary to Poland, which he held until 1782; in 1802 he was very ill at Paris, where Fox made him frequent visits. He died at Bath. Lady Ossory described his wit as ”perhaps of a more lively kind than Selwyn's.” Storer left him a legacy of 1,000 pounds.