Replies To Minor Queries.
_Pope's "honest Factor"_ (Vol. iv., p. 7.).-The
"Honest factor who stole a gem away,"
to whom Pope alludes, was Thomas Pitt, Esq., (ancestor of the Earl of
Chatham), who was by Queen Anne appointed Governor of Fort St. George in
the East Indies, and purchased there for the sum of 20,400_l._, or
48,000 pagodas, a diamond weighing 127 carats, which he sold to the King
of France about 1717, and is now known as the Pitt diamond. I suppose it
is at present in the possession of the Republic of France.