I received your last letter with pleasure, because every thing that
comes from you gives me pleasure; but I must own it afflicted me
very much, as I see there are several things in which I have had the
misfortune to displease either you or some other of my friends. I
must endeavour to justify myself, and I think I can easily do it upon
most of those heads.
Lord Litchfield[47] is angry at my writing to him. I am sorry for
it and surprized at it at the same time. I could discover many
reasons why he might not serve me, none that He could be angry at my
application to him, especially as that application was made with all
the decency and moderation, I could put into my letter. I should with
pleasure have communicated it to you, and known your sentiments, but
as we imagined here that the D. of B. would go away very soon, I was
afraid that delay might destroy the very small hopes I had. Indeed I
thought it the less necessary as I knew already your opinion both as
to the eligibility of the thing, and the propriety of an application
to the Noble Lord. I own the giving him no direction was not a happy
specimen of my Secretarial acuracy.
As to my friends, Mallets, Worsleys,[48] Portens, &c. &c. &c. &c.,
I must plead guilty, very guilty indeed to the indictment. I will
not take up my time and yours in vain excuses, my best and only
excuse ought to be and shall be, more exactness for the future.
Notwithstanding Mrs. M.'s outrageousness she is the person I trouble
my head the least about. However I propose writing to her to-night
tho' with great repugnance and difficulty. I neither chuse to go to
the Bastille for sending her observations upon the French government,
nor to fill my letter full of romantick protestations of attachment
and friendship, which I do not feel for her, and which she feels
for nobody. As to La Motte I cannot forgive him his complaints,
when I have so much juster ones to make of him. Follow his advice
I most certainly did not, since he never would give me any, tho' I
asked him several times in as intelligible terms as I could properly
make use of. I was forced to have recourse to my other friends, to
Madame Bontems, to M. d'Augney and to M. de Mirabeau,[49] and their
directions have been very usefull to me. La Motte always shewed me
such a dryness, such an unwillingness to connect himself at all with
me, that I have been at last obliged to drop him almost entirely.
[Sidenote: CONDUCT OF THE DUKE OF BEDFORD.]
Do you think, dear Sir, that I would have stood upon the formality
of a visit with the great Duke? Besides I had no occasion to do it.
He returned mine the very next day. Since that time I have presented
myself at his door once every week or ten days without being ever let
in or hearing a syllable from him. What can I do more than sit down
quiet and wonder at his behavior?
I have enquired into Mr. Thos. Bradley's affair. Mr. Taaffe is no
longer at Mr. George Woolfe's. He is in a much safer place, in the
Châtelet, a prison of Paris for debt. He has settled with his English
Creditors and given up his estate at Jamaica for the payment of his
debts. He wants to compromise with his other Creditors who are very
numerous, (but as they are convinced he wants to cheat them and that
he only offers the same estate after the other debts are cleared,
which cannot be in less than ten or fifteen years) they will hear of
no compromise. All that Mr. Bradley could do, would be to join with
those Creditors in case they should at last agree to his proposals.
Mr. Taaffe's scheme is to keep another estate at Jamaica clear of
his creditors. They on their side want to starve him into giving
up that likewise. If Mr. Bradley thinks it worth his while to push
the affair, it will be attended with some trouble and expence. He
must impower somebody at Paris to act in his name, and in order to
do so a journey to London will be necessary where he must find out
Mr. Benjamin Bobbin an Attorney beyond the Royal Exchange, who does
all that kind of business, and who will draw up a letter of attorney
in French for him, and get it certified by the French ambassador; a
formality absolutely necessary to give it weight in this country. As
to his Attorney at Paris, the necessary delays of the Law will render
it proper to have a man who is established at * * *
I cannot therefore offer myself, (which I should otherwise do with
great pleasure,) and I should hope Mr. Foley would be willing as he
is certainly able to undertake it. I wish I could give Mr. Bradley a
better account, but this seems to be the true state of the case.
My losses at Play have not been very considerable since I have been
here, they amount to seven Livres lost one night at Picquet. It is
indeed rather my good luck than my prudence that saves me. All my
Societies are houses where I never see a card, so that I do not fall
because I have no temptation. I find Paris however very expensive.
One article which, tho' it encreases my draughts at present, will
diminish them hereafter is cloathes, ruffles, silk stockings, &c.,
which after serious deliberation, I thought I had better make a
provision of at this Capital of the Fashionable world. However as
I begin to have pretty well seen Paris, I propose (if you have no
objection) setting out about the eighth of next month, & going thro'
Dijon and Besançon to Lausanne to pass two or three quiet and cheap
months with my old friends there on my way to Italy. Adieu, Dear Sir,
my paper fails me and I would avoid a cover.
I am, Dear Sir,
Yours most affectionately,
E. G.
[47] George Henry Lee (1718-1772), who succeeded his father as
third Earl of Lichfield in 1743, was one of the leaders of the
Jacobites. He came to court, however, on the accession of George
III. "Lord Lichfield and several other Jacobites have kissed
hands; George Selwyn says, 'They go to St. James's, because now
there are so many _Stuarts_ there'" (Walpole to Montagu, November
13, 1760). Lord Lichfield became in 1762 Chancellor of the
University of Oxford, which may explain his reception of Gibbon's
letter.
[48] Sir Thomas Worsley, Bart., Lieut.-Colonel of Gibbon's
battalion of the Hampshire regiment, succeeded his father, Sir
James Worsley, of Pilewell in Hampshire, and Appuldurcombe in
the Isle of Wight. He married the eldest daughter of the Earl
of Cork, by whom he had a son and a daughter. He continued a
collection of notes on the Isle of Wight, commenced by his father
and completed by his son, Sir Richard Worsley, the author of the
_History of the Isle of Wight (1781)_. He died September 23, 1768.
[49] The Marquis de Mirabeau (1715-1789), father of the
famous orator and political leader, belonged to the school of
Economists. In 1760 his _Théorie de l'Impôt_ had lodged him in
the Bastille, and made him the fashion in Paris. Gibbon speaks of
him in his Journal (February 24, 1763): "Il a assez d'imagination
pour dix autres, et pas assez de sens rassis pour lui seul." He
met him at a supper-party in the house of Madame Bontemps.
24.
_To his Stepmother._
Besançon, May the 18th, 1763.