I had the pleasure of your letter last saturday, & found with
great satisfaction that you & Mrs. Gibbon were very well, and that
everything went on as usual in our part of the world. I am very
proud of my new dignity,[62] tho' I have not as yet communicated
my promotion to my countrymen here. We have three or four honest
regulars in the house with whom I am in a constant state of war,
which I have tolerably maintained as yet notwithstanding their great
superiority of number: I hope you continue to be well-pleased with
our Lord Lieutenant, and that he is in every thing the reverse of his
predecessors.
I am much obliged to you, Dear Sir, for your goodness in paying the
bill I drew upon you in December last, but am sorry to find you are
so much dissatisfied at my expenses, which I endeavour to moderate as
much as I can: keeping up the kind of figure which you would desire
your son should. In case I leave this place about the end of next
month, I am afraid that reckoning the several bills I have to pay,
the purchase of a chaise, and some money to carry me on to the next
place, I shall want about two Hundred pounds more, or at least one
hundred and fifty. I am very much concerned I have already drawn for
above half your income, and the more so, as I see no possibility of
my expences being less when I am moving about in Italy. We have here
a young Englishman and his governor, who is a very sensible sedate
man. I have questioned him very much about Italy; he has assured me
that it was not possible for an Englishman to keep good company in
Italy, and to go thro' the country in an agreable manner, under 800
or at the lowest under 700 pounds a year. If it was possible for
you, Dear Sir, to make such an effort for _only one year_, I should
consider it as an obligation which it ought to be my study to repay
by the most exact œconomy upon all other occasions, and by coming (if
necessary) into any schemes which might be thought of to make us both
easy. But in case you cannot do it, I had rather give up a scheme (I
have indeed always set my heart upon) than it should be the occasion
of perpetual unneasinesses and inconveniences to us both.
Upon reading over what I have wrote, I am afraid, Dear Sir, you will
suspect me of murmuring and being out of humor. Such sentiments
are far from me. I am convinced there is nothing occasions your
complaints but your not being able to support it, and in that case,
tho' I cannot lessen my expence, I can put an entire stop to it. May
I beg, Dear Sir, your speedy directions for my conduct. If I am to
pass the mountains (which I wish and hope still) I must not wait for
the month of April as it is the very worst in the year.
I beg my love and duty to Mrs. Gibbon. I shall write to her very
soon, though I have little more to say than what I have just said.
My Aunt Porten---- Indeed I am much in the wrong, but I will not be
so longer, and I hope very soon to clear score with all my friends.
S^{r} Thomas is the only one with whom I have a C^{t} account;
creditor indeed in more than one sense of the word. If he and George
Dux, my other creditor, would pay me, it would be a little help.
I am, Dear Sir,
Most affectionately yours,
E. GIBBON, JUNIOR.
[62] Gibbon refers to his promotion to the rank of major in the
Hampshire Militia.
[Sidenote: LETTERS OF LADY M. W. MONTAGUE.]
32.
_To his Stepmother._
Lausanne, February 17th, 1764.