I can freely and sincerely tell you, that there is no journey which
will give me half the pleasure of staying in Bentinck Street to
receive you the latter end of next week, which I shall expect with
impatience.
I am,
Ever yours,
E. GIBBON.
285.
_To J. B. Holroyd, Esq._
Saturday Night, Bentinck Street, 13th July, 1776.
Mrs. G. at last arrived. I enclose her letter. Our plan seems to be
to visit Sheffield Place towards the end of next week. _À vue de
pays_, Friday appears the most likely day. I have no news public or
private, and loose conversation may be deferred till our meeting. I
was deeply engaged in the decline, but this visit and journey put a
heavy spoke in the wheel. Adieu.
286.
_To J. B. Holroyd, Esq._
Saturday evening, August, 1776.
*We expect you at five o'Clock Tuesday without a sore throat. You
have ere this heard of the shocking accident which takes up the
attention of the town.* Our old acquaintance poor John Damer[334]
shot himself, last Wednesday night, at the Bedford arms, his usual
place of resort, where he had passed several hours with four Ladies
and a blind fidler. By his own indolence rather than extravagance,
his circumstances were embarrassed, and he had frequently declared
himself tired of life. *No public news, nor any material expected
till the end of this or beginning of the next month when Howe will
probably have collected his whole force.[335] A tough business
indeed; you see by their declaration that they have now passed the
Rubicon and rendered the work of a treaty infinitely more difficult:
You will perhaps say, so much the better; but I do assure you that
the _thinking_ friends of government are by no means sanguine.* Mrs.
G. seems likely to expect your arrival. She has had no answer out
of you. I am pretty much a prisoner except about _one_ hour in the
evening: but as she dines to-morrow with Mrs. Ashby, *I take the
opportunity of eating turtle with Garrick at Hampton.* Adieu.
[334] The Hon. John Damer, son of Lord Milton, shot himself,
August 15, 1776. To his widow, the daughter of General Conway,
Horace Walpole left Strawberry Hill for her life.
[335] On August 27, 1776, General Howe defeated the Americans at
the battle of Brooklyn or Long Island.
287.
_To his Stepmother._
London, September 2nd, 1776.