Your kind epistle gave me much more pleasure than pain; for I am
grown callous to shame, but am not insensible of gratitude and
friendship.
I have heard of you by Mrs. Sarah Holroyd, and was much pleased
and edified by the zeal with which you communicated to your family
the Colonel's first spirited Oration.[454] He instantly exclaimed,
'Those are the friends I like to have.' He has not spoke since, but
he is, as you may well suppose, indefatigable and eager, and it
will not be long before he feels a second inspiration. I can only
condole with you that a person, in whose fate and reputation you
are perhaps more deeply interested, should still continue a dumb
dog. He has indeed the grace to acknowledge his infirmity, and if my
seat in the House of C. had not some remote connection with a more
valuable seat, I should retire without any regret from that scene of
noise, heat and contention. A dissolution of Parliament, though it
may be delayed many months, is by many expected every hour: and I am
totally ignorant of the designs of the Electors of Liskeard. My great
constituent grows warmer in patriotism, but he still expresses the
same regard for me, and though I have no motives for confidence, I
have not any reasons for fear. He is perfectly silent on the subject,
and I am prepared for the worst. I saw my young friend John in his
passage, and was indeed astonished by the sense and propriety of his
behaviour without embarrassment and without forwardness. Mrs. Eliot
is not in the least altered.
I am, Dear Madam,
Most truly yours,
E. GIBBON.
[454] In the debate on the Army Estimates and the new Levies
(April 5, 1780), Fox commented on the manner in which Colonel
Holroyd had raised his Regiment of Horse. It is to Holroyd's
reply, and his explanation that the regiment was raised by him
for active service, and not as a "fencible corps," that Gibbon
refers.
392.
_To his Stepmother._
June 6th, 1780.