_REPORT OF THE VISIT._
_July_ 7, 1795.
I am not dead of fatigue with my Royal visitors, as I expected to be,
though I was on my poor lame feet three whole hours. Your daughter [Mrs.
Damer], who kindly assisted me in doing the honours, will tell you the
particulars, and how prosperously I succeeded. The Queen was uncommonly
condescending and gracious, and deigned to drink my health when I
presented her with the last glass, and to thank me for all my
attentions.[1] Indeed my memory _de la vieille cour_ was but once in
default. As I had been assured that her Majesty would be attended by her
Chamberlain, yet was not, I had no glove ready when I received her at
the step of her coach: yet she honoured me with her hand to lead her up
stairs; nor did I recollect my omission when I led her down again.
Still, though gloveless, I did not squeeze the royal hand, as
Vice-chamberlain Smith[2] did to Queen Mary.
[Footnote 1: There cannot be a more fitting conclusion than this letter
recording the greatest honour conferred on the writer and his Strawberry
by the visit of the Queen of the realm and her condescending proposal of
his health at his own table.]
[Footnote 2: "_Vice-Chamberlain Smith._" An allusion to a gossiping
story of King William's time, that when Queen Mary came back to England
she asked one of her ladies what a squeeze of the hand was supposed to
intimate; and when the reply was, "Love," "Then," said Her Majesty, "my
Vice-Chancellor must be in love with me; for he always squeezes my
hand."]
You will have stared, as I did, at the Elector of Hanover deserting his
ally the King of Great Britain, and making peace with the monsters. But
Mr. Fawkener, whom I saw at my sister's [Churchill's] on Sunday, laughs
at the article in the newspapers, and says it is not an unknown practice
for stock-jobbers to hire an emissary at the rate of five hundred
pounds, and dispatch to Franckfort, whence he brings forged attestations
of some marvellous political event, and spreads it on 'Change, which
produces such a fluctuation in the stocks as amply overpays the expense
of his mission.
This was all I learnt in the single night I was in town. I have not read
the new French constitution, which seems longer than probably its reign
will be. The five sovereigns will, I suppose, be the first guillotined.
Adieu! Yours ever.