There was a class of men, of very high rank, such as Lords Wellington,
Nelson, and Collingwood, Sir John Moore and some few others who never
frequented the clubs. The persons to whom I refer, and amongst whom
were many members of the sporting world, used to congregate at a few
hotels. The Clarendon, Limmer's, Ibbetson's, Fladong's, Stephens', and
Grillon's, were the fashionable hotels. The Clarendon was then kept by
a French cook, Jacquiers, who contrived to amass a large sum of money
in the service of Louis the Eighteenth in England, and subsequently
with Lord Darnley. This was the only public hotel where you could get
a genuine French dinner, and for which you seldom paid less than three
or four pounds; your bottle of champagne or of claret, in the year
1814, costing you a guinea.
Limmer's was an evening resort for the sporting world; in fact, it was
a midnight Tattersal's, where you heard nothing but the language of the
turf, and where men with not very clean hands used to make up their
books. Limmer's was the most dirty hotel in London; but in the gloomy,
comfortless coffee-room might be seen many members of the rich
squirearchy, who visited London during the sporting season. This hotel
was frequently so crowded that a bed could not be obtained for any
amount of money; but you could always get a very good plain English
dinner, an excellent bottle of port, and some famous gin-punch.
Ibbetson's hotel was chiefly patronized by the clergy and young men
from the universities. The charges there were more economical than at
similar establishments. Fladong's, in Oxford Street, was chiefly
frequented by naval men; for in those days there was no club for
sailors. Stephens', in Bond Street, was a fashionable hotel, supported
by officers of the army and men about town. If a stranger asked to
dine there, he was stared at by the servants, and very solemnly assured
that there was no table vacant. It was not an uncommon thing to see
thirty or forty saddle-horses and tilburys waiting outside this hotel.
I recollect two of my old Welsh friends, who used each of them to
dispose of five bottles of wine daily, residing here in 1815, when the
familiar joints, boiled fish and fried soles, were the only eatables
you could order.