We shall adjourn next week, I believe, till after the Queen’s birthday.  There was a talk yesterday of changes in the Admiralty, but without foundation.  Lord Lisbourne, who dined with us yesterday at Lord Ashburnham’s, did not seem to think that there would be a change of any sort.  I hope he means as to men then only; for if measures and conduct are not to be changed we are completely undone, supposing anything of that now left to do.

The Duke of Newcastle’s youngest son is at Lisbon for his health, and not likely to live.  What is become, or will become, of his eldest God knows.  His Grace’s pride has settled everything upon Sir H(enry) Clinton, for the sake of the name, and Oatlands is to be sold and no vestiges left, of his infinite obligations either to Lord Torrington or to the Pelhams.  He is 200,000 pounds in debt, and will, if Lord Lincoln marries, of which nobody doubts, have probably 6,000 pounds a year to pay in jointures to Lady Harrington, and Lady Hertford’s daughters, and when this and the usual charge upon the maintenance of great houses is defrayed, he will leave nothing to Sir Henry but the expense of his own monument.  He is a complete wretch, and no one ever deserved more to be so.

(185) Henry Laurens (1723-1783), President of the American Congress in 1777; he resigned in 1778, and was appointed Ambassador to Holland, but was captured by the English at sea and imprisoned in the Tower.  After his release he was sent by Washington to Paris to negotiate for a new loan, and in 1783 he signed there the preliminaries of peace with Franklin, Adams, and Jay.

(186) Jean Frederic Phe’lippeaux, Comte de Maurepas (1701-1781), Minister of Marine under Louis XV., but banished through the influence of Mme. de Pompadour; recalled by Louis XVI., he was made first minister, and though himself more courtier than statesman, succeeded in his policy of the recognition of the United States, and brought into the Ministry such men as Turgot, Malesherbes, and Necker.

Earlier in this year Walpole had written to Sir Horace Mann:  “Mr. Fox is the first figure in all the places I have mentioned, the hero in Parliament, at the gaming table, at Newmarket.”  The sentence with which Selwyn, half angry and half amused, concludes the last letter of 1781, emphasises the extraordinary and commanding position which Fox held at this critical moment in the House of Commons.

(1781,) Christmas Day, Tuesday m.—. . . .  I dined yesterday at Lady Lucan’s.  The dinner was at first designed for George and Mie Mie, but upon my explaining myself to Lady Lucan concerning that [his objection to their dining out late], this dinner took another turn, and was at their usual hour; so instead of them, I met Lady Clermont, Sir R. and Lady Payne, Mr. Walpole, and Mr. Gibbon.(187) There were a few at Brooks’s, and Hare in the chair to keep up the appearance of a pharo bank, but nobody to punt but the Duke of Rutland and Fish Craufurd.  Charles, or Richard, if he is there, never fail(s); and at their own bank they will lose a thousand in one deal, and win them back in the other; but Richard, as I was told, lost tout de bon 7,000, the other night, to this bank, in which Hare and Lord Robert have a twelfth.  The whole manoeuvre, added to their patriotism, their politics, &c., &c., are incredible.