I find the last of mine that you had received when Charles wrote his was a month ago; that makes me afraid Sir J. L[ambert] keeps them.  There [they] are no more worth his keeping than your receiving, but they give me the pleasure of assuring you, which I can, with great truth, that I am ever most truly and most affectionately yours.

(60) The Duke of Grafton made no secret of his relations with Mrs. Horton.

(61) Elizabeth, Duchess of Buccleugh, daughter of George, Duke of Montagu.  She was married in 1767.

(62) Sir William Musgrave.

Intermixed with the personal news which fills the next letter there are allusions to some social and political incidents very characteristic of the time.  The Indian nabob, or millionaire as we should now call him, had begun to desire a seat in Parliament for his own purposes, just as the sinecurist did for his, and he was able to outbid the home purchaser.  The jealousy with which the Court party regarded the encroachments of these returned Anglo-Indians in their preserves is amusing, especially when we recollect that so great was the venality of the age that a respectable corporation such as that of Oxford did not hesitate to offer the representation of their borough for sale for a fixed sum.

1768, January 26, Tuesday night, at Almack’s.—­I received last night yours of the 9th of this month, for which I thank you most heartily.  It is really so much pleasure to me to have a letter from you, that it makes me wish away five days out of seven, and at my age that is too great an abatement.  I intended to have called to-day upon Sir W[illiam] Musgrave in consequence of it, but neither he [n]or Lady Carlisle having received any letters (if they are come, he might not have received them), that (sic) he prevented me, and called upon me at three o’clock to know if I had had any account of you.

Mr. Ward did not set out the Sunday he intended, that is the 17th inst., but he gave the letter which he was to carry to Sir J. L[ambert] to Mr. Hobart,(63) who was to set out for Paris the day after, that is, the 18th.

Lord Clive did not sail, as Sir W[illiam] M[usgrave] tells me, till last Sunday, so the Ribband and Badge, &c., will not arrive at Paris till next Saturday, or Sunday probably; but Sir J. L[ambert] will be prepared to have sent these things, by a safe hand to you either at Turin, or Nice.  I shall write to him to-night again with a full explanation of all, that no time may be lost.

I conclude you came to Turin last Saturday, according to the letter which I received yesterday, unless Lady Carlisle’s letter about the epidemical disorder prevented you, which was wrote the 5th inst., upon seeing Monsieur Viri(64) at the Princess Dow[age]r’s Drawing Room.  According to the usual course of the post you must then have received that the 19th, the evening of your intended departure, and whether it prevented you or not, is still for me a scavoir.