I learned from Bore to-day, that Sir G. M’Cartney is a debtor to the family as well as myself, and his debt is to the amount of five thousand pounds, which I am afraid he will find it difficult to raise.

Blaquiere and George Howard are to have two Red Ribbands on Wednesday.  There is no end to the honours of your family.  I have entrusted Lady Carlisle’s picture, I mean your grandmother’s, to Linnell, to be framed and cleaned, and then it will be sent to Castle Howard.  March I hear goes to Huntingdon next Tuesday.

I think that I shall set out on Thursday next, or if my heart fails me, not till Saturday.  I shall then be time enough to meet these Judges, who do not begin to poison and hang till Monday.  Lady Mary has promised to make me a present of the little antique ring which you gave to Lord Holland.

Did I tell you that I saw Lord Ilchester?(115) He shewed me a letter which he had received from Ste on his mother’s death, and some trifling things which had belonged to Lord H(olland).  Lord Ilchester was extremely pleased with this mark of his affection, and indeed the letter was a very kind and well-bred letter as any I ever read.

I find Lord Thomond most excessively blamed in having neglected to make his will, so that he has died at last en mauvaise odeur with his White’s friends.  I cannot but think, as he was so remarkably methodical, that he intended, by making no will, that the estate should go where the law directs, especially as the second son of his brother has besides so ample a fortune.

Williams has been giving a different account of the public money left in Lord Holland’s hands from any which I ever before heard.  He, Walters, Offley, and March dined at White’s.  I called in there after dinner.  Williams said that a calculation is made of what the interest of that money will amount to from this time to the settlement of the account; and that it is to be made capital, and is part of what is due to the public.  I protest I don’t understand him, nor do I conceive what the residue of the personal estate will amount to; but not to much, as the opinion of the family is.  The reports, and belief of those who are not in the secret, are out of all credibility.

Lady Holland’s second will, or codicil, will not be opened till the family returns to town.  Everybody is inquisitive to know if you and Foley are safe.  Il est merveilleux l’interet que tout le monde prend a tout ceci, aussi bien qu’au manage de notre Prince, dont je ne saurois pour dire des nouvelles.  Meynell, Panton, and James are in Hertfordshire, and the highty-tighty man at Port Hill in the damnest (sic) fright in the world about the small-pox.  I hope the poor devil will get over it.

Adieu, my dear lord.  If I was prevented from writing by last post, cette fois-ci je m’en suis bein venge. . . .

I see your porter every morning in the grove, as he returns from Islington, where he is drinking the waters; he looks a little better, but not much.  They have lent him a horse to ride there, and he says that he finds the air where he is to agree better with him than that of the country.