(656) Colonel Fletcher of the 35th foot.-E.

(657) Not very surprising, however, as London would have been about eighty miles round.-C.

(658) The following is a passage from a letter written by Mr. Pitt to the Duke of Newcastle, in October, in reply to one of these overtures:—­“As for my single self, I purpose to continue acting through life upon the best convictions I am able to form, and Under the obligation of principles, not by the force of any particular bargains.  I presume not to judge for those who think they see daylight to serve their country by such means:  but shall continue myself, as often as I think it worth the while to go to the House of Commons, to go there free from stipulation-, about every question under consideration, as well as to come out of the House as free as I entered it.  Having seen the close of last session, and the system of that great war, in which my share of the ministry was so largely arraigned, given up by silence in a full House, I have little thoughts of beginning the world again upon a new centre of union.  Your grace will not, I trust, wonder if, after so recent and so strange a phenomenon in politics, I have no disposition to quit the free condition of a man standing single, and daring to appeal to his country at large, upon the soundness of his principles and the rectitude of his conduct.”  See Chatham Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 296.-E.

(659) Mary Anne Drury, wife Of John, second Earl of Buckinghamshire.-E.

(660) Mr. Walpole gives an unfair turn to this circumstance.  The stopping the Duke of York’s remittances, and ordering him home, was a measure of prudence, not to say of necessity, for that young Prince’s extravagance abroad had made a public clamour; so much so, that a popular preacher delivered, about this time, a sermon on the following text:—­“The younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.”  St. Luke, xv. 13.  The letters and even the publications of the day allude to this extravagance, and surely it was the duty of his brother and sovereign to repress an indiscretion which occasioned such observations.-C.

(661) William, created, in November, 1764, Duke of Gloucester; and Henry created, in 1766, Duke of cumberland.  The injustice of mr.  Walpole’s insinuations will be evident, when it is remembered that, at the date of this letter, the eldest of these Princes was but twenty, and the other eighteen years of age, and that they were both created Dukes, and had households established for them as soon as they respectively came of age-C.

(662) Mary, daughter of Charles, second Viscount Townshend, wife of Edward, sixth son of the third Lord Cornwallis.  I suspect that here again Mr. Walpole’s accusation is not correct.  General Cornwallis had been groom of the bedchamber to George ii., and was continued in the same office by the successor, till he was appointed Governor of Gibraltar, when Mr. Henry Seymour was appointed in his room.-C.