Your brother is out of town, not troubling himself, though the time seems so critical.  I am not so philosophic; as I almost wish for any thing that may put an end to my being concerned in the m`el`ee—­for any end to a most gloomy prospect for the country:  alas!  I see it not.

Lord Byron’s trial lasted two days, and he was acquitted totally by four lords, Beaulieu, Falmouth, Despenser,(798) and Orford,(799) and found guilty of manslaughter by one hundred and twenty.  The Dukes of York and Gloucester were present in their places.  The prisoner behaved with great decorum, and seemed thoroughly shocked and mortified.  Indeed, the bitterness of the world against him has been great, and the stories they have revived or invented to load him, very grievous.  The Chancellor has behaved with his usual, or, rather greater vulgarness and blunders.  Lord Pomfret(800) kept away decently, from the similitude of his own story.

I have been to wait on Messrs. Choiseul(801) and De Lauragais,(802) as you desired, but have not seen then yet.  The former is lodged with my Lord Pembroke, and the Guerchys are in terrible apprehensions of his exhibiting some scene.

The Duke of Cumberland bore the journey to Newmarket extremely well, but has been lethargic Since,; yet they have found out that Daffy’s Elixir agrees with, and does him good.  Prince Frederick is very bad.  There is no private news at all.  As I shall not deliver this till the day after to-morrow, I shall be able to give you an account of the fate of the Poor-bill.

The medals that came for me from Geneva, I forgot to mention to you, and to beg you to be troubled with them till I see you.  I had desired Lord Stanhope(803) to send them; and will beg you too, if any bill is sent, to pay it for me, and I will repay it. you.  I say nothing of my journey, which the unsettled state of my affairs makes it impossible for me to fix.  I long for every reason upon earth to be with you.

April 20th, Saturday.

The Poor-bill is put off till Monday; is then to be amended, and then dropped:  a confession of weakness, in a set of people not famous for being moderate!  I was assured, last night, that Ireland had been twice offered to you, and that it hung on their insisting upon giving you a secretary, either Wood or Bunbury.  I replied very truly that I knew nothing of it, that you had never mentioned it to me and I believed not even to your brother.  The answer was, Oh! his particular friends are always the last that know any thing about him.  Princess Amalie loves this topic, and is for ever teasing us about your mystery.  I defend myself by pleading that I have desired you never to tell me any thing till it was in the gazette.

They say there is to be a new alliance in the house of Montagu:  that Lord Hinchinbrook(804) is to marry the sole remaining daughter of Lord Halifax; that her fortune is to be divided into three shares, of which each father is to take one, and the third is to be the provision for the victims.  I don’t think this the most unlikely part of the story.  Adieu! my dear lord.