(324) John Shute, first Viscount Barrington in the peerage of Ireland, expelled the House of Commons in February 1723, for having promoted, abetted, and carried on that fraudulent undertaking, the Harburgh lottery.  This lottery took its name from the place where it Was to be drawn, the town and port of Harburgh, on the river Elbe, where the projector was to settle a trade for the woollen manufacture between England and Germany.  Lord Barrington was distinguished for theological learning, and published “Miscellanea Critica” and an “Essay on the several Dispensations of God to Mankind.”  He died in 1734, leaving five sons, who had the rare fortune of each rising to high stations in the church, the state, the law, the army, and the navy.-E.

(325) See vol. i. p. 258, letter 69.  Among the Mitchell MSS. is a letter from Lord Barrington, in which he says, “No man knows what is good for him:  my invariable rule, therefore, is to ask nothing, to refuse nothing; to let Others place me, and to do my best wherever I am placed.  The same strange fortune which made me secretary of war five years ago has made me chancellor of the exchequer; it may perhaps at last make me pope.  I think i am equally fit to be at the head of the church as the exchequer."-E.

Letter 148 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.  Oct, 14, 1778. (page 202)

I think you take in no newspapers, nor do I believe condescend to read any more modern than the Paris `a la Main at the time of the Ligue; consequently you have not seen a new scandal on my father, which you will not wonder offends me.  You cannot be interested in his defence; but, as it comprehends some very curious anecdotes, you will not grudge my indulging myself to a friend in vindicating a name so dear to me.  In the accounts of Lady Chesterfield’s(326) death and fortune, it is said that the late King, at the instigation of Sir Robert Walpole, burnt his father’s will which contained a large legacy to that, his supposed, daughter, and I believe his real one; for she was very like him, as her brother General Schulembourg, is, in black, to the late King.  The fact of suppressing the will is indubitably true; the instigator most false, as I can demonstrate thus:—­ When the news arrived of the death of George the First, my father carried the account from Lord Townshend to the then Prince of Wales.  One of the first acts of royalty is for the new monarch to make a speech to the privy council.  Sir Robert asked the King who he would please to have draw the Speech, which was, in fact, asking who was to be prime minister; to which his Majesty replied, Sir Spencer Compton.  It is a wonderful anecdote, and but little known, that the new premier, a very dull man, could not draw the Speech, and the person to whom he applied was the deposed premier.  The Queen, who favoured my father, observed how unfit a man was for successor, who was reduced to beg assistance of his predecessor.