th any support, but a fortnight
ago.

My best and ablest friends here are dead; their survivors supine and
superannuated; their connections new Whigs and Reformers, and
Associators; myself grown quite indifferent upon the point; and the
principal Tories, such as the Duke of Beaufort, &c., and those who
would have been active, if they had been desired to be so half a
year ago, never spoke to. Mr. Robinson,(144) in his letters to me,
has always spoke in the plural number, our friend and I; so it is a
scheme adopted by both, I am to suppose, and a hazardous one it is.
But one Member they will have, I believe, and I wish they had fixed
upon any one but me to be their choice.

Sir Andr. goes upon the surest grounds, because I believe that he
will be franked to a certain point, and is sure of a seat in another
place, if not here. He is really a very agreeable man, and seems to
penetrate into the characters of the people he has seen very well.
He entertained me much yesterday with his account of my old friend
the Duke of Newcastle. He speaks of you in terms of the highest
esteem.

We stole away the day before yesterday from our keepers, to dine
here, which was a great relief, but we were jobed (sic) for it at
our return. I get here time enough to go to bed, that is about 11
o'clock, and I do not leave this place till about nine, that is till
Mie Mie and I have breakfasted together.

We have a committee sitting at what is called the New(?) Inn, which
has been built, and never repaired, three hundred years since; and
here this swarm of old Jacobites, with no attachment to Government,
assembles, and for half an hour you would be diverted with their
different sentiments and proposals. There is one who has a knack at
squibbs, as they call it, and he has a table and chair with a pen
and ink before him, to write scurrilous papers, and these are sent
directly to Mr. Raikes. I wish to God that it was all at an end.

What sin, to me unknown,
Dipped me in this? My father's, or my own?

I am very glad that you have so quietly abandoned a contention for
Carlisle. When these things come to us without trouble it is very
well; but when they do not, I do not know one earthly thing that
makes us amends, and it is not once in a hundred times that you are
thanked for it. ...

I am old indeed, as the papers say, and if not trained up in
ministerial corruption, I am used to all other corruption whatever,
and of that of manners in partic