Richard Lumley 2nd Earl Scarborough 1686-1740

Letters of Horace Walpole. Arlington Street, Jul 12, 1765.

If you knew with what difficulty and pain I write to you you would allow my dear sir that I have some zeal for your satisfaction I have been extremely ill for these last sixteen days with the gout all over me in head stomach and both feet but as it never budged from the latter it soon attracted all the venom from the upper parts Oh it is a venomous devil I have lain upon a couch for two days but I question whether I shall be so alert to day as I have had a great deal of pain in the night and little sleep Still I must write to you as it is both for your satisfaction and my own and as this is the first moment that I have enjoyed the liberty of the post for these three years We e may say what we will I may launch out and even you need not be discreet when our letters pass through Mr Conway's office He has already himself told you in form that he is your principal and I repeat how glad of it I am for your sake as well as for all others I told him last night that I believed the Duke of York had obtained the promise of a red riband for you and begged that promise at least of the late odious ministers might be fulfilled and that none of our new aspirants might be thrust in before you He readily with kind expressions towards you promised me his interest.

kind expressions towards you promised me his interest Well at last the four tyrants are gone undone by their own insolence and unpitied Their arrogance to the King and proscriptions of every body but their own crew forced his Majesty to try any thing rather than submit to such task masters Mr Pitt who was ready and willing to have assumed the burden was disappointed by the treachery of Lord Temple who has reconciled and leagued himself with his brother George In this distress the Duke of Čumberland has persuaded the Opposition to accept and form a ministry Without Mr Pitt they were unwilling but pressed and encouraged by Mr Pitt and fearing the crown should be reduced to worse shifts rather than again bend to the yoke they have submitted and every thing promises fairer than could be expected The Duke of Bedford, Grenville and the two secretaries are already dismissed and their places filled by Lord Winchelsea Lord Rockingham and Mr Dowdswell as First Commissioners of the Admiralty and Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer the Duke of Grafton and Mr Conway The list of ins and outs will be much more considerable by degrees though not rapidly nor executed with the merciless hand of late years for the present system is composed of men as much more virtuous in that respect as in every other than their predecessors Nobody has resigned yet but those immediately connected with the fallen as Lord Gower Lord Thomond and Lord Weymouth and who would not have been suffered to stay if they had desired it.

The crown of Ireland is offered to Lord Heriford All this sets my family in an illustrious light enough yet it does not dazzle me My wishes and intentions are just the same as they were Moderation privacy and quiet sum up all my future views and having seen my friends landed my little cock boat shall waft me to Strawberry as soon as I am able to get into it The gout they tell me is to ensure me a length of years and health but as I fear I must now and then renew the patent at the original expense I am not much flattered by so dear an annuity You may judge of my sensations when I tell you I reckon the greatest miracle ever performed was that of bidding the cripple take up his bed and walk I could as soon do the former as the latter .

Since I began to write I hear that this morning have kissed hands Lord Ashburnham [aged 40] for the Great Wardrobe in room of Lord Despencer, Lord Besborough and Lord Grantham Postmasters in the places of Lord Hyde and Lord Trevor Lord Villierst as Vicechamberlain instead of old Will Finch who believe has a pension and Lord Scarborough who succeeds Lord Thomond in the Cofferer's office You will say that all this is strongly tinctured with peerage it is true but the House of Commons will have its dole though not yet as folks do not like a re election depending for six months.

The Duke of Bolton [aged 47] the other morning nobody knows why or wherefore except that there is a good deal of madness in the blood sat himself down upon the floor in his dressing room and shot him self through the head. What is more remarkable is that it is the same house and same chamber in which Lord Scarborough performed the same exploit I do not believe that shooting one's self through the head is catching or that any contagion lies in a wainscot that makes one pull a suicide trigger but very possibly the idea might revert and operate on the brain of a splenetic man I am glad he had not a blue garter but a red one as the more plenty the sooner one gets to Florence.

This is a long epistle in my condition Pray unseal and decypher your lips now the tower has no longer the least air of the Bastille. Halifax, Sandwich [aged 46] and General Warrants are sent to the devil though I believe Sandwich will contrive to return like Belphegor even though he should be obliged to marry his own wife [aged 48] again but he can never get rid of the smell of brimstone Adieu.