(1053) Through the mediation of their mutual friend, Mr. Calcraft, a reconciliation between Lord Chatham and Earl Temple took place at Hayes, on the 25th of November, to which Mr. Grenville heartily acceded.  See Chatham Correspondence, vol, iii. p. 349.-E.

(1054) Mr. Wilkes, on the 14th of November, had presented a petition to the House of Commons, praying for a redress of his grievances.-E.

(1055) By a reference to Sir Henry Cavendish’s Debates, vol. i. pp. 93, 131, it will be seen, that Lord Sandwich expressed, through Mr. Rigby, his readiness to be examined, and that he was examined on the 31st of January.-E.

Letter 357 To George Montagu, Esq.  Strawberry Hill, Sunday, March 26, 1769. (page 538)

I beg your pardon; I promised to send you news, and I had quite forgot that we have had a rebellion; at least, the Duke of Bedford says so.  Six or eight hundred merchants, English, Dutch, Jews, Gentiles, had been entreated to protect the Protestant succession, and consented.(1056) They set out on Wednesday noon in their coaches and chariots, chariots not armed with scythes like our Gothic ancestors.  At Temple-bar they met several regiments of foot dreadfully armed with mud, who discharged a sleet of dirt on the royal troop.  Minerva, who had forgotten her dreadful Egis, and who, in the shape of Mr. Boehm, carried the address, was forced to take shelter under a Cloud in Nando’s coffeehouse, being more afraid of Buckhorse than ever Venus was of Diomed; in short, it was a dismal day; and if Lord Talbot had not recollected the patriot feats of his youth,(1057) and recommenced bruiser, I don’t know but the Duchess of Kingston,(1058) who has so long preserved her modesty, from both her husbands, might not have been ravished in the drawing-room.  Peace is at present restored, and the rebellion adjourned to the thirteenth of April; when Wilkes and Colonel Luttrell are to fight a pitched battle at Brentford, the Phillippi of antoninus.  Tityre, tu patulae recubans sub tegmine fogi, know nothing of these broils.  You don’t convert your ploughshares into falchions, nor the mud of Adderbury into gunpowder.  I tremble for my painted windows, and write talismans of number forty-five on every gate and postern of my castle.  Mr. Hume is writing the Revolutions of Middlesex, and a troop of barnacle geese are levied to defend the capital.  These are melancholy times!  Heaven send we do not laugh till we cry!

London, Tuesday, 28th.

Our ministers, like their Saxon ancestors, are gone to bold a wittenagemoot on horseback at Newmarket.  Lord Chatham, we are told, is to come forth after the holidays and place himself at the head of the discontented.  When I see it I shall believe it.  Lord Frederick Campbell is, at last, to be married this evening to the Dowager-countess of Ferrers.(1059) The Duchess of Grafton is actually Countess of Ossory.(1060) This is a short gazette; but, consider, it is a time of truce.  Adieu!