The Duke of Newcastle is to bring Will Hanger into Parliament, but what is to pay for his chair to go down to the House the Lord knows; they tell me that there is absolutely not a shilling left.

(117) John, fifth Duke of Argyll (1723-1806).  He had married for his second wife the Duchess of Hamilton, nee Gunning, the famous beauty.

(118) Lady Amelia Mary (1731-1814), daughter of Charles, second Duke of Richmond, as celebrated for her beauty and charm as her sisters, Lady Holland, Lady Louisa Connolly, and Lady Sarah Bunbury, The reference is evidently to her approaching second marriage to Mr. Ogilvy.

The correspondence of 1775 begins with the frequent story of Charles Fox’s debts.  It has been well said of Carlisle, that each fresh instance of prodigality in Fox “affected his generous heart with anxiety for the character, the health, and the happiness of his friend before he found time to compute and lament its calamitous influence on his own fortunes."(119) Selwyn’s solicitude for the welfare of his friend urged him, as we see in the following letter, to something like impatient expostulation on his forbearance and good nature.

(1775?) (Beginning wanting.) . . .  Gregg wants me to dun Charles.  He lost last night 800 pounds, as Brooks told me to-day.  He receives money from More the Attorney.  He forestalls all he is to receive, and unless the importunity begins with you, mine will avail nothing.  Besides, I fairly own that I cannot keep my temper.  My ideas, education, and former experience, or inexperience, of these things, make me see some things in the most horrible light which you can conceive, and I am far from being singular.  Pray write a letter to Charles, a tella fin que de raison; otherwise there will be no ability left, and then it will be to no purpose.

What management you choose to have with him is more than I can comprehend.  I can conceive the intimacy between you.  Your delicacy of temper, ten thousand nuances de sentiments.  But I can never conceive that all feeling, all the principle, &c., should be of one side only.  If you don’t press it, he will not think it pressing, and will say so; that must depend upon what you choose to reveal.  He may not think you want it, or may think that all mire in which he wallows is as indifferent to you as to him.  Je me perds dans toutes ces reflections.  My God, if they did not concern you, I should not care who were the objects of them.

(119) “The Early History of Charles James Fox,” p. 460.

1775, Aug. 1, Tuesday afternoon, from your own house, below stairs.  —­I came from Richmond this morning on purpose to meet Gregg here to dinner, and we have had our leg of mutton together; a poor epitome of Roman greatness.  I believe, as Lord Grantham told me, few have so little philosophy as I have.  You have a great deal, having a much more manly understanding. . . .