(1781,) April 24, Tuesday noon, 1 o’clock.--. . . . . . 
P.S.  Tuesday afternoon, 3 o’clock.—. . .  Vary has just dropped in
upon me, and says that news is come from Arthburnot (sic), that
there has been a skirmish with the Fr(ench) Adm[iral], and it was a
kind of drawn battle; that General Phillips has joined Arnold with
2,000 men.  He came to ask after George; il ne scait pas encore, a
quel point le monde s’interesse pour lui.  My best and most
affectionate respects to Lady Carlisle, and my love to Caroline, and
to her sisters, not forgetting Louisa, chi gia non sovra di me.

Two balls! very fine, Caroline.  Mie Mie will have seen but one, and that is Mr. Wills’s annual ball.  But we are very well feathered for that, a la Uestris.  I had not the ordering so much ornament, and when it is over, and we have had our diversion, I shall read a lecture upon heads, which I wish not to be filled with so many thoughts about dress.  But she coaxed Mrs. Webb into all this a mon inscu, and then I cannot be Mr. Killjoy; so pour le moment I seem to approve of it.

We have been at one opera, and| instead of other spectacles, I propose to go for the first part of the evening to Ranelagh, quand la presse n’y sera pas.  Lady Craufurd’s new chair is, as Sir C. Williams said of Dicky’s, the charming’st thing in town, et les deux laquais qui la precedent attirent les yeux de tous les envieux et envieuses.

Sir Alexander comes and dines here with March, and is as easy as ever was Sir Jos.  Vanheck, and lives with his friends now upon the same foot as before this acquisition of honour.  I am told that you have a receipt as Lord Lieutenant to make knights yourself.  But I suppose if you intend me such an honour I must come and fetch it.  I suppose you do everything that is Royal except touching for the Evil, which would be the most useful fleuron of the Crown if it was effectual.

Storer was out of spirits yesterday at dinner, and I found out afterwards that he had been losing, like a simple boy, his money at Charles’s and Richard’s damned Pharo bank, which swallows up everybody’s cash that comes to Brooks’s, as I am told.  I suppose that the bank is supported, if such a thing wanted support, by Brooks himself and your friend Jack Manners.  It is a creditable way of living, I must own; and it would be well if by robbing some you might pay others, only that ce qui est acquis et (est?) jette par la fenetre, et si l’on paye, ou ne s’acquitte pas.

(1781,) May 16, Wednesday night.—­I was engaged to dine to-day at Lady Ossory’s,(157) but I called in at Lady Lucan’s, and they obliged me to send an excuse, and so I dined there, and dine at Lady Ossory’s on Saturday.  I found myself with a party of Irish, Dean Marly, and Lady Clermont, and with her Mrs. Jones, whom I was ravished to see, for she had given a ball where Caroline was, and commended her dancing, and I tormented the poor woman with such a number of questions about her, that I believe she