’Since his present majesty’s accession to the throne I have absolutely refused to be concerned with the Pretender or any of his affairs; and during my stay in Italy have behaved myself in a manner that Dr. Peters, Mr. Godolphin, and Mr. Mills can declare to be consistent with my duty to the present king.  I was forc’d to go to Italy to get out of Spain, where, if my true design had been known, I should have been treated a little severely.

’I am coming to Paris to put myself entirely under your excellency’s protection; and hope that Sir Robert Walpole’s good-nature will prompt him to save a family which his generosity induced him to spare.  If your excellency would permit me to wait upon you for an hour, I am certain you would be convinc’d of the sincerity of my repentance for my former madness, would become an advocate with his majesty to grant me his most gracious pardon, which it is my comfort I shall never be required to purchase by any step unworthy of a man of honour.  I do not intend, in case of the king’s allowing me to pass the evening of my days under the shadow of his royal protection, to see England for some years, but shall remain in France or Germany, as my friends shall advise, and enjoy country sports till all former stories are buried in oblivion.  I beg of your excellency to let me receive your orders at Paris, which I will send to your hostel to receive.  The Dutchess of Wharton, who is with me, desires leave to wait on Mrs. Walpole, if you think proper.

    ‘I am, &c.’

After this, the ambassador could do no less than receive him; but he was somewhat disgusted when on leaving him the duke frankly told him—­forgetting all about his penitent letter, probably, or too reckless to care for it—­that he was going to dine with the Bishop of Rochester—­Atterbury himself, then living in Paris—­whose society was interdicted to any subject of King George.  The duke, with his usual folly, touched on other subjects equally dangerous, his visit to Rome, and his conversion to Romanism; and, in short, disgusted the cautious Mr. Walpole.  There is something delightfully impudent about all these acts of Wharton’s; and had he only been a clown at Drury Lane instead of an English nobleman, he must have been successful.  As it is, when one reads of the petty hatred and humbug of those days, when liberty of speech was as unknown as any other liberty, one cannot but admire the impudence of his Grace of Wharton, and wish that most dukes, without being as profligate, would be as free-spoken.

With six hundred pounds in his pocket, our young Lothario now set up house at Rouen, with an establishment ‘equal,’ say the old-school writers, ‘to his position, but not to his means.’  In other words, he undertook to live in a style for which he could not pay.  Twelve hundred a year may be enough for a duke, as for any other man, but not for one who considers a legion of servants a necessary appendage to his position.  My lord duke, who was a good