in equipping you with such a one as you want.  You know how much I want to be of service to you even in trifles.  I have been much diverted privately, for it is a secret that not a hundred persons know yet, and is not to be spoken of.  Do but think on a duel between Winnington (261) and Augustus Townshend; (262) the latter a pert boy, captain of an Indiaman; the former declared cicisbeo to my Lady Townshend.  The quarrel was something that Augustus had said of them; for since she was parted from her husband, she has broke with all his family.  Winnington challenged; they walked into Hyde Park last Sunday morning, scratched one another’s fingers, tumbled into two ditches-that is Augustus did,-kissed, and walked home together.  The other night at Mrs. Boothby’s-

Well, I did believe I should never find time to write to you again; I was interrupted in my letter last post, and could not finish it; to-day I came home from the King’s levee, where I Kissed his hand, without going to the drawing-room, on purpose to finish my letter, and the moment I sat down they let somebody in.  That somebody is gone, and I go on-At Mrs. Boothby’s Lady Townshend was coquetting with Lord Baltimore:  (263) he told her, if she meant any thing with him he was not for her purpose; if only to make any one jealous, he would throw away an hour with her with all his heart.

The whole town is to be to-morrow night at Sir Thomas Robinson’s (264) ball, which he gives to a little girl of the Duke of Richmond’s.  There are already two hundred invited, from miss in bib and apron, to my lord chancellor (265) in bib and mace.  You shall hear about it next post.

I wrote you word that Lord Euston is married:  in a week more I believe that I shall write you word that he is divorced.  He is brutal enough; and has forbid Lady Burlington (266) his house, and that in very ungentle terms.  The whole family is in confusion:  the Duke of Grafton half dead. and Lord Burlington half mad.  The latter has challenged Lord Euston, who accepted the challenge, but they were prevented.  There are different stories:  some say that the duel would have been no breach of consanguinity; others, that there’s a contract of marriage come out in another place, which has had more consanguinity than ceremony in it:  in short, one cannot go into a room but you hear something of it.  Do you not pity the poor girl? of the softest temper, vast beauty, birth, and fortune, to be so sacrificed!

The letters from the West Indies are not the most agreeable.  You have heard of the fine river and little town which Vernon took, and named, the former dugusta, the latter Cumberland.  Since that, they have found out that it is impracticable to take St. Jago by sea — on which Admiral Vernon and Ogle insisted that Wentworth, with the land forces, should march to it by land, which he, by advice of all the land-officers, has refused; for their march would have been of eighty miles, through a mountainous, unknown country, full of defiles, where not two men could march abreast; and they have but four thousand five hundred men, and twenty-four horses.  Quires of paper from both sides are come over to the council, who are to determine from hence what is to be done.  They have taken a Spanish man-of-war and a register ship, going to Spain, immensely valuable.