and to exhort the patriots to continue what they had mutually so well begun, and to say how pleased he was with their having removed mr.  Tench.  Lord Islay showed these letters to Lord Orford, and then to the King, and told him he had showed them to my father.  “You did well."-Lord Islay, “Lord Orford says one is of the Pretender’s hand."-King, “He (641) knows it:  whenever any thing of this sort comes to your hand, carry it to Walpole.”  This private conversation you must not repeat.  A few days afterwards, the Duke wrote to his brother, “That upon recollection he thought it right to say, that he had received those letters from Lord Barrimore"(642) who is as well known for General to the Chevalier, as Montemar is to the Queen of Spain-or as the Duke of A. would be to either of them.  Lord Islay asked Sir R. if he was against publishing this story, which he thought was a justification both of his brother and Sir R. The latter replied, he could certainly have no objection to its being public-but pray, will his grace’s sending these letters to the secretaries of state Justify him from the assurances that had been given of’ him?(643) However, the Pretender’s being of opinion that the dismission of Mr. Tench was for his service, will scarce be an argument to the new ministry for making more noise about these papers.

I am sorry the boy is so uneasy at being on the foot of a servant.  I will send for his mother, and ask her why she did not tell him the conditions to which we had agreed; at the same time, I will tell her that she may send any letters for him to me.  Adieu! my dear child:  I am going to write to Mr. Chute, that is, to-morrow.  I never was more diverted than with his letter.

(632) The Queen of Hungary, Maria Theresa.-D.

(633) The only daughter and heiress of the Marquis Accianoli at Florence, was married to one of the same name, who was born at Madeira. ’ (634) Anne Plummer, Countess of Abercorn, wife of James, the seventh earl.  She died in 1756.-E.

(635) Catherine, daughter of John Hoskins, Esq.  She was married to the third Duke of Devonshire in 171@, and died in 1777.-E.

(636) James Hamilton succeeded as eighth Earl of Abercorn, on the death of his father in 1743.  He was created Viscount Hamilton in England in 1786, and died unmarried in 1789.-D.

(637) This is the house, in Downing Street, which is still the residence of the first lord of the treasury.  George the First gave it to Baron Bothmar, the Hanoverian minister-, for life.  On his death, George the Second offered to give it to Sir Robert Walpole; who, however, refused it, and begged of the King that it might be attached to the office of first lord of the treasury.-D.

(638) Sir Robert Godschall.

(639) The Duke of Argyll.

(640) Earl of Islay.

(641) Besides intercepted letters, Sir R. Walpole had more than once received letters from the Pretender, making him the greatest offers, which Sir R. always carried to the King, and got him to endorse, when he returned them to Sir R.