You scolded me so much about my little paper, that I dare not venture upon it even now, when I have very little to say to you.  The long session is over, and the Secret Committee already forgotten.  Nobody remembers it but poor Paxton, who has lost his place(669) by it. saw him the day after he came out of Newgate:  he came to Chelsea:(670) Lord Fitzwilliam was there, and in the height of zeal, took him about the neck and kissed him.  Lord Orford had been at Court that morning, and with his usual spirits, said to the new ministers, “So! the parliament is up, and Paxton, Bell, and I have got our liberty!” The King spoke in the kindest manner to him at his levee, but did not call him into the closet, as the new ministry feared he would, and as perhaps, the old ministry expected he would.  The day before, when the King went to put an end to the session, Lord Quarendon asked Winnington “whether Bell would be let out time enough to hire a mob to huzza him as he went to the House of Lords.”

The few people that are left in town have been much diverted with an adventure that has befallen the new ministers.  Last Sunday the Duke of Newcastle gave them a dinner at Claremont, where their servants got so drunk, that when they came to the inn over against the gate of Newpark,(671) the coachman, who was the only remaining fragment of their suite, tumbled off the box, and there they were planted.  There were Lord Bath, Lord Carteret, Lord Limerick, and Harry Furnese (672) in the coach:  they asked the innkeeper if he could contrive no way to convey them to town. , No,” he said, “not unless it was to get Lord Orford’s coachman to drive them.”  They demurred; but Lord Carteret said “Oh, I dare say, Lord Orford will willingly let us have him.”  So they sent and he drove them home.(673)

Ceretesi had a mind to see this wonderful Lord Orford, of whom he had heard so much; I carried him to dine at Chelsea.  You know the earl don’t speak a word of any language but English and Latin,(674) and Ceretesi not a word of either; yet he assured me that he was very happy to have made cosi bella conascenza!  He whips out his pocket-book every moment, and writes descriptions in issimo of every thing he sees:  the grotto alone took up three pages.  What volumes he will publish at his return, in usum Serenissimi Pannom!(675)

There has lately been the most shocking scene of murder imaginable; a parcel of drunken constables took it into their heads to put the laws in execution against disorderly persons, and so took up every woman they met, till they had collected five and six or twenty, all of whom they thrust into St. Martin’s roundhouse, where they kept them all night, with doors and windows closed.  The poor creatures, who could not stir or breathe, screamed as long as they had any breath left, begging at least for water:  one poor wretch said she was worth eighteen-pence, and would gladly give it for a draught of water, but in vain!