I think these accounts, upon which you may depend, must raise your spirits, and figure in Mr. Chute’s royal journal.-But you don’t get my letters:  I have sent you eleven since I came to town; how many of these have you received?  Adieu!

(1142) The consternation was so great as to occasion that day being named Black Friday. (Fielding, in his True Patriot, says, that, “when the Highlanders, by a most incredible march, got between the Duke’s army and the metropolis, they struck a terror into it scarce to be credited.”  An immediate rush was made upon the Bank of England, which, it is said, only escaped bankruptcy by paying in sixpences, to gain time.  The shops in general were shut up; public business, for the most part, was suspended, and the restoration of the Stuarts was expected by all as no improbable or distant occurrence.  See Lord Mahon, vol. iii. p. 444.)

(1143 “Charles arrived at Derby in high spirits, reflecting that he was now within a hundred and thirty miles of the capital.  Accordingly, that evening, at supper, he studiously directed his conversation to his intended progress and expected triumph—­whether it would be best for him to enter London on foot or on horseback, in Highland or in English dress.  Far different were the thoughts of his followers, who, early next morning, laid before him their earnest and unanimous opinion for an immediate retreat to Scotland, Charles said, that, rather than go back, he would wish to be buried twenty feet under ground.  On the following day he sullenly consented to retreat, but added, that, in future, he would call no more councils; since he was accountable to nobody for his actions, excepting to God and his father, and would therefore no longer either ask or accept their advice.”  See Sir Walter Scott’s Tales of a Grandfather, vol. v. p. 226.-E.

(1144) Sir John Willes, knight, chief justice of the common pleas from 1737 to 1762.-D.

(1145) In the beginning of the year 1755, on rumours of a great armament at Brest, one Virette, a Swiss, who had been a kind of toad-eater to this St. Germain, was denounced to Lord Holderness for a spy; but Mr. Stanley going pretty surlily to his lordship, on his suspecting a friend of his, Virette was declared innocent, and the penitent secretary of state made him the honourable amends of a dinner in form.  About the same time, a spy of ours was seized at Brest, but not happening to be acquainted with Mr. Stanley, was broken upon the wheel.

457 Letter 190 To Sir Horace Mann.  Arlington street, Dec. 20, 1745.

I have at last got your great letter by Mr. Gambier, and the views of the villas,(1146) for which I thank you much.  I can’t say I think them too well done. nor the villas themselves pretty; but the prospects are charming.  I have since received two more letters from you, of November 30th and December 7th.  You seem to receive mine at last, though very slowly.