They stared, said they could not promise on their own authority, but would go and consult their body.  They returned, told him it was unprecedented, and could not be complied with.  Lord Bury replied, he was sorry they had not given a negative at once, for he had mentioned it to his soldiers, who would not bear a disappointment, and was afraid it would provoke them to some outrage upon the town.  This did;-they celebrated Culloden.  Adieu!

(312) George Morton Pitt, Esq, Member for Pontefract.-E.

(313) Mr. Walpole called his gold-fish pond, Poyang.

(314) The Earl of Halifax.

131 Letter 60
To George Montagu, Esq. 
Twickenham, Thursday.

Dear George, Since you give me leave to speak the truth, I must own it is not quite agreeable to me to undertake the commission you give me; nor do I say this to assume any merit in having obeyed you, but to prepare you against my solicitation miscarrying, for I cannot flatter myself with having so much interest with Mr. Fox as you think.  However, I have wrote to him as pressingly as I could, and wish most heartily it may have any effect.  Your brother I imagine will call upon him again; and Mr.’  Fox will naturally tell him whether he can do it or not at my request.

I should have been very glad of your company, if it had been convenient.  You would have found me an absolute country gentleman:  I am in the garden, planting as long as it is light, and shall not have finished, to be in London, before the middle of next week.

My compliments to your sisters and to the Colonel; and what so poor a man as Hamlet is, may do to express his love and friending to him, God willing, shall not lack.  Adieu!

132 Letter 61 The Hon. H. S. Conway.(315) Strawberry Hill, June 23, 1752.

By a letter that I received from my Lady Ailesbury two days ago, I flatter myself I shall not have occasion to write to you any more; yet I shall certainly see you with less pleasure than ever, as our meeting is to be attended with a resignation of my little charge.(316) She is vastly well, and I think you will find her grown fat.  I am husband enough to mind her beauty no longer, and perhaps you will say husband enough too, in pretending that my love is converted into friendship; but I shall tell you some stories at Park-place of her understanding that will please you, I trust, as much as they have done me.

My Lady Ailesbury says I must send her news, and the whole history of Mr. Seymour and Lady Di.  Egerton, and their quarrel, and all that is said on both sides.  I can easily tell her all that is said on one side, Mr. Seymour’s, who says, the only answer he has ever been able to get from the Duchess or Mr. Lyttelton was, that Di. has her caprices.  The reasons she gives, and gave him, were, the badness of his temper and imperiousness of his letters; that he scolded her for the overfondness of her epistles, and was even so unsentimental as to talk of desiring to make her happy, instead of being made so by her.  He is gone abroad, in despair, and with an additional circumstance, which would be very uncomfortable to any thing but a true lover; his father refuses to resettle the estate on him, the entail of which was cut off by mutual consent, to make way for the settlements on the marriage.