The Life of Charles Third Earl Stanhope

Front matter

SAN FRANCIS! UBLIC LIBRARY

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Contents

CHAP. PAGE I. GENEVA, 1753-1774 . ‘ ; : ; : I II. PoriticAL APPRENTICESHIP, 1774-1778 é ZO III. PARLIAMENTARY REFORM, 1778-1782 . : 37, IV. THE HENCHMAN OF PITT, 1783-1786 . é — 53 V. A REFORMER IN THE HOUSE oF LorDs, 1786-1789 67 VI. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, 1789-1790 . : 5 le VII. Tue RIGHTS OF JURIES, I79I-I792 . : LOO VIII. THE OUTBREAK OF THE GREAT WAR, 1792-1 HG iG Ue) IX. SECESSION, 1795-1800 3 ; 5 Yo X. STEAMBOATS AND CANALS . 3 : - 5 OS XI. Back IN PARLIAMENT, 1800-1811 : A 5 They XII. THE Last BaTtTLes, 1811-1816 . z s - 206 XIII. Lorp STANHOPE AT CHEVENING . : : 5 EYE APPENDICES

II. THE STANHOPE DEMONSTRATOR . : : ee 70 III, THE SCIENCE OF TUNING . ° : : ao IV. THE PROTESTATION OF 1789 ‘ ; 3 + Pele

INDEX A : 4 Zs ; 4 ; = AER

Chapter I Geneva, 1753-1774

CHARLES, third Earl Stanhope, was born in London, on August 3, CHa 1753. His grandfather was the celebrated commander in the War of the Spanish Succession, and Prime Minister of George I. His grandmother was the daughter of Governor Pitt. His father, Philip, though little known in politics or society, was a conspicuous figure in the scientific world.1_ Even as a child the second Earl showed a pronounced taste for all scientific pursuits ; but at first this predilection was sternly repressed. Left an orphan at the age of seven, his education had been confided to the care of his brilliant kinsman, Lord Chesterfield, who, considering classics and belles lettres to be the most essential part of a gentleman’s education, forbade all mathematical _studies to the boy who was one day to earn the verdict of Lalande that he was the finest English mathematician of his age. Yet he did not neglect the classics, for he could recite the whole of the ‘ Iliad’ and the ‘ Odyssey ’ in the original, and was master of several modern languages. Though he left no work by which his name could be remembered, he spent his life in study and research, and was on intimate terms with most of the learned men of the day. Through his instrumentality Torelli’s edition of ‘ Archimedes’ was published by the Clarendon Press, and he defrayed the expense of the posthumous edition of Robert Simson’s works—a copy of which he sent to every learned society

1 See the opening pages of the article on the third Earl, in Public

Characters of 1800-1.

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in Europe. He was a patron of scholars, and many works of science were dedicated to him, among them the third volume of Priestley’s ‘Experiments on Air.’ As an old man, he had the privilege of introducing Benjamin Franklin to Lord Chatham. Succeeding to the title at the age of seven, he took his seat in Parliament on coming of age in 1735. Though he did not take an active part in affairs, he was by no means without political convictions, and steadily opposed Walpole, under whom he had grown to manhood. ‘All this week,’ wrote Horace Walpole, on April 8, 1742, at the crisis of his father’s fate, ‘ the mob has been carrying about his effigies in procession. The chiefs of the Opposition have been so mean as to give these mobs money for bonfires,’ among them the Earl of Stanhope.t His most memorable public appearance was in 1743, when he raised the question of the Hanoverian troops. His speech was delivered ‘with great tremblings and agitations’; but it was carefully prepared and vigorously phrased. He concluded by moving for an address to the King to terminate the employment of the ‘ Mercenaries,’ who had been engaged in the previous year without consent of Parliament. His shyness, absorption in study, and long residence abroad rendered him an unfamiliar figure at Westminster. On one occasion in later life, when, after a long absence, he went down to the House of Lords in a plain dress, an attempt was made by the doorkeeper to bar his entrance with the words: ‘ Honest man, you have no business in this place!’ ‘Iam sorry, indeed,’ replied Stanhope quietly, ‘if honest men have no business here.’ In 1758, he is recorded by Horace Walpole to have spoken well on Habeas Corpus.® On finally returning to England, in 1774, he opposed the American War and supported Wilkes in his conflict with the Government. When at length Lord Stanhope, in the words of Horace

Walpole, ‘lifted up his eyes from Euclid and directed them to matrimony,’* he chose Miss Grisel Hamilton, daughter of Charles, Lord Binning, and elder sister of Thomas, seventh Earl of Haddington. He chose wisely; for no one came into her society without observing the charm of her manners and the cultivation of her mind. Without sharing the recondite studies of her husband, she seems to have entirely sympathised in his pursuits and opinions. Her household was ordered with exact regularity and discipline. She carried on a large correspondence ; and, though her spelling and punctuation did

1 Letters, ed. Toynbee, i, 208.

> Stanhope’s History of England, 1713-83, iii. 138-40.

not rise above the level of her time, her letters were unusually CHAP. discreet. Lady Mary Coke, eager for news from Paris and I. the last Court scandal, expressed herself as ‘much disappointed

by Lady Stanhope’s great discretion.’ ‘This may be very prudent,’ remarks Lady Mary, ‘ but ’tis very disagreeable when

one is curious.’

There were only two children of the marriage: Philip, born in 1746, and Charles, born in 1753. Philip was sent to Eton, and his parents entertained the highest hopes of him; but he inherited from his mother’s family the tendency to consumption, which had proved fatal to so many of the Hamiltons. He was removed to the purer air of Geneva, where he was under the care of the celebrated Dr. Tronchin. There he grew steadily worse, but bore his sufferings with the greatest gentleness and resignation. His mother sends bulletins of his health to Charles at Eton. ‘I wish you would write to your brother; it would please him very much. You don’t know how much he loves you, and how often he talks of you and how happy heis to hear you are good.’ Charles wrote the desired letter ; but when it reached Geneva, Philip was too ill to answer it himself. He sent a reply ‘ wrote by me,’ says Lady Stanhope, ‘ when I was sitting up at night with him.’

‘Geneva: June 26, 1763.

‘ My sweet Charly,—I received yours to-day. Nothing makes me so happy as hearing from you. Do not neglect your duty to God and keep out of bad company ; never do anything that you would wish to hide from anybody, for you can lack nothing from God ; never tell an untruth, but be honest and good in every respect, and never mind naughty boys laughing at you for being so. I am not well enough to write myself, but will when I can.’

But the hoped-for day never came. On July 6, 1763, before Charles received this letter, Philip died and was buried at Geneva. He had just celebrated his seventeenth birthday.

‘Our loss is very truly great,’ writes Lord Stanhope to Lord Le Despencer,? ‘as we could not have been blessed with a child of sweeter or more amiable and affectionate disposition. It is however our duty to use our utmost endeavours to support it with resignation and to take all possible care to preserve his brother, who promises us all the consolation our melancholy situation can admit. This goes by a messenger that we send to

1 Lady Stanhope to Hon. C. Stanhope, April 6, 1763. Chevening MSS. 2 Egerton MSS., 2131, fol. 78, B2

CHAP. cause an article to be inserted in the papers to contradict an

- absurd account of my poor son’s illness and of the circumstances

of our family given in yesterday’s General Evening Post. The

visit with which you and Lady Despencer flatter us will be

most heartily welcome to us, as no one can be with greater sincerity and affection than I am,

‘My dear Lord, ‘Your most faithful, ‘and most humble Servant,

‘ STANHOPE.’

Chevening : Aug. 12, 1763.

The account to which Lord Stanhope refers appeared in Lloyd’s Evening Post and the Public Advertiser, and demonstrates that the writer of society news was no less inaccurate and impertinent than his successor of the present day. There is a certain engaging simplicity about the communication which betrays its flunkey origin. ‘The reputation of M. Tronchin* draws hither a multitude of foreigners. Lord Northampton, who has upwards of thirty persons in his retinue, has hired a furnished house for which he pays sixty guineas a month. Lord and Lady Stanhope have honoured us with their presence for near nine months : they have just lost their son, my Lord Mahon, whose disease, the spleen, baffled all M. Tronchin’s skill, and by whose death an estate of £20,000 sterling per annum goes from the family. That young nobleman, in favour of whom his grandfather left this estate under condition that if he died before he was of age it should pass to another branch, had attained but to the age of seventeen years. My Lord and Lady Stanhope set out for London last Thursday.’

Charles now became Viscount Mahon, and, as their only surviving child, was more than ever the object of his parents’ solicitude. They resolved that his health should not be exposed to the English climate, or the care of his mind to the capricious attentions of the English schoolmaster. He was recalled from Eton (where he had been sent when nine years old), and the family decided on settling in Geneva. In surrendering him, his tutor writes to Lady Stanhope: ‘ He has an excellent understanding, though he does not seem to relish books. He has an excellent heart and disposition. Never have I known his equal

} Theodore Tronchin (1709-81), one of the most celebrated doctors of the eighteenth century, and the earliest advocate of the hygienic treatment of invalids.

for so early a sense of honour.’ He had struck the keynote C of the boy’s character. In later years, Charles was frequently compared to Don Quixote, whom he resembled not only in appearance but still more in valour and high-mindedness. Lord Stanhope had been educated at Leyden and Geneva, and was absorbed in science and philosophy; but one wonders at the calm with which the excellent Grisel bore the transplantation. “As long as Charles goes on well, I don’t think of myself ; and if his father has his books he is well everywhere, so I don’t complain.’ She left many friends in England. ‘I have been making a very melancholy visit to the country,’ writes Lady Hervey,’ ‘ to my old and best friends, Lady Stanhope and her family. °Tis a last farewell to those worthy people, with whom I have passed the greatest and much the most agreeable part of my life. She and her lord are going with their only remaining son to Geneva, where they think, and I can easily believe, he may be much better educated than first at one of our great schools and after at one of our universities. As the boy is but eleven years old and is to complete his studies abroad, ’tis very unlikely that I shall live to see their return. *Tis a very heavy and unexpected blow upon me and affects my spirits very much.’? The object of their expatriation was even more health than education. Lady Stanhope had a high opinion of Dr. Tronchin’s abilities, and the greatest praise she can give to Chatham is ‘You, my dear Lord, are my political Tronchin.’* She thus describes the doctor’s methods. ‘Charles is very well, but we have put him under the management of Dr. Tronchin, who says he wants only to be strengthened, a moderate diet, a good deal of exercise and fencing as it opens the chest. He has also ordered him to read and write chiefly standing at a high desk. We follow these rules strictly. One other article is to keep him warm in his body, dry in his feet ; a thin nightcap and a light hat or no hat at all.’°®

Between the related families of Pitt and Stanhope an almost weekly correspondence was maintained, carried on chiefly by Grisel and Lady Chatham. Lady Stanhope’s letters are all preserved, and constitute an interesting journal of their life abroad. The younger people also exchanged civilities. Thus Grisel writes: ‘Charles has sent Miss Pitt some Geneva jewels, Pierres de Santé, which are found in the mountains of Savoy.

! Rev. F. Dampier to Lady Stanhope, May 21, 1764.

3 June 3, 1764. Letters of Lady Hervey.

* To Lord Chatham, October 30, 1769. > October 1764.

HAP, Te

CHAP. There is a pair of ear-rings, a thing for her neck with a cross,

L,

“that Jews may kiss and Infidels adore,” and a thing for her Capa hope she'll like them.’! Charles, ‘who is learning perspective,’ sends two of his drawings to Lord Chatham.” To these attentions the young Pitts responded, as we learn from LadyStanhope. ‘Ireceived your letter, my dear Lady Chatham, with the pretty drawing. The moment Charles saw it, he said, “Oh, that’s Chevening Church, who did it ?” and smiled when Itoldhim. Mons. Liotard and Charles’ drawing master happened by mere accident to be both here at the instant I received it. They observed several little touches that were remarkably well and shewed a great genius. They bid me let the person who did it know that they ought to continue practising, and imperceptibly they would soon come to perfection in drawing. I assure you I set high value on the first essay, and desire you will give Lady Hester a kiss from me.’ ?

The Genevese system of education was cheap and excellent, and the devotion to culture was deep and genuine. In England knowledge was forcibly implanted in the infant mind by severe and barbarous methods. The Genevan shopkeeper, and even the artisan, was familiar with the works of Locke, Montesquieu, and Newton. In an age when not a single free library existed in England, Geneva boasted a collection of nearly 40,000 volumes accessible to all the inhabitants. -The influence of Calvin had extended further than ecclesiastical or political reforms; for at his instigation a kind of tribunal had been established which attempted to regulate, even to the most minute detail, the private conduct of the individual. Nothing was too insignificant for its laws, which impressed on the Genevese character a more than Spartan austerity. The day began at six in winter and at four in summer ; fires and windows that closed properly were considered a veritable luxury. The greatest frugality was enjoined. The old law of the Reformation, ‘ to have on the table at most two dishes, meat and vegetable (without pastry),’ was still regularly observed, and simplicity of manners often went so far as to unite masters and servants at the same board. La bonne serge and le drap noir were the only dress authorised by the law, and lace and trimmings were rigorously proscribed.®

The Genevese attributed much of their good fortune to the

1 Lady Stanhope to the Rt. Hon. W. Pitt, October 1764. 2 April 30, 1766. 3 October 2, 1760.

* Coxe, Travels in Switzerland ; and Dr. Moore, Letters from France and Switzerland.

* Gaberel, Voliaive et les Genévois, p. 32.

maintenance of these laws. ‘La prosperité de Genéve,’ wrote ae Senebier, ‘fut long-tems le fruit heureux de ces sages loix ; elles contribuérent puissamment a maintenir la pureté de nos anciennes mceurs, qui ont fait notre lustre et qui ont si fort contribué a notre conservation.’ Writing in 1786, after a period of warfare, he adds: ‘ On peut méme preuver qu’une des causes de nos malheurs est la diminution de l’influence de ce tribunal sur les individus.’? In 1764, the Genevese still adhered with almost passionate tenacity to a Spartan simplicity of morals and manners ; and they dreaded the invasion of luxury only less than the incursion of a foreign prince. ‘ Rome was lost,’ they said, ‘ when the Censors were no longer able to raise their voice against those whose vices unfitted them to belong to the Republic; Sparta fell with the credit of the guardians of public morals.’ Painting, music, literature, and the drama naturally suffered under this iron hand, and the great men of Geneva have been chiefly scientists, philosophers, and mathematicians. Apart from other advantages, this austerity of manners added to its desirability, in the eyes of anxious parents, as a place of education. There were no objects of dissipation, theatres, or public places of amusement. Geneva was always included in the ‘ grand tour’ of young gentlemen travelling abroad with their tutors. M. le Chevalier de Boufflers writes plaintively to his mother in 1772: ‘C’est une grande et triste ville habitée par des gens qui ne manquent pas d’esprit et encore moins d’argent et qui se servent ni de l'un ni de l’autre.’ He quaintly describes the seriousness of the Swiss character: ‘Le peuple suisse et le peuple francais ressemblent 4 deux jardiniers, dont l’un cultive des choux et l’autre des fleurs.’?

Charles was infected with the spirit of the place not only in learning, politics, and science, but in dress. His mother sends to Kent for bats and balls that he may play cricket. ‘I am consulted on all occasions,’ she writes ; ‘ but I never see or hear of buckles, etc.; on the contrary I call him the Quaker.’ 3 He would not wear powder, and to be without it was considered as eccentric as a lady of to-day inacrinoline. At last he yielded a little, and Lady Stanhope was hopeful. ‘TI think,’ ee writes,

‘my boy sits more quietly to have his hair dressed.’* But this meekness did not last long, and the fashion eet one of his rare differences with his mother. ‘He is a very good,

1 J. Senebier, Hist. litt. de Genéve, i. 192.

2 Lettres de M. de Boufflers pendant son voyage en Suisse, p. 23. 3 Lady Stanhope to Lady Chatham, June 7, 1768.

CHAP. well-principled boy,’ writes Lady Stanhope, ‘ but don’t you find I. it difficult to make him distinguish firmness from obstinacy ?

Good sense and experience, I find, does more than many lectures on the subject. He was once a little devil, but he has not the least remains of that. I don’t tell you he is not by nature warmtempered, but he has so much sense to command it that if by any chance he is affronted, you would be surprised to see what command he has over himself. An uncommon sweetness of temper makes him do all he thinks will please.’+ But in matters of fashion he was resolute, and Lady Stanhope has to yield. ‘ The affair of powder is given up ; he says it makes his head ache and then he can’t think.’? At the same time not only was powder de vigueur, but men wore their hair long and had it elaborately dressed. Fanny Burney gives an amusing account of one of the King’s equerries who went early to bed so that his servant might put his hair in curl-papers in order to make a splendid appearance on the morrow.

Charles disdained all outward graces. ‘New fashioned toupées,’ observes his mother sadly, ‘ he certainly cannot wear for some time, as he has cut his off to save the trouble of dressing it. Some favourite lady may some time or other change all these matters ; till then I despair of his being quite a la mode.’? In cutting off his hair, he had only followed the example of the dearly loved Dr. Tronchin (known in his youth as ‘ Apollo’ Tronchin), who, when studying at Leyden under Boerhave, had been accused of spending too much time doing his hair, and replied by appearing at class next morning with a close-cropped head. Lady Stanhope finally summoned Lady Chatham to her assistance. ‘Charles is so afraid of being a fetit-maitre that he will I fear run into the other extreme. Some fathers think when the head is well furnished other things are less necessary, and therefore attend little to them ; but as mothers sometimes see with other eyes, they think a few outward accomplishments also necessary. I shall be greatly obliged if you will sometimes say something on this subject, as all that comes from your house is greedily listened to. When I complain of any little singularity or negligence in dress, the answer is, Lord Chatham always wears a plain coat. You may see by this that what you say may do good. He is now in a society of young ladies and gentlemen, married and unmarried, which I hope will brush him up a little, and rub off his natural shyness, as he likes company and goes into it with pleasure.’ 4

} December 11, 1766. ® January I, 1773. ® To Lady Chatham, February 17, 1772. ¢ February 26, 1770.

Lady Stanhope’s efforts were unremitting. ‘I have set CHAP. my good friend Mme. Diodati (once Mlle. Tronchin) to plague I. him,’ she writes. ‘I am little in hopes that he’ll fall in love with her, as it can only be a platonic passion, and her stay won’t be long enough to make it lasting. He has a great friendship for her brother whom you saw.’! But though Charles was not in general susceptible to feminine charms, he at last succumbs: the object of his admiration being a lady of somewhat mature years—a thing not uncommon at his age. ‘The Duchess of Northumberland here for some days ; she has done us the honour to dine here twice, and Charles is at last in love, deeply smit with her affability, free of pride and aims of a fine lady and so cheerful bearing with gout, and she no less with him.’? ‘On New Year’s day he voluntarily made about a hundred and twenty visits to ladies as well as gentlemen. He did not indeed find all at home, but I was glad to find his readiness to do it.’ 3 However much his ‘natural timidity’ may have prevented Charles enjoying these amenities at the time, he entertained a lively recollection of some of them. Many years later, he wrote a facetious letter to his old tutor: ‘Si j’étois 4 Genéve aujourd’ hut je ferois au moins 150 a 200 visites pour baiser toutes les jolies dames de ma connaissance. Nous n’avons pas de ces bonnes cotitumes dans ce paix-ci.’.* Lady Stanhope consoled herself for the fact that her son would never be merely a young man @ la mode. ‘I am better pleased than had he spent the same time at a card table, the practice of most of our young folks who all grow milk-sops and can’t bear anything.’® She relates with indignation an anecdote of the foppery of the youthful Charles James Fox. ‘Some months ago, the son of a certain black eye-browed gentleman took a trip abroad. When he landed he was met by an old school-fellow, who asked about his movements. He answered “ he was just taking a trip to buy a suit of clothes at Lyons for the Birthday.”’® Except in matters of dress, Lady Stanhope never interfered ; for, as she truly observed, ‘little meddling makes long friends.’ All his life he was devoted to his mother. When she was ill at Geneva, with Lord Stanhope absent in England, ‘my little companion nursed me with the greatest care and tenderness, and I had no physician but him.’ ”

From his father Charles inherited a taste for science and

1 August 31, 1770. 2 Maas 772i 3 January 3, 1772. 4 Stanhope to Le Sage, January 1, 1786. Chevening MSS.

> To Lady Chatham, January 3, 1772.

CHAP.

I

habits of industry, which showed themselves at a very early age. ‘Charles,’ writes his mother, ‘is making a short-hand letter to his father, and he thinks he is improving Byrom’s short- | hand. He has just shewn me ten pot-hooks which he says means “they made a strenuous struggle for liberty.” He is not pleased that I have no vast ambition to learn his manner of writing ; he has been tormenting me lately with syllogisms.’? Charles writes to his father: ‘Dear Papa, I am ashamed of having stayed so long without writing, but I was inventing a way to hinder the variations of the pendulum by heat and cold, and I was very loath to write till I could send you more of it.’? A neat-coloured drawing is appended. He learned Greek with Lord Stanhope and read Xenophon with pleasure. Later, he read Locke ‘On the Human Understanding’ and Blackstone’s Commentaries.

Under the guidance of Georges Le Sage, one of the most learned men of his day, Mahon applied himself eagerly to mechanics, philosophy, and the higher branches of geometry. He cared little for the classics, belles-lettres, or that dallying with the fine arts which the eighteenth century euphemistically summed up as ‘ polite learning.’ At seventeen, he won the prize offered by the Swedish Academy for the best essay on the construction of the pendulum. This essay, written in French, is printed among the transactions of the Swedish Academy, and a great number of his drawings of clocks and pendulums were finely engraved by Geissler of Geneva. Charles is held up as a model to his kinsman, the young Lord Pitt, ‘the powdered Beau.’ ‘I trust,’ writes Chatham,® ‘he will follow as well as he can Lord Mahon in the career of letters, arts and manly exercises, and I am sure I need not wish more for him.’ During 1769, Chevening was lent to Lord and Lady Chatham, who, according to the steward, saw ‘a pretty deal of company, so we have of late lived wonderful merry.’ Chatham busied himself about the estate, and laid out a road through the park still known as Chatham’s Ride.

Charles was not a mere bookworm. Besides his military exercises he rode well, and two years in succession was ‘ head of the manége.’ He played bowls—‘a game very different to that which goes by the same name in England ’—and cricket, and he seems to have acquired some skill in shooting. He grew quickly, and his mother describes him as ‘a very awkward boy

* Lady Stanhope to Lady Chatham, June 19, 1769.

: Viscount Mahon to Earl Stanhope, June 3, 1770. * Unpublished correspondence of Lord Chatham.

at present.’ He was very fond of skating. ‘His father and I sat an hour in the cold to see him. There was a party of good skaters, and he in time may make one ; at present he is like a father-long-legs, for, not being perfect in the exercise, arms _ go as well as legs for him to keep his equiliber, and he went faster than any of them.’? ‘He is now of the Society of Artists, which makes him happy. He has been at some balls, which is not what he likes most, but I believe he dances well.’ ? “The English here have lately set up a club which the people here call the Parliament. We are told that Charles has spoke with the true spirit of an Englishman, and at every meeting acquires a greater facility, not being at all daunted.’ 4

At this time Geneva was, in the French expression, ‘ une ville fort courue.’ It was filled with invalids, who came to consult the famous Tronchin—‘les dévotes du pére Tronchin,’ Voltaire called them. Many travellers, again, came in the hope of seeing Voltaire. He was the prey of the idle and the curious, and he sometimes took to his bed and declared himself ill in order to escape their unwelcome attentions. Neither Lord Stanhope nor his son, however, joined the pilgrims ; for, though recognising his ‘ love of liberty and justice, the peer disapproved of the patriarch of Ferney. Other less conscientious English travellers did not suffer their religious scruples to interfere with their curiosity. With the object of seeing Voltaire Lady Mary Coke visited Switzerland in 1769, and came to see Lady Stanhope. ‘Though I had other acquaintances at Geneva I passed every evening with her,’ she writes to Lady Greenwich. ‘ Lord and Lady Stanhope have been here several years. Their behaviour to me was more obliging than I can well express: I think I never met with so much attention and goodness. They lost their eldest son about four years ago : a loss that poor Lady Stanhope has not recovered, though she is excessively fond of the present Lord Mahon, who seems to promise everything they can wish. His painting would surprise you ; he cuts out people in paper as well as others can draw them. He has invented, I was told, a mathematical instrument which I was assured is better for the purpose it was intended than any other of the kind; yet he is but seventeen years of age. They have fixed no time for returning to England.’

Among other visitors were the Duke of Buccleuch with his tutor Dugald Stewart, Adam Smith, a friend and frequent correspondent of Lord Stanhope, Wilkes, and Lord and Lady Holland

1 To Lady Chatham, October 3, 1768. 2 January 14, 1770.

CHAP. tf

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accompanied by Master Charles James Fox. Of Wilkes Lady Stanhope writes : ‘He has been here some time. I do not know him but by sight. On the public walks we once exchanged a few words, as I was impatient to tell him of what country I was. He is the pattern of all that is right in the eyes of our young people here, as I am told, for I see few of them. He says he has had an offer of being sent by our Government Envoy to Berne or Ambassador to Constantinople, and that all that has been done in regard to him is unjust.’1 The Duke of Hamilton arrived under the charge of Dr. Moore, author of a popular novel, ‘ Zelucco.’ He was accompanied by his youthful son, Jack, afterwards known to the world as the hero of Corunna. Another acquaintance was the young Prince of Mecklenburg- Schwerin (twelve years old), who sent a toy snake to Charles “every morning to mend, till it grew no longer than my finger. He has bespoke the employment of Snake-mender if he should come to be Sovereign. He isa fine lively boy. He comes to see us frequently, and his greatest pleasure is supping with us en famille.’ The Prince never forgot his Genevese friends, and, on coming to England in 1782, he wrote to Lady Stanhope, expressing a hope that he may again see ‘ votre trés cher fils.’