Private Letters of Edward Gibbon (1753-1794) Volume 1 (of 2)

Footnote_102_102

The name was so spelt in the newspapers. John Baker Holroyd married in 1767 Miss Abigail Way, only daughter of Lewis Way, of Richmond, Surrey.

Footnote_103_103

The motto of the regiment of light dragoons, called Royal Foresters, in which Mr. Holroyd had been captain, and which was disbanded in 1763.

Footnote_104_104

A nickname for Mr. Guise.

Footnote_105_105

At Southampton Gibbon attended every spring the monthly exercise of the militia, of which, by the resignation of his father and the death of Sir T. Worsley (1768), he eventually became lieutenant-colonel commandant.

Footnote_106_106

Parliament was dissolved March 11, 1768, and the elections took place in March. Gibbon seems to have assisted the Worsleys in the Isle of Wight against the Castle interest and that of the Holmes family. In 1586, when the Crown sought to create a parliamentary party in the House of Commons, six members were returned to Parliament by the three boroughs of Newport, Newtown, and Yarmouth, because in the Isle of Wight, through its military captain and governor, the influence of the Crown was paramount. Gradually the leading families of the island acquired control over the three boroughs, and at this period they were disputed by the Worsley, Barrington, and Holmes families, the latter being descended from Sir Robert Holmes, who took New York from the Dutch, and "first bewitched our eyes with Guinea gold." At the election of 1768 the following members were elected for the respective boroughs: – Newport: Hans Sloane, Esq., and John Eames, Esq., one of the Masters in Chancery. Newtown: Sir J. Barrington, Bart., and Harcourt Powell, Esq. (re-elected). Yarmouth: Jervoise Clarke, Esq., and William Strode, Esq.

Footnote_107_107

A convivial club, meeting once a week, established by Gibbon and other travellers.

Footnote_108_108

Gibbon was a member of Boodle's Club, known as the Savoir vivre.

Footnote_109_109

Ranelagh Gardens, now part of Chelsea Hospital Gardens, stood on the site of a villa belonging to Lord Ranelagh, the Jones of Grammont's Memoirs. The Rotunda, an amphitheatre, with an orchestra in the centre, surrounded by "balconies full of little alehouses," was opened to the public May 24, 1742. The last entertainment given there was the installation ball of the Knights of the Bath in 1802. The gardens were closed in 1803. A staple, fixed in one of the trees of the avenue, preserved, till a few years ago, the traditions of the glories of Ranelagh when the gardens were lighted by a thousand lamps.

Footnote_110_110

The Earl of Abingdon married, on June 7, 1768, the daughter of Admiral Sir Peter Warren.

Footnote_111_111

Serjeant Glynn, well known as the advocate of Wilkes, was afterwards elected as second member for Middlesex at a by-election. He married a daughter of Sir J. Oglander, of Nunwell, in the Isle of Wight, and had been an unsuccessful candidate for one of the Isle of Wight constituencies at the general election of 1768.

Footnote_112_112

John Dunning, afterwards Lord Ashburton.

Footnote_113_113

Sir Peter Leycester and Sir Frank Standish were found, November 29, 1768, not duly elected.

Footnote_114_114

The return for Yarmouth, I.W., was amended by order of the House of Commons, dated January 19th, 1769, by erasing the names of Jervoise Clarke and William Strode, and substituting those of George Lane Parker and Thomas Lee Dummer.

Footnote_115_115

On February 14, 1769, Sir George Osborne was found not duly elected, and Thomas Howe was declared duly elected. The return of Sir George Rodney was held to be valid. A note by Sir Denis le Marchant, appended to Lord Orford's Memoirs, states that the expenses of the contest and petition cost Lord Spencer £70,000.

Footnote_116_116

John Wilkes was expelled from the House of Commons in January, 1764, and outlawed in the following August. He returned to England in February, 1768, and was at the bottom of the poll for the City (March 23). He headed the poll for Middlesex, March 28, 1768. His outlawry was reversed as technically illegal by the Court of King's Bench in the same year; but his two convictions for republishing No. 45 of the North Briton, and the Essay on Woman, were affirmed, and he was sentenced to two years' imprisonment. He was expelled the House February 3, 1769; re-elected February 16 and expelled February 27; re-elected March 16 and expelled March 17. At the election on April 13 he polled 1147 votes to the 296 of Colonel Luttrell; but the House resolved (April 15) that the election of Wilkes was void, and Luttrell duly elected. He was discharged from his imprisonment in 1770.

Footnote_117_117

Lord Baltimore was charged with decoying to his house a young milliner named Sarah Woodcock, and with rape. On February 12, 1768, he was committed for trial at the spring assizes at Kingston, and acquitted in the following March.

Footnote_118_118

"Il y a," writes Madame du Deffand to Walpole, speaking of La Princesse de Babylon (April 3, 1768), "quelques traits plaisants, mais c'est un mauvais ouvrage, et, contre son ordinaire, fort ennuyeux."

Footnote_119_119

During Gibbon's stay at Lausanne in 1763, the duke, brother of the reigning duke, occupied a villa called La Chablière, a short distance from the town.

Footnote_120_120

Sir Simeon Stuart, Bart., M.P. for the county of Southampton, died in November, 1779.

Footnote_121_121

The bulk of the letters for the years 1768 and 1769 relate to the pecuniary affairs of the Gibbon family. Mr. Gibbon was the owner of estates at Maple Durham, in the parish of Beriton near Petersfield, at Lenborough in Buckinghamshire, and a house, garden, and lands at Putney. He had also inherited shares in the New River Company, and other investments. But he had for years lived beyond his income, and it was only to the wreck of this fortune that the historian succeeded in 1770.

Footnote_122_122

On January 2, 1769, Wilkes was chosen alderman of the ward of Faringdon-Without against Bromwich, a paper-maker on Ludgate Hill.

Footnote_123_123

The Baron de Wentzel was the most famous oculist of the day, and the discoverer of operations for cataract. He died in London in 1790.