CHAPTER XI
THE UNITED OPPOSITION
1768-1770
It was the opinion of Walpole that the resignation of Chatham was not anticipated by Shelburne as the necessary consequence of his own.[1] The Diary of Lady Shelburne, to which it may not be unpleasant to revert, confirms the above view:—
Wednesday, January 21st, 1768.—I went in the evening to Madame de Walderen's, where everybody was talking of Lady Newnham's accident on the Sunday evening in her chair going from the French Ambassador's, where I had seen her. She was pursued from Soho Square to the narrow passage by Conduit Street, by a man who ran against her chair and her servants, and was several times push'd by them, once so as to be thrown down. In the passage he attack'd her first footman and stabbed him in the breast; she found herself immediately set down and surrounded by a mob who took the man. She went directly to her father Lord Vernon's house, where was only one woman servant, and remained there in the greatest distress, till the wounded man could be carried home and properly assisted. The wound appears not to be mortal, and the man who gave it to be a Mr. Ross, an attorney in the City, of good character, but very much in liquor. Amongst the many greater blessings I have to be thankful for to Providence, I rank this escape as one subject more
- ↑ Walpole, Correspondence, v. 131.
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