St. James's Square, January 30, 17 13. .... What I told you about the confectioner's room being the accation of seting- the ambasadore's on fire was a mistake, for I find all Peaple think 'twas don through treachery, and the ambasadore had three letters sent him before the fire broke out that his house would be fir'd ; and jest now I heard two men was taken up about it. Lady Rochester told me that the D. of Buckingham told her she might report it from him that he knew there was a great pot of fire instruments found in the top of the house, and, as a mark that 'twas set on fire, the room it brok out in was a room the D. of Powises goods was put in and never had had a fire in it. The Queen has given him her own lodgings in Sumerset house.* . . .
February 6, 17 13. .... Lord Bathurst was here this morning to show us his person before he went to court, his cloths ware both extremly fine and very handsome, and he like won you know very well pleased with his own person.
[Lord Berkeley of Stratton.]
Febj uary 10, 17 13. I find I cannot hold, but must be scribbling some times whether I have anything to say or noe. The finery of the
Sir Harry Verney's Collection of MSS. (sec Seventh Report of Historica MSS. Commission, p. 508) gives the following curious, if true, account of Lord Carbery :— " He had redeemed his estate and amassed wealth by the government of Jamaica, where he carried many shauntelmen of Wales, and sold 'em there for slaves, as he did his Chaplain, to a black- smith ; and though he has left his daughter 4000/. per annum besides a great personal estate, was contented rather to keep all he had gotten to himself than to dispose of her well in marriage with any part of it, or the settlement on or after his death, tho' 84 years old, so that you will not wonder at his servant's answer upon an ' How do you .'" sent to him, that his master, he believed, was by that time got half way to hell, whom through excessive penury he almost starved living."
- From a letter written in March this year we learn that the French
Ambassador afterwards took Lord Ranelagh's house in Chelsea.
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