W1/6555

Samuel Whitbread II, Bordeaux, to Elizabeth Grey. Marked no 10.

16 June 1787

From: 1787 To: 1787

My dear Bessy, Altho' I have much to thank you for & a very kind letter to answer, I will begin by calling your attention to the little Paragraph above which has been sent to me from England to enquire it's authenticity. I can refer to no one better than yourself, to have the grossness of the Falsehood ascertained & I hope that it will make you laugh heartily at the Freedom with which the Newspapers dispose of my person not in the smallest degree consulting the inclinations of the Principal himself. I am not however sorry to think that they fix upon almost every Woman in England but the right. I shall have the more triumph in shewing the World how far superior my Choice is to that of any of those who so good naturedly have undertaken to chuse for me. These little insinuations are not without some Original, but who that is I think it very little worth to enquire, & you will I believe think so too. Secure you may be beyond a shadow or possibility of doubt, that I am unalterably & I may say increasingly attached to you. that reflection & absence augment my affection for you; & instead of asking as you did ingenuously & much to the gratification of my Vanity, the last night you were at the opera; 'Are you sure you shall return in the same mind?' You may now say You are convinced that my Affection for you will be tenfold if possible on my return. Think'st thou the Theme intoxicates my pen? Am I too warm? - too warm I cannot be. I loved You much but now I love You more. - We arrived here on Wednesday Afternoon, & I was pleased with the receipt of yours of the 25th May, & return You my most sincere thanks for it, altho' it was headless. I have reason to believe at least hope that after the receipt of mine from Orleans no letter will be despatched without the proper, and to me most grateful accompanyment, of those three Words so essential my my Happiness. I will however flatter myself that their meaning exists fully, altho' I cannot well get over the omission of them. You will convince me soon whether they slipped inadvertently from your pen in the first letter, or whether I am really happy eno' to suppose that I am to you, what it is my earnest hope that I am, & what it has been my strenuous endeavour to be. But what am I saying? I cannot I do not for a moment doubt you, pardon this little vent of spleen, believe me on my honour I have the most sacred & implicit Confidence in You. We left Nantes, whence I last wrote to you on Sunday, & after four days of the very hottest sun, I think I almost ever experienced arrived at Bordeaux; not a little glad to stop the whirl & suspend the exercise for some days. Ever since we arrived it has rained; & nothing less than such a continuance of Showers could have quenched our heat, arising from the former Weather. I now however begin to wish for finer Weather. Monson preceded me on horseback on Wednesday, so impatient was he to get his letters; but alas there were none for him. they were all to my direction. You have no idea of the terrible discomposure of so composed a Countenance. He swore like a Trooper & began to sing that He was by the faithless World forgot.- I had not to charge my Friends with such neglect of me. I received a large Packet & the whole crowned with one from Fallodon which of all others is the place it makes me most happy to hear from.- Charles however is not yet in the number of those who write to me; he will tho' now I think that Parliament is prorogued. I have got the Paper of the 29. which gives an account of the debate on the Post Office. Your Brother shines as usual & of all the Compliments ever paid in the House of Common, I think the one that Sheridan dropped to him in the course of that debate, the neatest, the most enviable. You will long since have know & I trust been reconciled to the determination that was made, that I should remain the whole time abroad. You & Sr. C- are right certainly in supposing that if once refused, it was a matter not to be pressed: I thought so & dropped it immediately as the answer was given. Indeed I almost think I was wrong in attempting to procure any remission of the Sentence but the prospect of sooner enjoying your Company was so tempting, that that, or any other trial were worth while.- The same implicit confidence in what I say that I place in all your declarations, is the very summit of what I have aimed at, & you are good eno' to say that it is allowed. Believe me I have too high an opinion of your Understanding, I know you far too well to deceipt. Hard as the task was, & painful as you yourself perceived it; I thought I was bound to tell you the direct Truth; & altho' you may possibly think that more reserve & less bluntness would have been more adaped to so disagreable a piece of Intelligence, attribute the Error to the Agitation of a Mind so mortified, so hurt, so disappointed, that it could scarcely collect words sufficient to say 'All is lost' .- I will own that Self love induced me to go one step beyond what I need have done & that a Speech I made that morning was meant to produce the Mortification that you were kind eno' to express when I saw you in the Evening. I did hope that you would say, 'You did not mean what you said, did you?' You did say so, & never was any sound more grateful to my ears. pardon the finesse that I employed to prove to myself what I did not doubt. But you say that a confirmation even of what is believed can never come too often. I would not dwell so long on so distressfull a period of our aquaintance; but that I feel a pleasure, to which I think you are not insensible, of looking back to the cloud that is passed.- Every thing now goes on well, & the arrival of St. Michael will give me an opportunity of telling you so in person-- Thank you for promising the Purse. You know the agreement;- You make the present, I set the Value. so I shall pay to compliment to your taste. it would be in some measure a compliment to my own.- The long expected visit [by the King and Queen - see W1/6552] in Chiswell Street You will have seen by the Papers is over; my Father writes me Word, much to the Satisfaction of the Visitors & the Visited. had I been there I should have called it a Visitation. but as I played the Savage, as Emma called me, I escaped. The enquires my Father says respecting me where numerous & particular. the answers general, & the Apologies for my absence as good as could be made. An Old Lady from Berkley Square attended, & was not the least inquisitive of the party; but got as little Information as any of the rest.- Mary has also written me an account of the day, she was called for; & was presented, & was monstwously fwightened. Thank you for your enquiries after these two girls, they are good, they are affectionate & they complete their whole merit in my Eyes by their predilection for you. Would to God the third claimed & possessed as much of my affection. She has intrinsic Worth to a great degree & a superiority of Understanding. but is destitute of those attewntions that partiality for me which the others have; which alone make life go on happily & without which the best of heads & the most upright heart loses their full value, - I hope however in future we shall be better together; & who shall I have to thank but you; who will give me & at the same time two treasures yourself, & a Sister?- That this may be the happy case I most sincerely wish to have reason to hope; for she in her letter which I mentioned to you, that I received before I quitted London, had this strong Expression; 'I shall adore the Woman by whose means you may be brought to look upon me in the light of a Sister'. You need not attribute her good opinion of you to the slightness of your acquaintance; if I know anything of your disposition & merits, her regard for you must increase with the increase of her Knowledge of you. Constant as I am in good resolutions so are We two inconstant on our own plan of travelling so as to fill up the time till Michaelmas. At last however we have hit upon a Scheme which I think will remain unaltered. indeed it must, & which will, with the assistance of fine Weather afford Monson infinite amusement, & me as much as I am capable of tasting at present.- We are to spend a Month in Switzerland; Monson has never seen, & I am eager once again to see that truly delicious country. To accomplish this, our stay at Bordeaux, will probably not exceed Monday sennight. We shall go to Limoges, Clermont & Lyons & thence to Geneva; I shall try to conduct Tom, so as to shew him the most interesting features of the Country, & we shall come out by Basle to Strasbourg. Our intended route in Switzerland I will not trouble you with, it would be only a Jargon of Hard names; I shall not however fail to write to you very constantly; nor shall I be able to quit your company even in the most difficult ascents of the Alps. You will be there as you are every where with me in Idea & should it ever be your desire to visit those spots in Person, I shall be better qualified from a second visit to be your Cicerone.- But how shall I preface - the Murder I have committed by this very Post. what apology shall I make to you, for not only not coming to the Assizes myself but for trying to deprive you of the Partner of Your Choice? You will never forgive me; Yes You will; four years ago you did not forgive me for robbing you of Punch. I have more in trust with you now & that has emboldened me to try to take him from you.- We have heard from Nesfield that it was probable he would not be called to the Bar time eno' to go this Circuit. We had just settled our plan for Switzerland, & thought that if that were the case, he would be as well be employed in our Company seeing something, as remaining in England & doing nothing. I have therefore written to him in our joint names praying him to join us, which I hope he will. Your answer to this & several subsequent letters I will beg you to direct to the Banker's at Strasbourg any that come here after our departure will be forwarded to me there. I name no intermediate place, not being sure of our time; & altho' it will be five Weeks after quitting Bordeaux before I shall hear again; I had rather have a certain pleasure at a distance than render it uncertain by attempting to draw it nearer. You tell me never to lay down my pen for fear of tiring you. I never am tired of writing to you. therefore discretion must set some bounds to Nonsense. & I must soon conclude. Not however before I give you a lecture, upon the too frequent reading of Young. You advised me not to take him with me. let me advise you never to read him but on Sunny days, & when in good spirits. I hope you read in my Book, & look at my Marks. one passage I think I cannot have omitted noticing Celestial Happiness whene'er she stoops To visit Earth; one shrine the Goddess finds And one alone, to make her sweet amends For absent heaven - the bosom of a Friend My Friend my best, my first of Friends We will carry Friendship to her noontide Point And give the rivet(?) of Eternity. In these Strains when & as often as you will read him; but where he tells you all is Vanity do not give him implicit credit. Return my kindest remembrances to all Fallodians. I am infintely obliged to them, & am happy to hear they are all well. You will hear again twice from Bordeaux at the least. I will make no apology any more for the frequency of my letter; they assure you how steadfastly you may depend upon me. Write to me frequently & always be assured that your letters give me real, unfeighned pleasure. I always bid Adieu with reluctance, but my (illegible) admonishes me that my letter must (illegible) to go by this Post. Adieu then my dearest (torn) I shall ever remain, Most sincerely & affectly Your's & Your's only S. Whitbread

item

Whitbread, Samuel II,
Grey, Elizabeth,
Monson, Thomas,
Nesfield, William,
Grey, Charles,
Whitbread, Samuel I,
St John, Emma,
Whitbread, Harriot,
Whitbread, Mary,
Punch,
Young, Edward,
George III

Nantes, Bordeaux, Switzerland, Geneva, Basle [City], Strasbourg, House of Commons, Post Office, travel, Chiswell Street Brewery London