r, Lord
Bath, presumed to talk of virtue too!

_POLITICAL EXCITEMENT--LORD G. GORDON--EXTRAORDINARY GAMBLING AFFAIRS IN
INDIA._

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

STRAWBERRY HILL, _Feb._ 6, 1780.

I write only when I have facts to send. Detached scenes there have been
in different provinces: they will be collected soon into a drama in St.
Stephen's Chapel. One or two and twenty counties, and two or three
towns, have voted petitions.[1] But in Northamptonshire Lord Spencer
was disappointed, and a very moderate petition was ordered. The same
happened at Carlisle. At first, the Court was struck dumb, but have
begun to rally. Counter-protests have been signed in Hertford and
Huntingdon shires, in Surrey and Sussex. Last Wednesday a meeting was
summoned in Westminster Hall: Charles Fox harangued the people finely
and warmly; and not only a petition was voted, but he was proposed for
candidate for that city at the next general election, and was accepted
joyfully. Wilkes was his zealous advocate: how few years since a public
breakfast was given at Holland House to support Lord Luttrell against
Wilkes! Charles Fox and his brother rode thence at the head of their
friends to Brentford. Ovid's "Metamorphoses" contains not stranger
transformations than party can work.

[Footnote 1: These petitions were chiefly for economical reform, for
which Burke was preparing a Bill.]

I must introduce a new actor to you, a Lord George
Gordon,--metamorphosed a little, too, for his family were Jacobites and
Roman Catholics: he is the Lilburne of the Scottish Presbyterians, and
an apostle against the Papists. He dresses, that is, wears long lank
hair about his shoulders, like the first Methodists; though I take the
modern ones to be no Anti-Catholics. This mad lord, for so all his
family have been too, and are, has likewise assumed the patronage of
Ireland. Last Thursday he asked an audience of the King, and, the moment
he was admitted into the closet, began reading an Irish pamphlet, and
continued for an hour, till it was so dark he could not see; and then
left the pamphlet, exacting a promise on royal honour that his Majesty
would finish it. Were I on the throne, I would make Dr. Monro a Groom of
my Bedchamber: indeed it has been necessary for some time; for, of the
King's lords, Lord Bolingbroke is in a mad-house, and Lord Pomfret and
my nephew ought to be there. The last, being fond of onions, has lately
distributed bushels of that root to his Mi