as a preliminary assurance to the Insurgents; and then
for the inference, under any change he can't allow himself to take
an employment, and lay more money upon shark(s?). But there will be
no change yet, I am confident, and when there is, he will as much
want another.

They now doubt of Southwell's peerage,(126) after all the bustle in
our country. All the claimants for new peerages oppose it with their
clamours, as if this was a creation, and taking it for granted that
the King is to accept their interpretations instead of his own. I
suppose, if he fulfilled all his engagements upon that score, there
would be an addition to the House of Lords equal to the present
number.

Ergo, if I was King, I should expunge the whole debt, and begin sur
nouveaux fraix. I think that I should have answer ready to make to
my Minister against those promises. I should tell him, if my affairs
required a Sir G. Hawke or who(m) you please to be made a peer, it
should be down (done) sur le champ, but I would not be hampered by
engagements. Qu'en pensez-vous, Seigneur? I take it for granted that
Lord Gower will be here soon. I have desired Gregg to wait on him
with an account of all that has passed in your affairs during my
regency, because Gregg will be better able to state the matter to
him, and to explain the necessity I have been under, by an
unexpected increase of demands, of transcending the bounds of the
deed, as well as to satisfy him upon your own domestic economy,
which is certainly by all accounts irreprehensible.

(125) Peter Delme, married in 1769 to Lady Elizabeth Howard, Lord
Carlisle's sister; he was called Peter the Czar, in allusion to his
great wealth, which, however, he and Lady Betty very much reduced by
high play. He shot himself in Grosvenor Square, April 10, 1770.

(126) Thomas George, third Baron Southwell (1721-1780), was created
Viscount Southwell in July, 1776.

(1775,) Nov. 16, Thursday night, the Committee Room of the House of
Commons.--I received last night, but late, your much wished-for and
expected letter concerning the Bedchamber;(127) which, containing
what it did, and the style of it being what it was, I carried this
morning to Lord G(ower), who seemed perfectly satisfied with the
option you had made, and the manner in which you expressed yourself
in relation to himself. Lord North dines with him on Saturday, when
he intends to expatiate more at large upon your views, and to urge
further your pret