ton, if these damned spasmodic complaints ne m'etoient pas
survenus. However, Potts assures me that I shall be well again, but
that I must take more care of myself. Je le crois. I have a great
mind, as you may imagine, to see you again, and Lady C(arlisle) and
Caroline, and all of you, and I have d'autres raisons qui
m'attachent au monde, et je n'en suis pas degoute parce qu'il est
comme il a toujours ete et comme il sera a toute eternite. I am very
angry with Emily, that he will not write to me; is he afraid that
his style is not good, or of what? . . . The play at Brooks's is
exorbitant, I hear; Grady and Sir Godfrey Whistler and the General
and Admiral are at the head of it. Charles looks wretchedly, I am
told, but I have scarce seen him. Richard is in high cash, and that
is all I know of that infernal house. Adieu; my respects to Lady
Carlisle, and my most hearty love to the children. My best
compliments to Mr. and Mrs. Eden, and to Crowle, and pray rub Mr.
Dean Emily's ears till he writes to me.

It is not desirable that those who present a correspondence for
perusal should play too much the part of a showman. Letters speak
for themselves. Yet that which Selwyn wrote on April 14th may well
be pointed to as giving, in a few lines, a reflection in miniature
of the events grave and gay which were then interesting London
society. We see it vividly, how people were admiring Lady Crawford's
new chair, remarking parenthetically of bad news from across the
Atlantic. But society was less frivolous perhaps than it seemed; the
distance from America, the length of time which elapsed between the
happening of an event and the news of it in England, the meagreness
of the intelligence when at length it arrived, prevented the public
imagination from being aroused, and so public interest and opinion
lay inert.

(1781,) April 24, Tuesday noon, 1 o'clock.--. . . . . .
P.S. Tuesday afternoon, 3 o'clock.--. . . Vary has just dropped in
upon me, and says that news is come from Arthburnot (sic), that
there has been a skirmish with the Fr(ench) Adm[iral], and it was a
kind of drawn battle; that General Phillips has joined Arnold with
2,000 men. He came to ask after George; il ne scait pas encore, a
quel point le monde s'interesse pour lui. My best and most
affectionate respects to Lady Carlisle, and my love to Caroline, and
to her sisters, not forgetting Louisa, chi gia non sovra di me.

Two balls! very fine, Caroline. Mie Mie wil