lf, maintenant
que mes ongles sont rognes comme ils le sont, he will treat me with
what indifference he pleases, and I know no remedy for it, but what
is worse than the disease. Then it is more supineness,
insensibility, and natural arrogance than any desire to use me worse
than another. He has no tact in point of breeding, and he lays all
his business on Robinson's(164) shoulders, who has behaved worse to
me than any man ever did; but I must take shame to myself for that,
because, if I had rejected his first proposal of standing for
Gloucester, by his suggestion, against my own reason and
inclination, he would never have dared to have treated me ill any
more. I hope to be rich enough in a year or two more, if I live, to
be as much a patriot as I happen to choose; but it is a fichu
matter, as times go, and nobody of common sense ever gives you any
credit for it. I shall be contented only, if, instead of making a
bargain with a Minister, I can be in circumstances good enough to
sell him one, if he uses me ill.

(164) John Robinson, Secretary to the Treasury.

[1781,] June 5, Tuesday.--. . . . I know of nothing rpmarkable at
the Birthday yesterday. I put on the best clothes which I had, about
nine at night, to make a bow to their Majesties sur leur passage, as
they went to the ball room, and there the Queen stopped and said
some very gracious things to me, which my great deference to her
Majesty made me not understand, but I bowed and thanked her,
supposing that she said something that interested me. The King's
face was turned the other way, and he did not see me, but I was
taken notice of dans l'antichambre du Roi, and so it was very well,
and it was there that I saw my nephew Broderick, who had just had an
audience of the King. His Royal Highness's(165) equipages are very
becoming, and give some little splendour to the Court. I could tell
poor Guerchy now that we had not des vaisseaux only, but des
carro(s)es; we have des Princes, God knows, a foison. The Princess
Royal seems a very agreeable young woman, but I had only a transient
glance of her. Her air and manner seemed good. One coach came by
after another in their liveries, and each stuffed with royal
children, like a cornucopia with fruit and flowers. Bory got I do
not (know) how many of my servants, by some escalier derobe, to see
the ball-room and some of the dances; he has a back stairs interest
through that of Lord Trentham's nurse, and being himself the S