there is no name that can be affixed to it with so much propriety as Lord Chatham's, I most earnestly request your permission for that purpose, and shall be extremely happy if it shall be thought in any degree worthy of the person for whom it is intended. I am, my Lord, with the truest esteem, Your most affectionate servant, QUI ORBEM FERE UNIVERSUM ANIMO COMPLEXUS EUROPAM ASIAM AFRICAM AMERICAM VICTORIIS PERAGRAVIT TRIUMPHIS ILLUSTRAVIT GULIELMO PITT COMITI DE CHATHAM HOC AMICITIÆ PRIVATE TESTIMONIUM SIMUL ET HONORIS PUBLICI MONUMENTUM POSUIT GULIELMUS DRAPER. year, he married Miss De Lancy, daughter of the chief-justice of New York. In 1779 he was appointed lieutenant-governor of Minorca; a trust which, however discharged, ended untunately. In 1783 Sir William retired to Bath; where he died, in January, 1787. Mr. Pitt, in alluding to the capture of Manilla, in the course of his speech on American taxation, in January 1766, describes its gallant conqueror as "a gentleman whose noble and generous spirit would do honour to the proudest grandee of the country." THE COUNTESS OF CHATHAM TO SIR WILLIAM DRAPER. [From a draught in her own handwriting.] SIR, Hayes, June 16, 1768. MY LORD continuing so much indisposed as to be quite unable to write, is obliged to commit to me the pleasure of acknowledging the honour of your letter. He desires to say, that he is most truly touched with the too favourable and partial sentiments of one, who is himself so justly the admiration of his country, and so distinguished an instrument of its glory. He begs to add, as nothing can or ought to make him so proud as the testimony of Sir William Draper's private friendship, that he hopes Sir William will give him leave most earnestly to entreat, that of an Inscription so infinitely partial, the four last lines alone may remain, as conveying the honour he is most ambitious of. He trusts Sir William Draper will have the goodness to grant and to pardon the liberty of this request. I have the honour to be, with the truest esteem and highest regard, Sir, Your most obedient and most humble servant, H. CHATHAM. SIR WILLIAM DRAPER TO THE COUNTESS OF MADAM, CHATHAM. Manilla Hall, June 19, 1768. I AM honoured with your Ladyship's letter. Lord Chatham shall be obeyed; but it is the first time in my life, that I could almost wish to disobey his commands. I shall be most truly sorry if his delicacy has been offended by the former part of the Inscription, as it only spoke the sentiments of every person in the three kingdoms unconnected with faction, and the envy, malice, and rage of party quarrels ; nor will I scruple to affirm, that it spoke the sense of every nation in Europe, even of those who have had the greatest reason to dread his superior genius and abilities, and have so severely felt the consequences. The last four lines that his Lordship has suffered me to affix are so extremely flattering to me, that I fear I shall be thought to have erected a pillar to my own vanity, and not to Lord Chatham's virtues for what greater glory can an individual boast of, than to have Lord Chatham's permission to tell the world, that he is honoured with his approbation, patronage, and friendship; nor will it be a small addition to it, that I have the liberty to subscribe myself, Madam, with the greatest respect and esteem, Your Ladyship's most obedient servant, THE COUNTESS OF CHATHAM TO SIR WILLIAM SIR, DRAPER. Hayes, June 25th, 1768. I RECEIVED the honour of your most obliging letter, and am desired by my Lord to express his warmest acknowledgments for your great goodness in so kindly granting, and pardoning, the earnest request he took the liberty to make. I am at the same time to confess to you, that my Lord is not a little unhappy not to have in his private drawer, for his children hereafter, a composition of so much beauty, dictated by the partiality, and written with the hand, of Sir William Draper; which my mistake put up in my letter to you. Give me leave to add the extreme interest I take in that paper, and how sensibly I should share in the obligation, if you would have the goodness to send it back to me. My Lord desires his respectful and affectionate compliments to you, and I beg you will be persuaded, that I am, with the most perfect esteem and regard, Sir, Your most obliged and most obedient servant, H. CHATHAM. (') (1) Sir William Draper yielded to Lord Chatham's pressing entreaty, and, to the obelisk which he shortly after erected in the front of his seat at Manilla, affixed only the four last lines of the inscription. On returning it to Lady Chatham, Sir William says, "I beg leave to inform your Ladyship, that its Latinity was corrected and improved by my friend Dr. Barnard of Eton, to whom I sent it for inspection, as I was unwilling to THE EARL OF RADNOR (1) TO THE EARL OF CHATHAM. MY LORD, Longford, July 14, 1768. ABOUT eighteen months ago, on an expected promotion of lieutenants in the navy, I recommended Lieutenant Edward Palmer to Sir Edward Hawke, who promised to remember him when the promotion took place; but twelve having lately been promoted and Mr. Palmer forgot, I wrote to Sir Edward and received the enclosed, which I take the liberty to transmit. I must own, as I have steadily and disinterestedly endeavoured to support government, I thought myself entitled to ask such a favour, as the object of it was, in character both public and private, deserving of it. I shall esteem it a favour trust entirely to my own judgment, in a thing which requires much delicacy; or to my skill in a language which other avocations had something impaired. Its prolixity and luxuriances have been pruned by the Doctor's wholesome severity." Dr. Edward Barnard was at this time provost of Eton school, canon of Windsor, and rector of Paul's Cray, Kent. In a memoir of him by George Hardinge, one of his pupils, he is thus described: "In powers of conversation, whether têteà-tête or in a mixed company, I never knew his equal. He was, at all points of companionable entertainment, admirable; but his forte was a picturesque anatomy of character. His narratives, like those of Garrick, brought the figures alive before you, and yet with no theatrical pedantry; in which respect I thought him superior to Garrick." He died in 1781. (') William Pleydell Bouverie, first Earl of Radnor. His Lordship was, for several years, governor of the Levant or Turkey Company and of the hospital for French Protestants, and a fellow of the Royal Society. He died in 1776. |