_Sir John Dalrymple._ Sir John Dalrymple (1726-1810), fourth Baronet; author of the Tory _Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland_. _From the Dissolution of the Last Parliament of Charles II until the Sea-Battle off La Hogue_, 1771, the design of which (according to Horace Walpole) was “to degrade & blacken the brightest names in English Story, & more particularly the Protomartyrs of the Revolution, Lord Russel & Algernon Sydney” (_Satirical Poems Published Anonymously by William Mason with Notes by Horace Walpole_, ed. Paget Toynbee, Oxford, 1926, p. 115). _the great Sidney._ Algernon Sidney (1622-1683), son of the second Earl of Leicester; tried before Jeffreys and executed, December 1683, for complicity in the Rye House Plot to murder Charles II and the Duke of York. _Governor Johnson._ George Johnstone (1730-1787), M.P. for Appleby; formerly Governor of West Florida; one of North’s commissioners to treat with America; see Introduction, p. 9. His conduct as commissioner was quarrelsome, clumsy, and ineffectual; Carl Van Doren, _Secret History of the American Revolution_, New York, 1941, pp. 96-104. Of his speech on the opening day of the session Walpole reported: Governor Johnston made a strange, unintelligible speech (it was impossible for him to make a clear one without condemning himself); he endeavoured to wipe off some of his attempt to bribe some of the Congress, yet owned at much as he denied, condemned and approved the march to Philadelphia, and rather insinuated blame on Keppel than on anybody else. He was soon after called upon in several newspapers to say, whether he did not still retain his pay of Commissioner, though he had so long quitted the office. He made no answer—consequently was by that sinecure retained by the Court (_Last Journals_, II, 209). PAGE 33 _Mons. D’Estaign._ Jean-Baptiste-Charles-Henri-Hector, Comte d’Estaing (1729-1794), French admiral in command in American waters, 1778-80. _a noble Lord opposite to me._ Richard, Lord Howe; see below, note to p. 34. _D’Estaign’s fleet ought to have been attacked._ In August Howe pursued D’Estaing to Newport, but a storm prevented an engagement. PAGE 34 _Byron’s squadron._ John Byron (1723-1786), Vice-Admiral; sailed from Plymouth with a squadron in pursuit of D’Estaing, June 1778; his ships joined Howe’s fleet piecemeal during the summer. _Lord Howe._ Richard Howe (1726-1799), fourth Viscount Howe in the peerage of Ireland; M.P. for Dartmouth; Vice-Admiral; Commander-in-Chief on the North American station, 1776-78; resigned his command because of discontent with the ministry, September 1778; cr. an English peer, 1782, and Earl Howe, 1788. _Mr. Rigby._ Richard Rigby (1722-1788), M.P. for Tavistock and Paymaster of the Forces. Reputed to have derived immense profits from his office during the American war, Rigby served as the model for Disraeli’s corrupt politician of the same name in _Coningsby_, 1844. PAGE 35