“The severe measures taken against the Americans united them firmly by a cement of blood.” A. BRITON, _Pub. Advert._, 16th Sept., 1775. * * * * * “Parliament is now, instead of being the representative of the nation, the echo of the Cabinet; and its acts are only wrappers to the ready prepared pills of the court laboratory for the people to swallow—if they do not stick in their throats.” A. BRITON, _Pub. Advert._, 16th Sept., 1775. * * * * * “I said of a rich man who entertained us luxuriously, that although he was exceedingly ridiculous, we restrained ourselves from talking of him as we might do, lest we should lose his feasts. Said I, ‘he makes our teeth sentinels upon our tongues.’” * * * * * “I said that a drunken fellow was not honest. ‘A stick,’ said I ‘kept allways moist becomes rotten.’” “If a man entertains his company himself, it is a great fatigue. It is blowing a fire with his own breath. Whoever can afford it should have a led captain of strong animal spirits, who may, like perpetual bellows, keep up the social flame.” * * * * * “I told Nairne one afternoon that I had been taking an airing with our solicitor-general. Said he, ‘Was you _learning_ to be solicitor?’ ‘No no,’ said I; ‘solicitors-general are _non docti, sed facti_.’” 1777. * * * * * “Poor David Hamilton of Monkland, on account of his vote in Lanarkshire, was made one of the macers of the Court of Session. He had a constant hoarseness, so that he could scarcely be heard when he called the causes and the lawyers, and was indeed as unfit for a crier of court as a man could be. I said he had no voice but _at an election_.” * * * * * “Sandie Maxwell, the wine merchant, told a story very well, and used to heighten it by greater and greater degrees of strong humour, according to the disposition of the company. I said he _blew_ a story to any size, as a man blows figures in a glasshouse. A satirical fellow would say, I warrant he shall not blow his own bottles to too large a size.” * * * * * “Lady Di Beauclerk[287] said to me she understood Mrs. V—— was an idiot. I said I was told so too; but when I was introduced to her did not find it be true. ‘Or perhaps,’ said I, ‘her being less an idiot than I had imagined her to be may have made me think she was not an idiot at all.’ ‘I think,’ said Lady Di, ‘she is bad enough, if that be all that a lawyer has to say for her, that she is only less an idiot than he imagined.’ Said I, ‘There are different kinds of idiots as of dogs, water idiots and land idiots, and so on.’ ‘I think,’ said Lady Di, ‘that is worth writing down.’” Richmond, 27th April, 1781. * * * * *