[56] At Mersham Hatch. [Illustration: _Hamilton, Pinx._ _Emery Walker Ph. Sc._ _Mr. & Mrs. Matthew Robinson_] [Page heading: DUKE OF PORTLAND] The duchess was now expecting her confinement, and Lady Wallingford, who was staying with her, corresponded with Elizabeth in French. Owing to the residence of her father in France as Superintendent of Finances, she was more French than English. Her letters are well written and expressed, though the spelling is peculiar. At a later date she writes to Elizabeth in broken English, and she scolds her for making her correspond in English instead of French. Horace Walpole, in a letter to the Earl of Buchan, states that Lady Wallingford was the image of her father, and that her mother, Lady Katherine Law, lived during her husband’s power in France in great state. On July 26, 1739, another daughter, Lady Margaret, was born to the duchess. Dr. Sandys was, as usual, the accoucheur, but it makes one horrified in these days to think Dr. Sandys _bled_ the duchess for a feverish cold on the Monday and Thursday after her child was born. Truly under this San Grado treatment it was then the “survival of the fittest”! The duke now wrote a bulletin of his wife to Elizabeth-- “Whitehall, August 9, 1739. “MADAM, “Tho’ J have not been overturned you’ll imagine by the scrawl you receive yt both my thumb and forefinger have been dislocated; J own j can’t agree with you in yt for j flatter myself j have the use of them, but if you please j’ll agree with you that they never were in joint, for which reason j am not so sensible of ye loss of jointed fingers, as you might be had yours been broke by the overturn of your coach, which accident j hope may never happen to you. The Dss. is as well as can be expected tho’ a little weak, and is extremely obliged to you for your letter, and also begged j would hint yt tho’ she can’t wright letters she can read them, j need not explain my meaning to you. She desires her kind service to Fidgett; and should be glad if you would make her compliments acceptable to your Mama, etc. “j am with the uttmost respect, Madam, “Your most obedient, humble servant, “PORTLAND.” The duke’s writing is very characteristic, but certainly rather disjointed looking, and his I’s always written as long j’s. Elizabeth had just had another coach adventure. The coachman who drove her father and mother and her brother Matthew home after dining at a neighbour’s, was drunk, which they did not perceive till he lashed the four horses into a furious gallop. In vain Mr. Robinson called to him, and swore at him; Matthew and Mrs. Robinson intreated; he persisted in lashing the horses till he fell off the box, and two wheels ran over him, but as Elizabeth states, “being preserved in beer, took very little harm; both footmen were drunk, so took very little care about us.”