Sir Andr. goes upon the surest grounds, because I believe that he will be franked to a certain point, and is sure of a seat in another place, if not here. He is really a very agreeable man, and seems to penetrate into the characters of the people he has seen very well. He entertained me much yesterday with his account of my old friend the Duke of Newcastle. He speaks of you in terms of the highest esteem. We stole away the day before yesterday from our keepers, to dine here, which was a great relief, but we were jobed (sic) for it at our return. I get here time enough to go to bed, that is about 11 o'clock, and I do not leave this place till about nine, that is till Mie Mie and I have breakfasted together. We have a committee sitting at what is called the New(?) Inn, which has been built, and never repaired, three hundred years since; and here this swarm of old Jacobites, with no attachment to Government, assembles, and for half an hour you would be diverted with their different sentiments and proposals. There is one who has a knack at squibbs, as they call it, and he has a table and chair with a pen and ink before him, to write scurrilous papers, and these are sent directly to Mr. Raikes. I wish to God that it was all at an end. What sin, to me unknown, Dipped me in this? My father's, or my own? I am very glad that you have so quietly abandoned a contention for Carlisle. When these things come to us without trouble it is very well; but when they do not, I do not know one earthly thing that makes us amends, and it is not once in a hundred times that you are thanked for it. ... I am old indeed, as the papers say, and if not trained up in ministerial corruption, I am used to all other corruption whatever, and of that of manners in particular; and the little attention that is paid to what was in my earliest days called common honesty, is now the most uncommon thing in the world. . . . Let me have the pleasure of hearing that you are going on well in Ireland,(145) for the loss of that I should have in being there with you, which is impossible. Keep yourself, as you can very well do, within your intrenchments, that no one may toss your hat over the walls of the Castle. I dread to think what a wrongheaded people you are to transact business with for the next three years of your life. But I am less afraid of you from your character, than of another, because I think that you will admit, at setting out, of no degree of familiarity from those you are not well acquainted with. I hope that Eden goes with you. I have a great opinion of his good sense and scavoir faire.