Charles has attempted more than once to feel my pulse, but finding them (sic) beat pretty much as usual, he augurs no good from it. I have only desired, if they are resolved to turn me out, to have three months' warning, that I may get into another place, which I shall certainly have if I go with the same character which I had in my last. I am sober, and honest, and have no followers, and although I used to be out at nights and play at the alehouse, I have now left it off. I was asked last night at Lady Buckingham's, and am ashamed of my laziness in not going. I dine with his Lordship on Saturday, and to-day I am going with Mie Mie and Mrs. W(ebb) to Mr. Gregg's, who has got a little ball for a dozen children of her age, because it is the birthday of one of his own. Arnold's being behind the King's chair when the Address came up has given great offence. They will not suffer soon an enemy to the Americans to come into the guard room. I think that Arnold might as well have paired off with Laurens;(212) it would have conciliated matters much more. . . . Poor Lady H(ertfor)d['s] civilities in inviting so many of the Opposition to her Ball, afford a great deal of mirth. Charles did not go; he has not leisure for those trifles. Hare and Lord Robert have the drudgery of dealing between them. Your kinsman Walker is a cul de plomb at the table, and has lost, I believe, both his eyes and fortune at it. He seems so blind as not to see the card which is before him. Keene seems to have surrendered in his mind this forteresse, so I take for granted that he knows how little a while it will last. I wish I could know at this moment for a certainty what is to become of you and me. I talked long with Gregg about this when Storer had left us. It is my opinion, from all I hear of your circumstances and my own, that we shall be both reduced to 2,000 a year each, and as great as the inequality is between us in all other respects, in that we shall be equal, and the alternative is to submit to the terms imposed by the new people, which may be very humiliating to us both. If you are not an object of their justice, of their esteem, and respect, you will, I am sure, not consent to be one of their mercy only. I shall feel the deprivation of two parts out of three of my income, but I hope that I shall have enough left for Mie Mie's education, and to supply possible losses to her in other respects. If I do that, and am lodged up two pair of stairs in a room at half a guinea a week, as I was when I lodged with Lord Townshend and Lord Buckingham in 1744 or 5, I will never utter an impatient word about le retour de mon sort, whatever injustice may have been done me. If the storm falls upon you only, I am willing that you should avail yourself of anything in my situation, by which you can be assisted. But I shall never bear with patience the insults which I know would be offered to you, if these people had their terms, in their full extent.