“When he quitted all his employments, he wrote me a very good letter, saying that he had heard I liked he had done it; there are expressions in this letter full as strong and obliging to me as those in this, dated from Althorpe, October 26th, 1733. I answered this civilly, saying, that as his behaviour to me had been so extraordinary for many years, I thought it necessary to have a year or two’s experience how he would perform his great promises, and that I wished him very well. This was giving him hopes, though with the caution of a lawyer. Soon after this he treated with a Jew to take up a great sum of money. He wanted my assistance to help in the security, for Lamb has secured all in his power, and would not lessen his own securities on any account. To this letter I gave him a grandmother’s advice, telling him the vast sums he had taken up at more than twenty per cent. were as well secured as when the people lent the money; that I thought he would make a much better figure if he lived upon as little as he possibly could, than ever he had done in throwing away so much money, and let his creditors have all that was left out of his estate as far as it would go, and pay what more was due to them, when accidents of death increased his revenue, for I could not join in anything that would injure myself, or the settlement of his grandfather. I should have told you this before, but in this last professing letter to me, he tells me that he would rather starve than take up money that I did not approve of: notwithstanding which, in a very few days after my letter, I am assured that Lamb has found a way to help him to a great sum of money; and without saying one word to me, the Duke has mortgaged my jointure as soon as I die, which he certainly may do for his own life; and if he lives till his son is twenty-one, he may starve him into joining with him, and destroy his grandfather’s settlement upon the whole family; for when the settlement was made, there were so many before him, that the lawyers did not think of giving his son any allowance in his father’s lifetime; and I can think of but one way to prevent all this mischief, which I have a mind to do, and that is, when he is of a proper age, to settle out of my own estate such a sum to be paid yearly by my trustees which will hinder him from being forced by his father, upon condition that if he does join with him to sell any of the estate, that which I gave him shall return back to John Spencer, who I make my heir. Whether this will succeed or not, as I wish it, I cannot be sure, but it is doing all I can to secure what the late Duke of Marlborough so passionately desired. He has a great deal in him like his father, but I cannot say he has any guilt, because he really does not know what is right and what is wrong, and will always change every three days what he designed, from the influence and flatteries of wretches who think of nothing but of getting something for themselves;