[147] Second son of John Duke of Argyle, for many years Lord Register of Scotland in Mr. Pitt’s administration.--E. [148] Robert Nugent, Esq., of Gosfield, in Essex, afterwards Earl Nugent. See _infra_. [149] This became a stronger truth every day. [150] Mr. Gascoyne was the only son of Sir Crispe Gascoyne, Lord Mayor of London, from whom he inherited a considerable estate. He had a strong understanding, and was esteemed highly as a man of business. His rough deportment had gained him at the University (we are told by Wilkes) the appellation of the Butcher; and he took no pains to get rid of it. He was also called “the King of Barking,” his country residence and principal patrimony being in that village, where he was much respected, and where he lies buried. He died in 1791. The late Marchioness of Salisbury was his granddaughter, and inherited his estates.--E. [151] Soon after, seeing another member give Barré a biscuit, Townshend said, “Oh! you should feed him with raw flesh.” [152] George Augustus Selwyn, of Matson, Gloucestershire, famous for his wit. His correspondence has been recently published in 4 vols. 8vo.--E. [153] Philip Francis, translator of Horace and Demosthenes, and the father of Sir Philip Francis, K.B.; a scholar and a man of talent, and a most active political partisan. He was for some time the tutor of Gibbon.--E. [154] “Of this very alarming connection Mr. Pitt had the most early and authentic intelligence, together with the most positive assurances from persons of undoubted veracity, who are at this moment in no common sphere of life.” History of the Minority, p. 30. Mr. Adolphus states the treaty itself to have been communicated to Mr. Pitt by the Earl Marechal Keith, in gratitude for the reversal of his attainder, but “that the fact, if it existed, was not disclosed to the Cabinet,” Adolphus, vol. i. p. 44. This story receives some confirmation from a cotemporary memoir of the Earl Marechal recently published by the Spalding Society of Aberdeen, and supposed to have been written by Sir Robert Strange, who had once been a zealous Jacobite. Neither the Chatham Correspondence nor the Mitchell manuscripts contain anything on the subject; and the papers of the Earl Marechal, at Cumbernald, have never been thoroughly examined. The Editor is disposed to believe the intelligence received by Mr. Pitt did not go so far as the existence of the treaty, but consisted of facts sufficient, in his estimation, to leave no doubt of the object of the negotiation between France and Spain, and of the general intentions of the Spanish government. These facts he had imparted to Lord Bute, who had not drawn the same conclusions from them. Hist. of Minority, p. 33.--E.