'I am very sorry to hear the night ended so ill; but to give you some idea of the utter impossibility of my being useful on the occasion, I will inform you of the state of my affairs. I won L400 last night, which was immediately appropriated by Mr _Martindale_, to whom I still owe L300, and I am in Brookes' book for thrice that sum. Add to all this, that at Christmas I expect an inundation of clamorous creditors, who, unless I somehow or other scrape together some money to satisfy them, will overwhelm me entirely. What can be done? If I could coin my heart, or drop my blood into drachms, I would do it, though by this time I should probably have neither heart nor blood left. I am afraid you will find Stephen in the same state of insolvency. Adieu! I am obliged to you for the gentleness and moderation of your dun, considering how long I have been your debtor. 'Yours most sincerely, 'R. F.'(119) (119) Apud _Selwyn and his Contemporaries_ by Jesse. Selwyn is said to have been a loser on the whole, and often pillaged. Latterly he appears to have got the better of his propensity for play, if we may judge from the following wise sentiment:--'It was too great a consumer,' he said, 'of four things--time, health, fortune, and thinking.' But a writer in the _Edinburgh Review_ seems to doubt Selwyn's reformation; for his initiation of Wilberforce occurred in 1782, when he was 63; and previously, in 1776, he underwent the process of dunning from Lord Derby, before-mentioned, and in 1779 from Mr Crawford ('Fish Crawford,' as he was called), each of whom, like Mr Shafto, 'had a sum to make up'--in the infernal style so horridly provoking, even when we are able and willing to pay. However, as Selwyn died comparatively rich, it may be presumed that his fortune suffered to no great extent by his indulgence in the vice of gaming. The following are some of George Selwyn's jokes relating to gambling:-- One night, at White's, observing the Postmaster-General, Sir Everard Fawkener, losing a large sum of money at Piquet, Selwyn, pointing to the successful player, remarked--'See now, he is robbing the _MAIL!_' On another occasion, in 1756, observing Mr Ponsonby, the Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, tossing about bank-bills at a Hazard table at Newmarket--'Look,' he said, 'how easily the Speaker passes the money-bills!' A few months afterwards (when the public journals were daily containing an account of some fresh town which had conferred the freedom of its corporation in a gold box on Mr Pitt, afterwards Earl of Chatham, and the Right Honourable Henry Bilson Legge, his fellow-patriot and colleague), Selwyn, who neither admired their politics nor respected their principles, proposed to the old and new club at Arthur's, that he should be deputed to present to them the freedom of each club in a _dice-box_.