“_18 Aug. 1776._ To-day I have heard the shocking news of Mr Damer’s death, who shot himself yesterday, at three o’clock in the morning, at a tavern in Covent Garden. My first alarm was for Mr Conway; not knowing what effect such a horrid surprise would have on him, scarce recovered from an attack himself; happily, it proves his nerves were not affected, for I have had a very calm letter from him on the occasion. Mr Charles Fox, with infinite good nature, met Mrs Damer coming to town, and stopped her to prepare her for the dismal event. It is almost impossible to refrain from bursting into commonplace reflections on this occasion; but, can the walls of Almack’s help moralizing, when £5000 a year, in present, and £22,000 in reversion, are not sufficient for happiness, and cannot check a pistol!” “_19 Jan. 1777._ Lord Dillon told me this morning that Lord Besborough and he, playing at quinze t’other night with Miss Pelham, and, happening to laugh, she flew in a passion and said, ‘It was terrible to play with _boys_!’ And our two ages together, said Lord Dillon, make up above a hundred and forty.” “_6 Feb. 1780._ Within this week there has been a cast at hazard at the Cocoa Tree, the difference of which amounted to a hundred and four score thousand pounds. Mr O’Birne, an Irish gamester, had won one hundred thousand pounds of a young Mr Harvey, of Chigwell, just started from a midshipman[32] into an estate, by his elder brother’s death. O’Birne said, ‘You never can pay me.’ ‘I can,’ said the youth; my estate will sell for the debt.’ ‘No,’ said O., ‘I will win ten thousand—you shall throw for the odd ninety.’ They did, and Harvey won.” “_29 Jan. 1791._ Pray delight in the following story: Caroline Vernon, _fille d’honneur_, lost, t’other night, two hundred pounds at faro, and bade Martindale mark it up. He said he would rather have a draft on her banker. ‘Oh! willingly’; and she gave him one. Next morning, he hurried to Drummond’s, lest all her money should be drawn out. ‘Sir,’ said the clerk, ‘would you receive the contents immediately?’ ‘Assuredly.’ ‘Why, sir, have you read the note?’ Martindale took it; it was, ‘Pay the bearer two hundred blows, well applied.’ The nymph tells the story herself; and, yet, I think, the clerk had the more humour of the two.” There can be no doubt but that in the last half of the eighteenth century, gambling for large sums was very rife. We have evidence of it on all hands. “_Ann. Reg._, _8 Feb. 1766_. We are informed that a lady, at the West end of the town, lost, one night, at a sitting, 3000 guineas at Loo.” _Par parenthèse_, the same volume has (p. 191) the following horrible story: “_A circumstantial and authentic account of the miserable case of Richard Parsons, as transmitted in a letter from William Dallaway, Esq., High Sheriff of Gloucestershire, to his friend in London_.