misfortunes to wish to contribute to anybody's suffering the like, and was so particular on the subject that he had a daughter by Mrs. Walkinshaw, which he took particular care should be christened at Liége, and then publicly declared to be his natural daughter. The French however made a point of getting her from him, though he parted with her with great regret and difficulty. They have taken care of her, and educated her in a convent in France.
March 5th.—Lady Louisa and I went to Law, the linen draper, to give him the first breadth of the gown she is working for me in the tambour to be calendered, and from thence we went to see a picture begun of Lord Shelburne at Reynolds's, and a famous table at Mayhew's in which I was disappointed. Lord Dunmore and Colonel Barré dined here. Lady Charlotte came to see Lord Fitzmaurice in the morning, admired him, and assured me he was much bigger than any of the Princes had been and than Prince William is even now, though allowed to be a very fine child. She farther flattered me by saying she saw a strong likeness to Lord Shelburne. General Clerke came afterwards and looked at him, and was polite about him; Lord Shelburne spent the evening with us and we had no other company. Lord Shelburne met Lord Winchelsea[1] at the House of Lords to-day, who told him in conversation that he was seventy-eight years old. He also told Lord Shelburne that the Earl of Devonshire declared in the House of Lords, when the son of King James II. was alluded to as supposititious, that it never was his opinion that he was an imposture, he believed him to be the son of the King, and for that reason urged the more his exclusion. Lord Winchelsea likewise said that the Earl of Devonshire's principal motive was Lord Russell's execution, whose intimate friend he was, and from the moment of his death vowed to avenge it, being himself a man of as great courage as ever lived, a gambler too, and a very lively man.[2]
