Note 110 — Chapter III · THE WAR OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE

As to Lady Betty Germain’s bequest of Drayton to Lord George Sackville, see the letter from Lord Vere to Earl Temple of December 19, 1769, in the Grenville Papers (edited by W. J. Smith, 1853, John Murray), vol. iv, p. 491. See also various references in Horace Walpole’s Letters (Mrs. Paget Toynbee’s edition, Clarendon Press, 1904). In a letter to George Montagu, July 23, 1763, Walpole gives a description of Drayton, and refers to Lady Betty Germain as ‘its divine old mistress’. Drayton belonged to the Earls of Peterborough, the Mordaunt family. The daughter and heiress of the last earl married Sir John Germain, and left him the property. He married, as his second wife, Lady Elizabeth Berkeley, the Lady Betty Germain in question, and left Drayton to her, expressing a wish that if she had no children, she should leave it to one of the Sackvilles, which she accordingly did. Lady Betty Germain, whose father was Viceroy of Ireland, was a friend of Swift.