Note 1 — Chapter I

Miss Williams was a young Englishwoman, who had been brought up in Mr. Pitt’s family, and who had all along resided with Lady Hester Stanhope, as her humble companion. It is necessary to observe that it was a common custom with Lady Hester, when she had any particular object in view, to write one version of the subject with her own hand, and to dictate another, which was to be considered as the expression of the opinions of the writer, but which to me, long habituated to the secrets of her cabinet, was easily recognized as emanating from one and the same source.