Note 85 — Chapter XI
Reading edition
Many years after that tragedy was acted, I received a most authentic and shocking confirmation of the justice of my suspicions. October 21, 1783, being with her Royal Highness Princess Amelia at her villa at Gunnersbury, among many interesting anecdotes which I have set down in another place, she told me, that while Admiral Byng’s affair was depending, the Duchess of Newcastle sent Lady Sophia Egerton to her the Princess, to beg her to be for the execution of Admiral Byng. “They thought,” added the Princess, “that unless he was put to death, Lord Anson could not be at the head of the Admiralty. Indeed,” continued the Princess, “I was already for it; the officers would never have fought, if he had not been executed.” I replied, that I thought his death most unjust, and the sentence a most absurd contradiction.
Lady Sophia Egerton was wife of a clergyman, afterwards Bishop of Durham. What a complication of horrors! women employed on a job for blood!
[As the author calls this accidental conversation at Gunnersbury, “a most authentic confirmation of his suspicions,” the Editor was not at liberty to omit any part of the story; though the reader will probably think with him, that more importance is ascribed to mere gossip than it deserves.—E.]