Note 96 — JOURNAL OF ELIZABETH LADY HOLLAND (continued 2)

It is interesting to compare a letter of Mr. Elliot, of Wells, quoted in Lady Minto’s Life of Sir Gilbert Elliot, and written on Nov. 2, from Tournay, after a visit to the Duke’s headquarters. ‘Almost all the persons immediately about the Duke are very young men, and as they live at headquarters, they fill his table and prevent him from inviting the general officers and colonels of regiments as frequently as it is usual for a Commander-in-Chief to do. This is one source of disgust. The youth of the circle which surrounds him occasions also a levity of manners at headquarters, hence arises a lamentable deficiency of discipline among the officers. The Duke feels this, and sometimes expresses himself hardily, when he ought to act with severity.’