The King was civil to Fox at his next levee: afterwards in his closet Mr. Fox beginning to say, “Sir, last Wednesday the Chancellor”--the King interrupted, “Oh! sir, I believe you had given him cause; it is now pretty even.” Mr. Fox said, “Sir, I shall only beg to be heard as to there being any faction or intrigue in my behaviour: I give you my honour it is not true.” “The moment you give me your honour,” replied the King, “I believe you; but I must tell you, as I am no liar, that you have been much suspected.” He then repeated to him accusations of such low caballing, of balls given at Holland House to the Duchess of Bedford, to which Mr. Pelham’s daughters had not been invited, of persons who were disagreeable to the Pelhams being invited; in short, accusations of such feminine and peevish trifles, that if Mr. Pelham was not the whisperer of them, and the Chancellor was, the latter had certainly very tender sensations, when they could extend themselves to the dancing disgusts of his friend’s wife and daughters! Mr. Fox answered these cursorily, disclaimed any political connexions with the Bedfords, and repeated with emphasis, “Such intrigues, Sir, would be worse in me, while in your service, than in any man living, as nobody blamed such intrigues in those who undermined Sir Robert Walpole so much as I.” This dialogue ended so well, that Mr. Fox asked for a little place for one of his dependents, and obtained it.
7th.--Dr. Archibald Cameron suffered death at Tyburn. He had been forced into the Rebellion by his brother Lochiel, whom he had tried to confine, to prevent his engaging in it: not that Lochiel had taken arms voluntarily: he was a man of great parts, but could not resist the desperate honour which he thought the Pretender did him, in throwing himself into his arms, and demanding his sword and interest.[234] The Doctor, who was a man of learning and very valuable humanity, which he had displayed in endeavours to civilize that part of a barbarous country, and in offices of benevolence to the soldiers employed on the Highland roads, and to the mine-adventurers established at Strontean, was torn from these sweet duties, from his profession, from a beloved and large family, and attended his rash brother at Prestonpans and Falkirk, escaped with him, and was appointed physician to Lochiel’s regiment in the French service. He ventured back, was taken as mentioned above, and underwent a forced death with as much composure as a philosopher could affect at dying a natural one.