Walpole writes to Mann: "John Damier and his two brothers have contracted a debt, one can scarcely expect to be believed out of England,--of 70,000_l._... The young men of this age seem to make a law among themselves for declaring their fathers superannuated at fifty, and thus dispose of their estates as if already their own." "Can you believe that Lord Foley's two sons have borrowed money so extravagantly, that the interest they have contracted to pay, amounts to 18,000_l._ a year."
Fox's love of play was frightful: his best friends are said to have been half-ruined in annuities, given by them as securities for him to the Jews. Five hundred thousand a year of such annuities, of Fox and his Society, were advertised to be sold, at one time: Walpole wondered what Fox would do when he had sold the estates of all his friends. Here are some instances of his desperate play. Walpole further notes that in the debate on the Thirty-nine Articles, February 6, 1772, Fox did not shine, "nor could it be wondered at. He had sat up playing at hazard at Almack's, from Tuesday evening the 4th, till five in the afternoon of Wednesday, 5th. An hour before he had recovered 12,000_l._ that he had lost, and by dinner, which was at five o'clock, he had ended losing 11,000_l._ On the Thursday, he spoke in the above debate; went to dinner at past eleven at night; from thence to White's, where he drank till seven the next morning; thence to Almack's, where he won 6,000_l._; and between three and four in the afternoon he set out for Newmarket. His brother Stephen lost 11,000_l._ two nights after, and Charles 10,000_l._ more on the 13th; so that, in three nights, the two brothers, the eldest not twenty-five, lost 32,000_l._"
Walpole and a party of friends, (Dick Edgecumbe, George Selwyn, and Williams,) in 1756, composed a piece of heraldic satire--a coat-of-arms for the two gaming-clubs at White's,--which was "actually engraving from a very pretty painting of Edgecumbe, whom Mr. Chute, as Strawberry King at arms," appointed their chief herald-painter. The blazon is vert (for a card-table); three parolis proper on a chevron sable (for a hazard-table); two rouleaux in saltire between two dice proper, on a canton sable; a white ball (for election) argent. The supporters are an old and young knave of clubs; the crest, an arm out of an earl's coronet shaking a dice-box; and the motto, "Cogit amor nummi." Round the arms is a claret-bottle ticket by way of order. The painting above mentioned by Walpole of "the Old and Young Club at Arthur's" was bought at the sale of Strawberry Hill by Arthur's Club-house for twenty-two shillings.