Page:Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope.djvu/17

 should, if my services proved agreeable to Lady Hester, be ultimately provided for. I thanked him, and said, that to travel with such a distinguished woman would please me exceedingly. The following day he intimated that his father had already spoken about me, and that her ladyship would see me. In about four days I was introduced to her, and she closed with me immediately, inviting me to dine with her that evening. Afterwards, I saw her several times, and subsequently joined her at Portsmouth, whence, after waiting a fortnight, we sailed in the Jason, the Hon. Captain King, for Gibraltar.

The reasons which Lady Hester assigned for leaving England were grounded chiefly on the narrowness of her income. Mr. Pitt's written request, on his deathbed, that she might have £1500 a year, had been complied with only in part, owing to the ill offices of certain persons at that time in the privy-council, and she received clear, after deductions for the property-tax were made, no more that £1200. At first, after Mr. Pitt's death, she established herself in Montague Square, with her two brothers, and she there continued to see much company. "But," she would say, "a poor gentlewoman, doctor, is the worst thing in the world. Not being able to keep a carriage, how was I to go out? If I used a hackney-coach, some spiteful person would be sure to mention it:—'Who