JET. 31.] AND SIR JOHN MOORE. 425 



believe in the whole of the worst parts of the news, 

 and say that Government have it in Baird's de- 

 spatches. Hope says the shipping is ordered round 

 to Yigo to take in Baird. Ferguson is giving over 

 his brigade for lost, it being with General Hope at 

 Madrid. In haste, yours ever, H. BROUGHAM." 



TO EARL GREY. 



" WOOLBEDING, January 4, 1809. 



" MY DEAR LORD GREY, I rejoice greatly on ac- 

 count of the country that you are coming to town ; 

 but I must say if your health is one of the causes of 

 it, as I understood from Petty, I had much rather 

 have heard of your wintering at Ho wick. I am the 

 more disappointed at this, if correct, because your 

 friends had of late been flattering themselves with 

 the prospects of your complaints being entirely re- 

 moved. 



" I have been here these three days, and return to- 

 morrow to town ; but having heard from London, 

 and before I left it, some things which seem authentic, 

 I shall set them down. 



" The regency story is not perhaps true, but I 

 really believe it had some foundation. It was talked 

 of at Mansfield's (the chief justice) the other day in 

 a Tory company, among whom was the attorney- 

 general, and no sort of contradiction was given to it 

 by anybody ; only all agreed in lamenting that ' so 

 excellent a woman as the queen is in private life,' 

 should allow herself to be so much under the prince's 



