A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith
Letters 1807
Sydney Smith to Lady Holland, [June 1807]
* * * * *
You can conceive nothing like the tumult of this city; it
was as riotous as London in the middle of the night. I have seen two drunken
people and one battle. The clergy and ladies are leaving the town. I am most
happy to tell you that Lord Milton will, in
all probability, get his election. I came here last night, and voted today.
I forgot to send you the Chancellor’s scrap. My request to him, through my friend
Sir William Scott, was, if any patronee
of his preferred the North to the South, that I might be allowed to gratify so
singular a wish by exchanging with him.
Thomas Erskine, first baron Erskine (1750-1823)
Scottish barrister who was a Whig MP for Portsmouth (1783-84, 1790-1806); after defending
the political radicals Hardy, Tooke, and Thelwall in 1794 he was lord chancellor in the
short-lived Grenville-Fox administration (1806-07).
William Scott, first baron Stowell (1745-1836)
English lawyer and friend of Dr. Johnson; he was MP for Oxford University (1801-21) and
judge of the high court of Admiralty (1798-1828). He was the elder brother of Lord
Eldon.