John
B. Church. Mr. Morris had known the gentleman when he was
Commissary-General under Lafayette in America and before he had married
his American wife. Mr. Church's American proclivities made him
unpopular with the Tory party on his return to England, but he numbered
among his friends the Whig leaders and many of the most eminent men and
women of the day. 'Twas at a ball given by Mrs. Church a few days after
his arrival in London that Mr. Calvert saw, for the first time, some of
the greatest personages in the kingdom--the Prince of Wales, and Mrs.
Fitzherbert, the beautiful Mrs. Damer and the Duc d'Orleans, who had but
lately come over, sent out of France by the King under pretext of an
embassy to the English monarch. Calvert had not seen his hateful face
since the opening of the States-General, and 'twas with a kind of horror
that he now looked at this royal renegade. Pitt was there, too, but,
although Mr. Calvert saw him, he did not meet him until on a subsequent
occasion. He marvelled, as did everyone who saw Pitt at this time, at
the youth (he was but thirty-one) and the dignity of the Prime Minister
of George III.
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