Letter – William Bosville to Diana Beaumont – 9 Nov 1796

								Welbeck Street Novr. 9th 96

Dr. Mrs. Beaumont,

I enclose you a copy of the Music of Tookes Song it was done in a hurry by a person not used to Music, it is six quavers in a bar you will observe these should be single & not <tied together>, the <ties> are marked out with a pen. It is a very fine song the tune goes excellently well with it, do let me have your opinion of it. My old friend Major Cartwright was at the dinner he came to town on purpose, the crowd was so great & he a little infirm that tho’ he mad[e] several efforts to speak to me he could not get up. I wish all the apostates from the cause of liberty could have seen the dinner & that we could have seen them, with each in large letters on his breast the price Mr. Pitt obliges the plunder’d nation to pay him for his apostasy from his own opinions. Some it would appear are bought cheap, others horridly dear, it shews some conscience not to vote away the lives, liberties & happiness of their Countrymen cheap the worst are those who would sell us all for a mess of potage. I have heard many of our most violent people speak well of Ld. Fitzwilliam, he is not an apostate from his own opinions as Pitt is, he has been perfectly consistent, he tells us all plainly what his opinions are we understand, I sincerely believe they are his opinions, they are very wide of mine yet I am always happy to hear him spoke well of, he is a civil man & I hope he will weather the storm Pitt is steering us into. In this morning’s True Briton I find my name at full length & called the Citizen President of desperate Vagabonds – I am glad to see it, nothing enrages the delegates & I suppose whole body of the Corresponding Societys as being told how they are spoke of in aristocratic Societys – Rogues, Thieves, <........>, Cowards, Cutthroats & such like Aristocratic language – I hope the True Briton will give them some more of it – A great number of our people will be in this new Militia either as principles or substitute[s], some time ago a man durst not keep a pike in his house, houses were search’d for arms, now those very men may arm according to law. Let me know what you think of the Branches of Housekeepers, they <increase> fast, those who recruit fifty good men, Housekeepers that they can answer for & the Committee <approves> after the necessary enquiry are if they choose to be of the sub committee & those who get one hundred are of the Gen:l Committee, I know some of the Gen:l Committee, they are very active men & staunch. I wish to have your opinion about them, it is getting forwards in several parts of England & Scotland as I am inform’d – I got John Milnes into it.

Yours most sincerely

One of the Eighty four