George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life

ced a sense of responsibility, but even before this date he had been endeavouring to regain his father's goodwill. "I don't yet imagine," wrote his friend, Sir William Maynard, shortly before the death of Colonel J. Selwyn, "you are quite established in his good opinion, and if his life is but spared one twelvemonth you may have an opportunity of convincing him you are in earnest in your promises of a more frugal way of life." As too often happens the son had not time in his father's lifetime to regain his good opinion. Certainly Selwyn made no attempt to give up pleasure, though he was bent on it no doubt with a more frugal mind. He was a man of fashion and of pleasure, having his headquarters in London, paying visits now and again to great country houses as Trentham and Croome. To Bath he went as one goes now to the Riviera. In Paris too he delighted; when in the autumn of 1762 the Duke of Bedford was in France negotiating the treaty which is known in history as the Peace of Paris, it was Selwyn who accompa