The Lord Mayor took me down to supper and I sat
between him and the Duke of Richmond at the high table which went
across the head of the hall.
Guildhall is a beautiful old room with
a fine old traceried window, and the scene, with five tables going
the length of the hall and the upper one across the head, was very
gay and brilliant. There were a few toasts, and your father again
made a little speech, short and pleasant. We did not get home till
half-past three in the morning. . . . On Friday morning [July 14th]
many of the guests, the Duke of Richmond, etc., took their departure
and Mr. Hudson had to escort Prince Albert to town, but returned the
same evening. . . . The next day we all went to pay a visit to an
estate of Mr. Hudson's [name of estate indecipherable] for which he
paid five hundred thousand pounds to the Duke of Devonshire. . . .
It is nobly situated in the Yorkshire wolds, a fine range of hills,
and overlooking the valley of the Humber, which was interesting to
me, as it was the river which our Pilgrim fathers sailed down and
lay in the Wash at its mouth, awaiting their passage to Holland.
They came, our Plymouth fathers, mostly from Lincolnshire and the
region which lay below us. I thought of them, and the scene of
their sufferings was more ennobled in my eyes, from their
remembrance than from the noble mansions and rich estates which
feast the eye.
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