birth of her son (Dec. 30, 1802).

"For the benefit of posterity I will describe my dress on this grand
occasion. A crape dress, embroidered in silver spangles, also sent me
by Madame Le Clerc, but much richer than that which I wore at the last
ball. Scarcely any sleeves to my dress, but a broad silver spangled
border to the shoulder-straps. The body made very like a child's
frock, tying behind, and the skirt round, with not much train. On my
head a turban of spangled crape like the dress, looped-up with pearls.
This dress, the admiration of all the world over, will, perhaps, fifty
years hence, be laughed at, and considered as ridiculous as our
grandmothers' hoops and brocades appear to us now."

In fairness it must be stated that General Nugent punctiliously
returned all Madame Le Clerc's presents to his wife with gifts of
English cut-glass, then apparently much appreciated by the French. He
seems to have sent absolute cart-loads of cut-glass to Haiti, but in
days when men habitually drank two bottles of wine apiece after
dinner, there was presumably a fair amount of breakage of decanters
and tumblers.

I notice that although Lady Nugent complains on almost every page of
"the appalling heat," the "unbearable heat," the "terrific heat, which
gives me these sad headaches," she seems always ready to dance for
hours at any time. Some idea of the ceremonious manners of the day is
obtained from the perpetual entry "went to bed with my knees aching
from the hundreds of curtsies I have had to make to the company."

In 1811 Sir George Nugent was appointed Commander-in-Chief in Bengal,
and their voyage from Portsmouth to Calcutta occupied exactly six