Lucrative
Gambling

Charles James Fox's love of gambling was desperate. A few evenings before he moved the repeal of the Marriage Act, in February, 1772, he had been at Brompton on two errands,--one to consult Justice Fielding on the penal laws, the other to borrow L10,000, which he brought to town at the hazard of being robbed. He played admirably both at Whist and Piquet,--with such skill, indeed, that by the general admission of Brookes' Club, he might have made four thousand pounds a-year, as they calculated, at these games, if he could have confined himself to them. But his misfortune arose from playing games of chance, particularly at Faro.

After eating and drinking plentifully, he would sit down at the Faro table, and invariably rose a loser. Once, indeed, and once only, he won about eight thousand pounds in the course of a single evening. Part of the money he paid to his creditors, and the remainder he lost almost immediately.

Before he attained his thirtieth year he had completely dissipated everything that he could either command or could procure by the most ruinous expedients. He had even undergone, at times, many of the severest privations incidental to the vicissitudes that attend a gamester's progress; frequently wanting money to defray the common daily wants of the most pressing nature. Topham Beauclerc, who lived much in Fox's society, declared that no man could form an idea of the extremities to which he had been driven to raise money, often losing his last guinea at the Faro table. The very sedan- chairmen, whom he was unable to pay, used to dun him for arrears. In 1781, he might be considered as an extinct volcano,--for the pecuniary aliment that had fed the flame was long consumed. Yet he even then occupied a house or lodgings in St James's Street, close to Brookes', where he passed almost every hour which was not devoted to the House of Commons. Brookes' was then the rallying point or rendezvous of the Opposition, where Faro, Whist, and supper prolonged the night, the principal members of the minority in both Houses met, in order to compare their information, or to concert and mature their parliamentary measures. Great sums were then borrowed of Jews at exorbitant premiums.

His brother Stephen was enormously fat; George Selwyn said he was in the right to deal with Shylocks, as he could give them pounds of flesh.

Walpole, in 1781, walking up St James's Street, saw a cart at Fox's door, with copper and an old chest of drawers, loading. His success at Faro had awakened a host of creditors; but, unless his bank had swelled to the size of the Bank of England, it could not have yielded a half-penny apiece for each. Epsom too had been unpropitious; and one creditor had actually seized and carried off Fox's goods, which did not seem worth removing. Yet, shortly after this, whom should Walpole find sauntering by his own door but Fox, who came up and talked to him at the coach window, on the Marriage Bill, with as much _sang-froid_ as if he knew nothing of what had happened. Doubtless this indifference was to be attributed quite as much to the callousness of the reckless gambler as to anything that might be called `philosophy.'

It seems clear that the ruling passion of Fox was partly owing to the lax training of his father, who, by his lavish allowances, not only fostered his propensity to play, but had also been accustomed to give him, when a mere boy, money to amuse himself at the gambling table. According to Chesterfield, the first Lord Holland `had no fixed principles in religion or morality,' and he censures him to his son for being `too unwary in ridiculing and exposing them.' He gave full swing to Charles in his youth. `Let nothing be done,' said his lordship, `to break his spirit, the world will do that for him.' At his death, in 1774, he left him L154,000 to pay his debts; it was all `bespoke,' and Fox soon became as deeply pledged as before.[126]

[126] Timbs, ubi supra. There is a mistake in the anecdote respecting Fox's duel with Mr Adam (not Adams), as related by Mr Timbs in his amusing book of the Clubs. The challenge was in consequence of some words uttered by Fox in parliament, and not on account of some remark on Government powder, to which Fox wittily alluded, after the duel, saying--`Egad, Adam, you would have killed me if it had not been Government powder.' See Gilchrist, Ordeals, Millingen, Hist. of Duelling, ii., and Steinmetz, Romance of Duelling, ii.

The following are authentic anecdotes of Fox, as a gambler.

Fox had a gambling debt to pay to Sir John Slade. Finding himself in cash, after a lucky run at Faro, he sent a complimentary card to the knight, desiring to discharge the claim. Sir John no sooner saw the money than he called for pen and ink, and began to figure. `What now?' cried Fox. `Only calculating the interest,' replied the other. `Are you so?' coolly rejoined Charles James, and pocketed the cash, adding--`I thought it was a _debt of honour_. As you seem to consider it a trading debt, and as I make it an invariable rule to pay my Jew- creditors last, you must wait a little longer for your money.'

Fox once played cards with Fitzpatrick at Brookes' from ten o'clock at night till near six o'clock the next morning--a waiter standing by to tell them `whose deal it was'--they being too sleepy to know.

On another occasion he won about L8000; and one of his bond- creditors, who soon heard of his good luck, presented himself and asked for payment. `Impossible, sir,' replied Fox; `I must first discharge my debts of honour.' The bond-creditor remonstrated, and finding Fox inflexible, tore the bond to pieces and flung it into the fire, exclaiming--`Now, sir, your debt to me is a _debt of honour_.' Struck by the creditor's witty rejoinder, Fox instantly paid the money.[127]

[127] The above is the version of this anecdote which I remember as being current in my young days. Mr Timbs and others before him relate the anecdote as follows:--`On another occasion he won about L8000; and one of his bond-creditors, who soon heard of his good luck, presented himself and asked for payment.'

`Impossible, sir,' replied Fox `I must first discharge my debts of honour.' The bond-creditor remonstrated. `Well, sir, give me your bond.' It was delivered to Fox, who tore it in pieces and threw it into the fire. `Now, sir,' said Fox, `my debt to you is a debt of honour;' and immediately paid him .

Now, it is evident that Fox could not destroy the document without rendering himself still more `liable' in point of law. I submit that the version in the text is the true one, conforming with the legal requirement of the case and influencing the debtor by the originality of the performance of the creditor.

Amidst the wildest excesses of youth, even while the perpetual victim of his passion for play, Fox eagerly cultivated his taste for letters, especially the Greek and Roman historians and poets; and he found resources in their works under the most severe depressions occasioned by ill-successes at the gambling table. One morning, after Fox had passed the whole night in company with Topham Beauclerc at Faro, the two friends were about to separate.

Fox had lost throughout the night, and was in a frame of mind approaching to desperation. Beauclerc's anxiety for the consequences which might ensue led him to be early at Fox's lodgings; and on arriving he inquired, not without apprehension, whether he had risen. The servant replied that Mr Fox was in the drawing-room, when Beauclerc walked up-stairs and cautiously opened the door, expecting to behold a frantic gamester stretched on the floor, bewailing his losses, or plunged in moody despair; but he was astonished to find him reading a Greek Herodotus.

On perceiving his friend's surprise, Fox exclaimed, `What would you have me do? I have lost my last shilling.'

Upon other occasions, after staking and losing all that he could raise at Faro, instead of exclaiming against fortune, or manifesting the agitation natural under such circumstances, he would lay his head on the table and retain his place, but, exhausted by mental and bodily fatigue, almost immediately fall into a profound sleep.

Fox's best friends are said to have been half ruined in annuities given by them as securities for him to the Jews. L500,000 a- year of such annuities of Fox and his `society' were advertised to be sold at one time. Walpole wondered what Fox would do when he had sold the estates of his friends. Walpole further notes that in the debate on the Thirty-nine Articles, February 6, 1772, Fox did not shine; nor could it be wondered at. He had sat up playing at Hazard, at Almack's, from Tuesday evening, the 4th, till five in the afternoon of Wednesday, the 5th. An hour before he had recovered L12,000 that he had lost; and by dinner, which was at five o'clock, he had ended losing L11,000! On the Thursday he spoke in the above debate, went to dinner at past eleven at night; from thence to White's, where he drank till seven the next morning; thence to Almack's, where he won L6000; and between three and four in the afternoon he set out for Newmarket. His brother Stephen lost L11,000 two nights after, and Charles L10,000 more on the 13th; so that in three nights the two brothers--the eldest not _twenty-five_ years of age--lost L32,000![128]

[128] Timbs, _ubi supra._

On one occasion Stephen Fox was dreadfully fleeced at a gambling house at the West End. He entered it with L13,000, and left without a farthing.

Assuredly these Foxes were misnamed. Pigeons-dupes of sharpers at play--would have been a more appropriate cognomen.

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