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THE COCOA-TREE CLUB. This club was remarkable for high if not for foul play. Walpole, writing to Horace Mann in 1780, says: -- `Within this week there has been a cast at Hazard at the Cocoa-tree (in St James's Street) the difference of which amounted to one hundred and fourscore thousand pounds! Mr O'Birne, an Irish gamester, had won one hundred thousand pounds of a young Mr Harvey of Chigwell, just started into an estate by his elder brother's death. O'Birne said, -- ``You can never pay me.'' ``I can,'' said the youth, ``my estate will sell for the debt.'' ``No,'' said O'Birne, ``I`will win ten thousand, -- you shall throw for the odd ninety.'' They did, and Harvey won!' Whether or not The Cocoa-Tree was, as a chocolate-house, solely patronised by Tories is a question ; but it is certainly the case that when it was transformed into a club it became
WATTIER'S CLUB.
almost, if not quite, exclusively the headquarters of the Jacobites. Its metamorphosis took place during the early half of the eighteenth century 1746 having been given as its approximate date. An anecdote recorded by Walpole in a letter to George Montagu, dated 24th June of this year, relates that "The Duke (of Cumberland) has given Brigadier Mordaunt the Pretender's coach, on
condition he rode up to London in it." "That I will,sir," said he," and drive till it stops of its own accord at The Cocoa-Tree."
Memorials of St. James 138
This great Macao gaming house was of short duration. Mr Raikes says of it: -- `The club did not endure for twelve years altogether; the pace was too quick to last; it died a natural death in 1819, from the paralyzed state of its members. The house was then taken by a set of blacklegs, who instituted a common bank of gambling. To form an idea of the ruin produced by this short-lived establishment among men whom I have so intimately known, a cursory glance to the past suggests the following melancholy list, which only forms a part of its deplorable results: none of the dead reached the average age of man.' Among the members were Beau Brummell and the madman Bligh.
THE TRAVELLERS' CLUB,
next the Athenseum in Pall Mall, originated soon after the peace of 1814, in a suggestion of the late Lord Londonderry, then Lord Castlereagh, for the resort of gentlemen who had resided or travelled abroad, as well as with a view to the accommodation of foreigners, who, when properly recommended, receive an invitation for the period of their stay. Here Prince Talleyrand was fond of a game at Whist. With all the advantage of his great imperturbability of face, he is said to have been an indifferent player.
Rule 10 of the club directs, `that no dice and no game of hazard be allowed in the rooms of the club, nor any higher stake than guinea points, and that no cards be introduced before dinner.'