Although the Cocoa-tree, in its conversion from a Chocolate-house to a Club, may have bettered its reputation in some respects, high play, if not foul play, was known there twenty years later. Walpole, writing to Mann, Feb. 6, 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.; "I will win ten thousand--you shall throw for the odd ninety." They did, and Harvey won."
The Cocoa-tree was one of the Clubs to which Lord Byron belonged.
Almack's, the original Brookes's, on the south side of the Whig Club-house, was established in Pall Mall, on the site of the British Institution, in 1764, by twenty-seven noblemen and gentlemen, including the Duke of Roxburghe, the Duke of Portland, the Earl of Strathmore, Mr. Crewe (afterwards Lord Crewe), and Mr. C. J. Fox.
Mr. Cunningham was permitted to inspect the original Rules of the Club, which show its nature: here are a few.
"21. No gaming in the eating-room, except tossing up for reckonings, on penalty of paying the whole bill of the members present.
"22. Dinner shall be served up exactly at half-past four o'clock, and the bill shall be brought in at seven.
"26. Almack shall sell no wines in bottles that the Club approves of, out of the house.
"30. Any member of this Society that shall become a candidate for any other Club, (old White's excepted,) shall be ipso facto excluded, and his name struck out of the book.
"40. That every person playing at the new guinea table do keep fifty guineas before him.
"41. That every person playing at the twenty guinea table do not keep less than twenty guineas before him."
That the play ran high may be inferred from a note against the name of Mr. Thynne, in the Club-books: "Mr. Thynne having won only 12,000 guineas during the last two months, retired in disgust, March 21st, 1772."
Some of its members were Maccaronis, the "curled darlings" of the day: they were so called from their affectation of foreign tastes and fashions, and were celebrated for their long curls and eye-glasses. Much of the deep play was removed here. "The gaming at Almack's," writes Walpole to Mann, February 2, 1770, "which has taken the _pas_ of White's, is worthy the decline of our empire, or commonwealth, which you please. The young men of the age lose ten, fifteen, twenty thousand pounds in an evening there. Lord Stavordale, not one-and-twenty, lost £11,000 there last Tuesday, but recovered it by one great hand at hazard. He swore a great oath, 'Now, if I had been playing _deep_, I might have won millions.' His cousin, Charles Fox, shines equally there, and in the House of Commons. He was twenty-one yesterday se'nnight, and is already one of our best speakers. Yesterday he was made a Lord of the Admiralty." Gibbon, the historian, was also a member, and he dates several letters from here. On June 24, 1776, he writes: "Town grows empty, and this house, where I have passed many agreeable hours, is the only place which still invites the flower of the English youth. The style of living, though somewhat expensive, is exceedingly pleasant; and, notwithstanding the rage of play, I have found more entertainment and rational society than in any other club to which I belong."