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The Gaming Table by Andrew Steinmetz, Volume II

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The Gaming Clubs

4. BROOKES' CLUB, IN ST JAMES'S STREET.

This was a house notorious for very high gaming, and was
frequented by the most desperate of gamblers, among the rest Fox,
Brummell, and Alderman Combe. According to Captain Gronow:--

At Brookes's, for nearly half a century, the play was of a more
gambling character than at White's. . . . On one occasion Lord
Robert Spencer contrived to lose the last shilling of his
considerable fortune given him by his brother, the Duke of
Marlborough. General Fitzpatrick being much in the same
condition, they agreed to raise a sum of money, in order that
they might keep a Faro bank. The members of the club made no
objection, and ere long they carried out their design. As is
generally the case, the bank was a winner, and Lord Robert
bagged, as his share of the proceeds, L100,000. He retired,
strange to say, from the fetid atmosphere of play, with the money
in his pocket, and never again gambled. The lowest stake at
Brookes' was L50; and it was a common event for a gentleman to
lose or win L10,000 in an evening. Sometimes a whole fortune was
lost at a single sitting.[38]

[38] Walpole, passim.

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