MY DEAR FRIEND: I have now your last letter, of the 16th past, lying before me, and I gave your inclosed to Grevenkop, which has put him into a violent bustle to execute your commissions, as well and as cheap as possible. I refer him to his own letter. He tells you true as to Comtesse Cosel’s diamonds, which certainly nobody will buy here, unsight unseen, as they call it; so many minutiae concurring to increase or lessen the value of a diamond. Your Cheshire cheese, your Burton ale and beer, I charge myself with, and they shall be sent you as soon as possible. Upon this occasion I will give you a piece of advice, which by experience I know to be useful. In all commissions, whether from men or women, ‘point de galanterie’, bring them in your account, and be paid to the uttermost farthing; but if you would show them ‘une galanterie’, let your present be of something that is not in your commission, otherwise you will be the ‘Commissionaire banal’ of all the women of Saxony. ‘A propos’, Who is your Comtesse de Cosel? Is she daughter, or grand-daughter, of the famous Madame de Cosel, in King Augustus’s time? Is she young or old, ugly or handsome?
I do not wonder that people are wonderfully surprised at our tameness and forbearance, with regard to France and Spain. Spain, indeed, has lately agreed to our cutting log wood, according to the treaty, and sent strict orders to their governor to allow it; but you will observe too, that there is not one word of reparation for the losses we lately sustained there. But France is not even so tractable; it will pay but half the money due, upon a liquidated account, for the maintenance of their prisoners. Our request, to have the Comte d’Estaing recalled and censured, they have absolutely rejected, though, by the laws of war, he might be hanged for having twice broke his parole. This does not do France honor: however, I think we shall be quiet, and that at the only time, perhaps this century, when we might, with safety, be otherwise: but this is nothing new, nor the first time, by many, when national honor and interest have been sacrificed to private. It has always been so: and one may say, upon this occasion, what Horace says upon another, ‘Nam fuit ante Helenam’.
I have seen ‘les Contes de Guillaume Vade’, and like most of them so little, that I can hardly think them Voltaire’s, but rather the scraps that have fallen from his table, and been worked up by inferior workmen, under his name. I have not seen the other book you mention, the ‘Dictionnaire Portatif’. It is not yet come over.
I shall next week go to take my winter quarters in London, the weather here being very cold and damp, and not proper for an old, shattered, and cold carcass, like mine. In November I will go to the Bath, to careen myself for the winter, and to shift the scene. Good-night.
MY DEAR FRIEND: Yesterday morning Mr.——-came to me, from Lord Halifax, to ask me whether I thought you would approve of vacating your seat in parliament, during the remainder of it, upon a valuable consideration, meaning MONEY. My answer was, that I really did not know your disposition upon that subject: but that I knew you would be very willing, in general, to accommodate them, so far as lay in your power: that your election, to my knowledge, had cost you two thousand pounds; that this parliament had not sat above half its time; and that, for my part, I approved of the measure well enough, provided you had an equitable equivalent. I take it for granted that you will have a letter from———, by this post, to that effect, so that you must consider what you will do. What I advise is this: Give them a good deal of ‘Galbanum’ in the first part of your letter. ‘Le Galbanum ne coute rien’; and then say that you are willing to do as they please; but that you hope an equitable consideration will be had to the two thousand pounds, which your seat cost you in the present parliament, of which not above half the term is expired. Moreover, that you take the liberty to remind them, that your being sent from Ratisbon, last session, when you were just settled there, put you to the expense of three or four hundred pounds, for which you were allowed nothing; and that, therefore, you hope they will not think one thousand pounds too much, considering all these circumstances: but that, in all events, you will do whatever they desire. Upon the whole, I think this proposal advantageous to you, as you probably will not make use of your seat this parliament; and, further, as it will secure you from another unpaid journey from Dresden, in case they meet, or fear to meet, with difficulties in any ensuing session of the present parliament. Whatever one must do, one should do ‘de bonne grace’. ‘Dixi’. God bless you!
MY DEAR FRIEND: I am much concerned at the account you gave me of yourself, in your last letter. There is, to be sure, at such a town as Dresden, at least some one very skillful physician, whom I hope you have consulted; and I would have you acquaint him with all your several attacks of this nature, from your great one at Laubach, to your late one at Dresden: tell him, too, that in your last illness in England, the physicians mistook your case, and treated it as the gout, till Maty came, who treated it as a rheumatism, and cured you. In my own opinion, you have never had the gout, but always the rheumatism; which, to my knowledge, is as painful as the gout can possibly be, and should be treated in a quite different way; that is, by cooling medicines and regimen, instead of those inflammatory cordials which they always administer where they suppose the gout, to keep it, as they say, out of the stomach.
I have been here now just a week; but have hitherto drank so little of the water, that I can neither speak well nor ill of it. The number of people in this place is infinite; but very few whom I know. Harte seems settled here for life. He is not well, that is certain; but not so ill neither as he thinks himself, or at least would be thought.
I long for your answer to my last letter, containing a certain proposal, which, by this time, I suppose has been made you, and which, in the main, I approve of your accepting.
God bless you, my dear friend! and send you better health! Adieu.
MY DEAR FRIEND: Your last letter, of the 5th, gave me as much pleasure as your former had given me uneasiness; and Larpent’s acknowledgment of his negligence frees you from those suspicions, which I own I did entertain, and which I believe every one would, in the same concurrence of circumstances, have entertained. So much for that.
You may depend upon what I promised you, before midsummer next, at farthest, and AT LEAST.
All I can say of the affair between you, of the Corps Diplomatique, and the Saxon Ministers, is, ‘que voila bien du bruit pour une omelette au lard’. It will most certainly be soon made up; and in that negotiation show yourself as moderate and healing as your instructions from hence will allow, especially to Comte de Flemming. The King of Prussia, I believe, has a mind to insult him personally, as an old enemy, or else to quarrel with Saxony, that dares not quarrel with him; but some of the Corps Diplomatique here assure me it is only a pretense to recall his envoy, and to send, when matters shall be made up, a little secretary there, ‘a moins de fraix’, as he does now to Paris and London.
Comte Bruhl is much in fashion here; I like him mightily; he has very much ‘le ton de la bonne campagnie’. Poor Schrader died last Saturday, without the least pain or sickness. God bless you!
MY DEAR FRIEND: The day before yesterday I received your letter of the 3d instant. I find that your important affair of the ceremonial is adjusted at last, as I foresaw it would be. Such minutiae are often laid hold on as a pretense, for powers who have a mind to quarrel; but are never tenaciously insisted upon where there is neither interest nor inclination to break. Comte Flemming, though a hot, is a wise man; and I was sure would not break, both with England and Hanover, upon so trifling a point, especially during a minority. ‘A propos’ of a minority; the King is to come to the House to-morrow, to recommend a bill to settle a Regency, in case of his demise while his successor is a minor. Upon the King’s late illness, which was no trifling one, the whole nation cried out aloud for such a bill, for reasons which will readily occur to you, who know situations, persons, and characters here. I do not know the particulars of this intended bill; but I wish it may be copied exactly from that which was passed in the late King’s time, when the present King was a minor. I am sure there cannot be a better.
You inquire about Monsieur de Guerchy’s affair; and I will give you as succinct an account as I can of so extraordinary and perplexed a transaction: but without giving you my own opinion of it by the common post. You know what passed at first between Mr. de Guerchy and Monsieur d’Eon, in which both our Ministers and Monsieur de Guerchy, from utter inexperience in business, puzzled themselves into disagreeable difficulties. About three or four months ago, Monsieur du Vergy published in a brochure, a parcel of letters, from himself to the Duc de Choiseul; in which he positively asserts that Monsieur de Guerchy prevailed with him (Vergy) to come over into England to assassinate d’Eon; the words are, as well as I remember, ‘que ce n’etoit pas pour se servir de sa plume, mais de son epee, qu’on le demandoit en Angleterre’. This accusation of assassination, you may imagine, shocked Monsieur de Guerchy, who complained bitterly to our Ministers; and they both puzzled on for some time, without doing anything, because they did not know what to do. At last du Vergy, about two months ago, applied himself to the Grand Jury of Middlesex, and made oath that Mr. de Guerchy had hired him (du Vergy) to assassinate d’Eon. Upon this deposition, the Grand jury found a bill of intended murder against Monsieur de Guerchy; which bill, however, never came to the Petty Jury. The King granted a ‘noli prosequi’ in favor of Monsieur de Guerchy; and the Attorney-General is actually prosecuting du Vergy. Whether the King can grant a ‘noli prosequi’ in a criminal case, and whether ‘le droit des gens’ extends to criminal cases, are two points which employ our domestic politicians, and the whole Corps Diplomatique. ‘Enfin’, to use a very coarse and vulgar saying, ‘il y a de la merde au bout du baton, quelque part’.
I see and hear these storms from shore, ‘suave mari magno’, etc. I enjoy my own security and tranquillity, together with better health than I had reason to expect at my age, and with my constitution: however, I feel a gradual decay, though a gentle one; and I think that I shall not tumble, but slide gently to the bottom of the hill of life. When that will be, I neither know nor care, for I am very weary. God bless you!
Mallet died two days ago, of a diarrhoea, which he had carried with him to France, and brought back again hither.
MY DEAR FRIEND: I have this moment received your letter of the 22d past; and I delayed answering your former in daily, or rather hourly expectation of informing you of the birth of a new Ministry; but in vain; for, after a thousand conferences, all things remain still in the state which I described to you in my last. Lord S. has, I believe, given you a pretty true account of the present state of things; but my Lord is much mistaken, I am persuaded, when he says that THE KING HAS THOUGHT PROPER TO RE-ESTABLISH HIS OLD SERVANTS IN THE MANAGEMENT OF HIS AFFAIRS; for he shows them all the public dislike possible; and, at his levee, hardly speaks to any of them; but speaks by the hour to anybody else. Conferences, in the meantime, go on, of which it is easy to guess the main subject, but impossible, for me at least, to know the particulars; but this I will venture to prophesy, that the whole will soon centre in Mr. Pitt.
You seem not to know the character of the Queen: here it is. She is a good woman, a good wife, a tender mother; and an unmeddling Queen. The King loves her as a woman; but, I verily believe, has never yet spoke one word to her about business. I have now told you all that I know of these affairs; which, I believe, is as much as anybody else knows, who is not in the secret. In the meantime, you easily guess that surmises, conjectures, and reports are infinite; and if, as they say, truth is but one, one million at least of these reports must be false; for they differ exceedingly.
You have lost an honest servant by the death of poor Louis; I would advise you to take a clever young Saxon in his room, of whose character you may get authentic testimonies, instead of sending for one to France, whose character you can only know from far.
When I hear more, I will write more; till when, God bless you!
MY DEAR FRIEND: I told you in my last, that you should hear from me again, as soon as I had anything more to write; and now I have too much to write, therefore will refer you to the “Gazette,” and the office letters, for all that has been done; and advise you to suspend your opinion, as I do, about all that is to be done. Many more changes are talked of, but so idly, and variously, that I give credit to none of them. There has been pretty clean sweeping already; and I do not remember, in my time, to have seen so much at once, as an entire new Board of Treasury, and two new Secretaries of State, ‘cum multis aliis’, etc.
Here is a new political arch almost built, but of materials of so different a nature, and without a key-stone, that it does not, in my opinion, indicate either strength or duration. It will certainly require repairs, and a key-stone next winter; and that key-stone will, and must necessarily be, Mr. Pitt. It is true he might have been that keystone now; and would have accepted it, but not without Lord Temple’s consent, and Lord Temple positively refused. There was evidently some trick in this, but what is past my conjecturing. ‘Davus sum, non OEdipus’.
There is a manifest interregnum in the Treasury; for I do suppose that Lord Rockingham and Mr. Dowdeswell will not think proper to be very active. General Conway, who is your Secretary, has certainly parts at least equal to his business, to which, I dare say, he will apply. The same may be said, I believe, of the Duke of Grafton; and indeed there is no magic requisite for the executive part of those employments. The ministerial part is another thing; they must scramble with their fellow-servants, for power and favor, as well as they can. Foreign affairs are not so much as mentioned, and, I verily believe, not thought of. But surely some counterbalance would be necessary to the Family compact; and, if not soon contracted, will be too late. God bless you!
MY DEAR FRIEND: You are now two letters in my debt; and I fear the gout has been the cause of your contracting that debt. When you are not able to write yourself, let your Secretary send me two or three lines to acquaint me how you are.
You have now seen by the London “Gazette,” what changes have really been made at court; but, at the same time, I believe you have seen that there must be more, before a Ministry can be settled; what those will be, God knows. Were I to conjecture, I should say that the whole will centre, before it is long, in Mr. Pitt and Co., the present being an heterogeneous jumble of youth and caducity, which cannot be efficient.
Charles Townshend calls the present a Lutestring Ministry; fit only for the summer. The next session will be not only a warm, but a violent one, as you will easily judge; if you look over the names of the INS and of the OUTS.
I feel this beginning of the autumn, which is already very cold: the leaves are withered, fall apace, and seem to intimate that I must follow them; which I shall do without reluctance, being extremely weary of this silly world. God bless you, both in it and after it!
MY DEAR FRIEND: I received but four days ago your letter of the 2d instant. I find by it that you are well, for you are in good spirits. Your notion of the new birth or regeneration of the Ministry is a very just one; and that they have not yet the true seal of the covenant is, I dare say, very true; at least it is not in the possession of either of the Secretaries of State, who have only the King’s seal; nor do I believe (whatever his Grace may imagine) that it is even in the possession of the Lord Privy Seal. I own I am lost, in considering the present situation of affairs; different conjectures present themselves to my mind, but none that it can rest upon. The next session must necessarily clear up matters a good deal; for I believe it will be the warmest and most acrimonious one that has been known, since that of the Excise. The late Ministry, THE PRESENT OPPOSITION, are determined to attack Lord B——-publicly in parliament, and reduce the late Opposition, THE PRESENT MINISTRY, to protect him publicly, in consequence of their supposed treaty with him. ‘En attendant mieux’, the paper war is carried on with much fury and scurrility on all sides, to the great entertainment of such lazy and impartial people as myself: I do not know whether you have the “Daily Advertiser,” and the “Public Advertiser,” in which all political letters are inserted, and some very well-written ones on both sides; but I know that they amuse me, ‘tant bien que mal’, for an hour or two every morning. Lord T———is the supposed author of the pamphlet you mention; but I think it is above him. Perhaps his brother C——T———, who is by no means satisfied with the present arrangement, may have assisted him privately. As to this latter, there was a good ridiculous paragraph in the newspapers two or three days ago. WE HEAR THAT THE RIGHT HONORABLE MR. C——-T———IS INDISPOSED AT HIS HOUSE IN OXFORDSHIRE, OF A PAIN IN HIS SIDE; BUT IT IS NOT SAID IN WHICH SIDE.
I do not find that the Duke of York has yet visited you; if he should, it may be expensive, ‘mais on trouvera moyen’. As for the lady, if you should be very sharp set for some English flesh, she has it amply in her power to supply you if she pleases. Pray tell me in your next, what you think of, and how you like, Prince Henry of Prussia. God bless you!
MY DEAR FRIEND: Your great character of Prince Henry, which I take to be a very just one, lowers the King of Prussia’s a great deal; and probably that is the cause of their being so ill together. But the King of Prussia, with his good parts, should reflect upon that trite and true maxim, ‘Qui invidet minor’, or Mr. de la Rouchefoucault’s, ‘Que l’envie est la plus basse de toutes les passions, puisqu’on avoue bien des crimes, mais que personae n’avoue l’envie’. I thank God, I never was sensible of that dark and vile passion, except that formerly I have sometimes envied a successful rival with a fine woman. But now that cause is ceased, and consequently the effects.
What shall I, or rather what can I tell you of the political world here? The late Ministers accuse the present with having done nothing, the present accuse the late ones with having done much worse than nothing. Their writers abuse one another most scurrilously, but sometimes with wit. I look upon this to be ‘peloter en attendant partie’, till battle begins in St., Stephen’s Chapel. How that will end, I protest I cannot conjecture; any farther than this, that if Mr. Pitt does not come into the assistance of the present ministers, they will have much to do to stand their ground. C——-T———will play booty; and who else have they? Nobody but C——-, who has only good sense, but not the necessary talents nor experience, ‘AEre ciere viros martemque accendere cantu’. I never remember, in all my time, to have seen so problematical a state of affairs, and a man would be much puzzled which side to bet on.
Your guest, Miss C——-, is another problem which I cannot solve. She no more wanted the waters of Carlsbadt than you did. Is it to show the Duke of Kingston that he cannot live without her? a dangerous experiment! which may possibly convince him that he can. There is a trick no doubt in it; but what, I neither know nor care; you did very well to show her civilities, ‘cela ne gute jamais rien’. I will go to my waters, that is, the Bath waters, in three weeks or a month, more for the sake of bathing than of drinking. The hot bath always promotes my perspiration, which is sluggish, and supples my stiff rheumatic limbs. ‘D’ailleurs’, I am at present as well, and better than I could reasonably expect to be, ‘annu septuagesimo primo’. May you be so as long, ‘y mas’! God bless you!
MY DEAR FRIEND: I received your letter of the 10th ‘sonica’; for I set out for Bath to-morrow morning.
If the use of those waters does me no good, the shifting the scene for some time will at least amuse me a little; and at my age, and with my infirmities, ‘il faut faire de tout bois feche’. Some variety is as necessary for the mind as some medicines are for the body.
Here is a total stagnation of politics, which, I suppose, will continue till the parliament sits to do business, and that will not be till about the middle of January; for the meeting on the 17th December is only for the sake of some new writs. The late ministers threaten the present ones; but the latter do not seem in the least afraid of the former, and for a very good reason, which is, that they have the distribution of the loaves and fishes. I believe it is very certain that Mr. Pitt will never come into this, or any other administration: he is absolutely a cripple all the year, and in violent pain at least half of it. Such physical ills are great checks to two of the strongest passions to which human nature is liable, love and ambition. Though I cannot persuade myself that the present ministry can be long lived, I can as little imagine who or what can succeed them, ‘telle est la-disette de sujets papables’. The Duke of swears that he will have Lord personally attacked in both Houses; but I do not see how, without endangering himself at the same time.
Miss C———is safely arrived here, and her Duke is fonder of her than ever. It was a dangerous experiment that she tried, in leaving him so long; but it seems she knew her man.
I pity you for the inundation of your good countrymen, which overwhelms you; ‘je sais ce qu’en vaut l’aune. It is, besides, expensive, but, as I look upon the expense to be the least evil of the two, I will see if a New-Year’s gift will not make it up.
As I am now upon the wing, I will only add, God bless you!
MY DEAR FRIEND: I have this moment received your letter of the 10th. I have now been here a month, bathing and drinking the waters, for complaints much of the same kind as yours, I mean pains in my legs, hips, and arms: whether gouty or rheumatic, God knows; but, I believe, both, that fight without a decision in favor of either, and have absolutely reduced me to the miserable situation of the Sphinx’s riddle, to walk upon three legs; that is, with the assistance of my stick, to walk, or rather hobble, very indifferently. I wish it were a declared gout, which is the distemper of a gentleman; whereas the rheumatism is the distemper of a hackney-coachman or chairman, who is obliged to be out in all weathers and at all hours.
I think you will do very right to ask leave, and I dare say you will easily get it, to go to the baths in Suabia; that is, supposing that you have consulted some skillful physician, if such a one there be, either at Dresden or at Leipsic, about the nature of your distemper, and the nature of those baths; but, ‘suos quisque patimur manes’. We have but a bad bargain, God knows, of this life, and patience is the only way not to make bad worse. Mr. Pitt keeps his bed here, with a very real gout, and not a political one, as is often suspected.
Here has been a congress of most of the ‘ex Ministres’. If they have raised a battery, as I suppose they have, it is a masked one, for nothing has transpired; only they confess that they intend a most vigorous attack. ‘D’ailleurs’, there seems to be a total suspension of all business, till the meeting of the parliament, and then ‘Signa canant’. I am very glad that at this time you are out of it: and for reasons that I need not mention: you would certainly have been sent for over, and, as before, not paid for your journey.
Poor Harte is very ill, and condemned to the Hot well at Bristol. He is a better poet than philosopher: for all this illness and melancholy proceeds originally from the ill success of his “Gustavus Adolphus.” He is grown extremely devout, which I am very glad of, because that is always a comfort to the afflicted.
I cannot present Mr. Larpent with my New-Year’s gift, till I come to town, which will be before Christmas at farthest; till when, God bless you! Adieu.
MY DEAR FRIEND: I arrived here from Bath last Monday, rather, but not much better, than when I went over there. My rheumatic pains, in my legs and hips, plague me still, and I must never expect to be quite free from them.
You have, to be sure, had from the office an account of what the parliament did, or rather did not do, the day of their meeting; and the same point will be the great object at their next meeting; I mean the affair of our American Colonies, relatively to the late imposed Stamp-duty, which our Colonists absolutely refuse to pay. The Administration are for some indulgence and forbearance to those froward children of their mother country; the Opposition are for taking vigorous, as they call them, but I call them violent measures; not less than ‘les dragonnades’; and to have the tax collected by the troops we have there. For my part, I never saw a froward child mended by whipping; and I would not have the mother country become a stepmother. Our trade to America brings in, ‘communibus annis’, two millions a year; and the Stamp-duty is estimated at but one hundred thousand pounds a year; which I would by no means bring into the stock of the Exchequer, at the loss or even the risk of a million a year to the national stock.
I do not tell you of the Garter given away yesterday, because the newspapers will; but, I must observe, that the Prince of Brunswick’s riband is a mark of great distinction to that family; which I believe, is the first (except our own Royal Family) that has ever had two blue ribands at a time; but it must be owned they deserve them.
One hears of nothing now in town, but the separation of men and their wives. Will Finch, the Ex-vice Chamberlain, Lord Warwick, and your friend Lord Bolingbroke. I wonder at none of them for parting; but I wonder at many for still living together; for in this country it is certain that marriage is not well understood.
I have this day sent Mr. Larpent two hundred pounds for your Christmas-box, of which I suppose he will inform you by this post. Make this Christmas as merry a one as you can; for ‘pour le peu du bon tems qui nous reste, rien nest si funeste, qu’un noir chagrin’. For the new years—God send you many, and happy ones! Adieu.
LETTER CCLXXXIV
LONDON, February 11, 1766
MY DEAR FRIEND: I received two days ago your letter of the 25th past; and your former, which you mention in it, but ten days ago; this may easily be accounted for from the badness of the weather, and consequently of the roads. I hardly remember so severe a win ter; it has occasioned many illnesses here. I am sure it pinched my crazy carcass so much that, about three weeks ago, I was obliged to be let blood twice in four days, which I found afterward was very necessary, by the relief it gave to my head and to the rheumatic pains in my limbs; and from the execrable kind of blood which I lost.
Perhaps you expect from me a particular account of the present state of affairs here; but if you do you will be disappointed; for no man living (and I still less than anyone) knows what it is; it varies, not only daily, but hourly.
Most people think, and I among the rest, that the date of the present Ministers is pretty near out; but how soon we are to have a new style, God knows. This, however, is certain, that the Ministers had a contested election in the House of Commons, and got it but by eleven votes; too small a majority to carry anything; the next day they lost a question in the House of Lords, by three. The question in the House of Lords was, to enforce the execution of the Stamp-act in the colonies ‘vi et armis’. What conclusions you will draw from these premises, I do not know; but I protest I draw none; but only stare at the present undecipherable state of affairs, which, in fifty years’ experience, I have never seen anything like. The Stamp-act has proved a most pernicious measure; for, whether it is repealed or not, which is still very doubtful, it has given such terror to the Americans, that our trade with them will not be, for some years, what it used to be; and great numbers of our manufacturers at home will be turned a starving for want of that employment which our very profitable trade to America found them: and hunger is always the cause of tumults and sedition.
As you have escaped a fit of the gout in this severe cold weather, it is to be hoped you may be entirely free from it, till next winter at least.
P. S. Lord having parted with his wife, now, keeps another w—-e, at a great expense. I fear he is totally undone.
MY DEAR FRIEND: You wrong me in thinking me in your debt; for I never receive a letter of yours, but I answer it by the next post, or the next but one, at furthest: but I can easily conceive that my two last letters to you may have been drowned or frozen in their way; for portents and prodigies of frost, snow, and inundations, have been so frequent this winter, that they have almost lost their names.
You tell me that you are going to the baths of BADEN; but that puzzles me a little, so I recommend this letter to the care of Mr. Larpent, to forward to you; for Baden I take to be the general German word for baths, and the particular ones are distinguished by some epithet, as Weissbaden, Carlsbaden, etc. I hope they are not cold baths, which I have a very ill opinion of, in all arthritic or rheumatic cases; and your case I take to be a compound of both, but rather more of the latter.
You will probably wonder that I tell you nothing of public matters; upon which I shall be as secret as Hotspur’s gentle Kate, who would not tell what she did not know; but what is singular, nobody seems to know any more of them than I do. People gape, stare, conjecture, and refine. Changes of the Ministry, or in the Ministry at least, are daily reported and foretold, but of what kind, God only knows. It is also very doubtful whether Mr. Pitt will come into the Administration or not; the two present Secretaries are extremely desirous that he should; but the others think of the horse that called the man to its assistance. I will say nothing to you about American affairs, because I have not pens, ink, or paper enough to give you an intelligible account of them. They have been the subjects of warm and acrimonious debates, both in the Lords and Commons, and in all companies.
The repeal of the Stamp-act is at last carried through. I am glad of it, and gave my proxy for it, because I saw many more inconveniences from the enforcing than from the repealing it.
Colonel Browne was with me the other day, and assured me that he left you very well. He said he saw you at Spa, but I did not remember him; though I remember his two brothers, the Colonel and the ravisher, very well. Your Saxon colonel has the brogue exceedingly. Present my respects to Count Flemming; I am very sorry for the Countess’s illness; she was a most well-bred woman.
You would hardly think that I gave a dinner to the Prince of Brunswick, your old acquaintance. I glad it is over; but I could not avoid it. ‘Il m’avait tabli de politesses’. God bless you!
MY DEAR FRIEND: I received yesterday your letter of the 30th past. I waited with impatience for it, not having received one from you in six weeks; nor your mother neither, who began to be very sure that you were dead, if not buried. You should write to her once a week, or at least once a-fortnight; for women make no allowance either for business or laziness; whereas I can, by experience, make allowances for both: however, I wish you would generally write to me once a fortnight.
Last week I paid my midsummer offering, of five hundred pounds, to Mr. Larpent, for your use, as I suppose he has informed you. I am punctual, you must allow.
What account shall I give you of ministerial affairs here? I protest I do not know: your own description of them is as exact a one as any I, who am upon the place, can give you. It is a total dislocation and ‘derangement’; consequently a total inefficiency. When the Duke of Grafton quitted the seals, he gave that very reason for it, in a speech in the House of Lords: he declared, “that he had no objection to the persons or the measures of the present Ministers; but that he thought they wanted strength and efficiency to carry on proper measures with success; and that he knew but one man MEANING, AS YOU WILL EASILY SUPPOSE, MR. PITT who could give them strength and solidity; that, under this person, he should be willing to serve in any capacity, not only as a General Officer, but as a pioneer; and would take up a spade and a mattock.” When he quitted the seals, they were offered first to Lord Egmont, then to Lord Hardwicke; who both declined them, probably for the same reasons that made the Duke of Grafton resign them; but after their going a-begging for some time, the Duke of———-begged them, and has them ‘faute de mieux’. Lord Mountstuart was never thought of for Vienna, where Lord Stormont returns in three months; the former is going to be married to one of the Miss Windsors, a great fortune. To tell you the speculations, the reasonings, and the conjectures, either of the uninformed, or even of the best-informed public, upon the present wonderful situation of affairs, would take up much more time and paper than either you or I can afford, though we have neither of us a great deal of business at present.
I am in as good health as I could reasonably expect, at my age, and with my shattered carcass; that is, from the waist upward; but downward it is not the same: for my limbs retain that stiffness and debility of my long rheumatism; I cannot walk half an hour at a time. As the autumn, and still more as the winter approaches, take care to keep yourself very warm, especially your legs and feet.
Lady Chesterfield sends you her compliments, and triumphs in the success of her plaster. God bless you!
MY DEAR FRIEND: You are a happy mortal, to have your time thus employed between the great and the fair; I hope you do the honors of your country to the latter. The Emperor, by your account, seems to be very well for an emperor; who, by being above the other monarchs in Europe, may justly be supposed to have had a proportionably worse education. I find, by your account of him, that he has been trained up to homicide, the only science in which princes are ever instructed; and with good reason, as their greatness and glory singly depend upon the numbers of their fellow-creatures which their ambition exterminates. If a sovereign should, by great accident, deviate into moderation, justice, and clemency, what a contemptible figure would he make in the catalogue of princes! I have always owned a great regard for King Log. From the interview at Torgaw, between the two monarchs, they will be either a great deal better or worse together; but I think rather the latter; for our namesake, Philip de Co mines, observes, that he never knew any good come from l’abouchement des Rois. The King of Prussia will exert all his perspicacity to analyze his Imperial Majesty; and I would bet upon the one head of his black eagle, against the two heads of the Austrian eagle; though two heads are said, proverbially, to be better than one. I wish I had the direction of both the monarchs, and they should, together with some of their allies, take Lorraine and Alsace from France. You will call me ‘l’Abbe de St. Pierre’; but I only say what I wish; whereas he thought everything that he wished practicable.
Now to come home. Here are great bustles at Court, and a great change of persons is certainly very near. You will ask me, perhaps, who is to be out, and who is to be in? To which I answer, I do not know. My conjecture is that, be the new settlement what it will, Mr. Pitt will be at the head of it. If he is, I presume, ‘qu’il aura mis de l’eau dans son vin par rapport a Mylord B——-; when that shall come to be known, as known it certainly will soon be, he may bid adieu to his popularity. A minister, as minister, is very apt to be the object of public dislike; and a favorite, as favorite, still more so. If any event of this kind happens, which (if it happens at all) I conjecture will be some time next week, you shall hear further from me.
I will follow your advice, and be as well as I can next winter, though I know I shall never be free from my flying rheumatic pains, as long as I live; but whether that will be more or less, is extremely indifferent to me; in either case, God bless you!
MY DEAR FRIEND: The curtain was at last drawn up, the day before yesterday, and discovered the new actors, together with some of the old ones. I do not name them to you, because to-morrow’s Gazette will do it full as well as I could. Mr. Pitt, who had carte blanche given him, named everyone of them: but what would you think he named himself for? Lord Privy Seal; and (what will astonish you, as it does every mortal here) Earl of Chatham. The joke here is, that he has had A FALL UP STAIRS, and has done himself so much hurt, that he will never be able to stand upon his leg’s again. Everybody is puzzled how to account for this step; though it would not be the first time that great abilities have been duped by low cunning. But be it what it will, he is now certainly only Earl of Chatham; and no longer Mr. Pitt, in any respect whatever. Such an event, I believe, was never read nor heard of. To withdraw, in the fullness of his power and in the utmost gratification of his ambition, from the House of Commons (which procured him his power, and which could alone insure it to him), and to go into that hospital of incurables, the House of Lords, is a measure so unaccountable, that nothing but proof positive could have made me believe it: but true it is. Hans Stanley is to go Ambassador to Russia; and my nephew, Ellis, to Spain, decorated with the red riband. Lord Shelburne is your Secretary of State, which I suppose he has notified to you this post, by a circular letter. Charles Townshend has now the sole management of the House of Commons; but how long he will be content to be only Lord Chatham’s vicegerent there, is a question which I will not pretend to decide. There is one very bad sign for Lord Chatham, in his new dignity; which is, that all his enemies, without exception, rejoice at it; and all his friends are stupefied and dumbfounded. If I mistake not much, he will, in the course of a year, enjoy perfect ‘otium cum dignitate’. Enough of politics.
Is the fair, or at least the fat, Miss C——with you still? It must be confessed that she knows the arts of courts, to be so received at Dresden, and so connived at in Leicester-fields.
There never was so wet a summer as this has been, in the memory of man; we have not had one single day, since March, without some rain; but most days a great deal. I hope that does not affect your health, as great cold does; for, with all these inundations, it has not been cold. God bless you!