I send you "The Mysterious Mother," and a pair of bootikins; you shall have large supplies if they prove of service—yet I would not have you even try them, unless attacked in your head or stomach. You can never have much gout in your limbs, as it attacks you so late, and little fits will prolong your life. You must put them on at night and tie them as tight as you can bear, the flannel next to your flesh, the oilskin over. In the morning before you rise, you must dry your feet with a hot napkin, and put on a pair of warm stockings freshly aired; over the bootikins at night, a pair of thread stockings.

The Duchess Dowager of Ancaster, Lady Elizabeth Burrell, and the new Duke and Duchess, have all written to Lady Horatia, acknowledging that the late Duke was to have married her. The two first have expressed themselves in the tenderest manner; the others wrote only for form. The Mother-Duchess approves of my niece going into mourning, which she does for six months. The poor young man, his father's absurd will not standing good, made a new and most rational one four years ago, in which he gives the seat of the family and 5000l. to the present Duke and to the title, and adds 18007. a-year to his mother's jointure. Such symptoms of sense and feeling double the loss.

Adieu! my dear sir. In what manner we are to be undone, I do not guess; but I see no way by which we can escape happily out of this crisis — I mean, preserve the country and recover the Constitu

tion. I thought for four years that calamity would bring us to our senses: but alas! we have none left to be brought to. We shall now suffer a great deal, submit at last to a humiliating peace, and people will be content. So adieu, England! it will be more or less a province or kind of province to France, and its viceroy will be, in what does not concern France, its despot-and will be content too! I shall not pity the country: I shall feel only for those who grieve with me at its abject state; or for posterity, if they do not, like other degraded nations, grow callously reconciled to their ignominy.

LETTER CCCX.

Strawberry Hill, Aug. 4, 1779.

I EMPLOY a secretary, to spare one of my eyes, which is tormented with an inflammation. As it comes by fits, I impute it to my old enemy the gout; who, of all distempers, is the greatest harlequin. This charge is not made to avoid an unwillingness of owning that the breach may have been made by the general foe, old age; though its ally, the gout, may take advantage of the weak place.

I sent you a long letter by your nephew: it leaves me nothing to add but events, and of them there have been none, except the safe arrival of our great West Indian fleet, worth between two and three millions. I don't know why the fleets of Bourbon suffered it to pass quietly, unless to return the compliment of

our not meddling with their Domingo fleet. We heard last week that Gibraltar was invested: not more is confirmed than that great preparations are making in Spain for the siege. We, or at least I, do not know what numbers of the latter's ships have joined the French they certainly out-number Sir Charles Hardy's squadron; yet so noble a navy as his we never set forth, and it will cost them destruction to master it. They threaten us mightily from Havre and St. Maloes; but we are prepared, and I think they will prefer cheaper laurels elsewhere.

This is but a negative description, and merely in compliance with your desire of frequent letters. Private news we have none, but what I have long been bidden to expect, the completion of the sale of the pictures at Houghton to the Czarina. The sum stipulated is forty or forty-five thousand pounds, I neither know nor care which; nor whether the picturemerchant ever receives the whole sum, which probably he will not do, as I hear it is to be discharged at three payments—a miserable bargain for a mighty empress! Fresh lovers, and fresh, will perhaps intercept the second and third payments. Well! adieu to Houghton! about its mad master I shall never trouble myself more. From the moment he came into possession, he has undermined every act of my father that was within his reach, but, having none of that great man's sense or virtues, he could only lay wild hands on lands and houses; and, since he has stript Houghton of its glory, I do not care a straw what

he does with the stone or the acres.

The happiness

my father entailed on this country has been thrown away in as distracted a manner, but his fame will not be injured by the insanity of any of his successors. We have paid a fine for having cut off the entail, but shall not so easily suffer a recovery.

General Conway is still in his little island, which I trust is too diminutive to be descried by an Armada. I do not desire to have him achieve an Iliad in a nutshell.

5th.

You perceive my eye is better, but I must not use it much. Yesterday came an account of the conquest of St. Vincent by the French.* The poor Caribs assisted them, and are revenged on us: I cannot blame them. How impolitic is injustice, when man cannot command fortune! I still cannot help conjecturing that France will prefer demolishing all our outworks to attempting invasion here, where we are so mightily prepared. We fear they will not engage Sir Charles Hardy, though superior in number; as he has at least thirty-eight such ships, and such able and tried captains in them, as they cannot match. By thus detaining all our force at home, distant quarters are half at their mercy. They themselves think America much dis

* In June, during the absence of the British fleet, a handful of French from Martinico under the command only of a naval lieutenant, estimated at four hundred and fifty men, not above half of whom were regulars, having ventured to land upon the island of St. Vincent, garrisoned by seven companies of regular troops, the island was delivered up to them without the firing of a single shot on either side.-Ed.

posed to return to us, and therefore will probably not hazard a defeat here, which would leave us time to treat with the Colonies. But I must not let my eye talk of politics. Good night!

LETTER CCCXI.

Strawberry Hill, Aug. 19, 1779.

THE French and Spanish squadrons, of sixty sail, passed by Sir Charles Hardy without meeting; and, on the 14th, chased three of our men-of-war, that were going to join him, into Plymouth. To-day an account is come, that the enemy's fleet, of fifty-six sail, is anchored before that fleet. Whether hoping to burn it, or to wait for their transports, I do not pretend to say, as there are different opinions. Hardy will undoubtedly attack them as soon as he can; but the easterly wind keeps him out at sea.

I would write to you, to mark my constant attention; but it is difficult for one so totally uninformed as I am to speak on such great events when pending, and as improper when the sea swarms with privateers, and my letter must pass through so many post-offices. You know me well enough to guess at my sentiments. You know me an unalterable Englishman, who loves his country and devoutly wishes its prosperity. Such I am, ardent for England, and ever shall be; it is all an useless old man can do, to pray for its lasting prosperity. The events of war must be accepted with constancy, good or bad. You, a minister of peace and at