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It is not always the case of persons at a distance to be the best informed; but you have a very cautious historian.

I shall reserve the rest of my paper till to-morrow; for, though I send you nothing but facts, every day may produce some event at present. The times have a bag of eggs like a pullet.

19th.

The Admiral was at the House yesterday, when the Speaker harangued him in a fine oration, they say; to which he made a very modest and pathetic answer. To-morrow he is to be congratulated and banqueted by the City, on which, I hear, we are again to be illuminated; but I am tired of crackers, and shall go quietly to Strawberry. There was to be a motion in the Commons to-day for addressing the King to remove Palliser from his other posts of General of the Marines and Governor of Scarborough; but I shall know the result before the post is gone out, and must refer you to the newspapers.

The French will not like the éclaircissement of the Court-martial, by which it is clear they were beaten and fled. The City, which does not haggle, has expressed this a little grossly in their address to Keppel. I do not love exultation. There is no grace but in silent victory. Our insults to the Americans at the outset of the war were not in the character of this country; and double the shame on those who have certainly not been victorious over them! The authors of the war have made a woful figure from the beginning to this day!

1798. TO THE COUNTESS OF OSSORY.

Bedfordshire, Feb. 23, 1779.

As you bid me write again before your arrival, and do not name the day, I hurry to obey you, Madam, though I have nothing to tell you, but how happy I shall be to see you. Were I a good courtier, to be sure I should announce the great news, as called, of the capture of Santa Lucia. I did say, there was great want of good news when this conquest was so dignified! I think the last King of Great Britain should thence be called Lucius, as the first Christian King of it was. My humility does not stoop to exultation on such pigmy victories; but it does find matter of triumph on seeing that when your Ladyship pretends to vanity, you are still forced to borrow your proofs from humility: for is not it being lowly in mind

to be proud of agreeing in opinion with others, and not depending on your own taste? Your Ladyship's example will sooner confirm me than your arguments cure me; nay, I beg you will leave me one virtue, lest I should not be worth one. I have at the same time a supreme reverence for pride; for that honest pride that makes one respect one's self, and prevents one's wading through every kennel to keep one's place. Oh! that it should be possible to be insolent on the strength of majorities, and when the tide turns, to crouch to those one has insulted, and beseech them to accept of treachery to one's friends as an atonement! Humble or not, I would burst with pride rather than so debase myself.

The winter has, indeed, Madam, been worthy of last summer. On the contrary, Sir Horace Mann tells me, they have skating on the Anio. I went to Strawberry on Saturday to enjoy the sun, and to avoid the squibs and crackers. There was a great deal of glass shed at night, and they say the illuminations are to be repeated on Thursday, when the Admiral is to dine with the West India merchants.

The rejoicings have produced exceeding ill-humour, which being very productive of the same temper in its adversaries, I think the nation will awake a little from its slumbers. Whenever the thorough reveil does come, it will be very serious!

Poor Mrs. Brand is dead of a soar throat; Lady Priscilla Bertie is married to-day [to Peter Burrell, Esq.], and the Queen has produced another Prince.'

Pray make my Io Paans to Lady Gertrude upon her recovery from renoculation; and tell Lady Anne that

C cannot claim Castalia's choicest lay,
As Ann and Ampthill ask it all for A.

P.S.-Mr. Beauclerk has just called, and told me a shocking history. Sir Hugh Palliser has a sister at York, whom he supported. As if the poor woman was not wretched enough with his disgrace and ruin, or accessory to his guilt, the mob there has demolished her house, and she is gone mad. What a bill would the authors of the American war have to pay, if they were charged as they deserve with all the calamities it has given date to! however, I do believe they are as sorry as if they were penitent!

1 Prince Octavius, died 1783.-CUNNINGHAM.

1799. TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Feb. 25, 1779.

YOUR veritable nephew brought me, yesterday, your letter of the 6th, which came by the courier, and he has just sent me a message that your servant is to set out on his return at three o'clock. It is now noon, and I am expecting a person on business, so that I shall have but a minute to write.

My last letters have hinted at the disgraces Lord Sandwich's artifices have brought on the Court by the absurd persecution of Admiral Keppel. It was very nearly overturning the Administration; and the Chancellor, Lord Weymouth, and the Paymaster,' (a little faction of themselves,) would have tumbled the rest down, could they have offered enough to content the Opposition. I think the present system will hold together something longer, though their credit is much shaken. The Opposition is not very able, the session is far advanced, and a little success has arrived to prop them. St. Lucia is taken, secures St. Vincent's, and if Byron joins that expedition unhurt by D'Estaing, the West Indies will be saved. These are "Ifs;" but yet more than the ministers have had for some time. The other expedition to Georgia has prospered too, but is too small, and with the winter to struggle through, to be of much consequence: and you see we have not as yet sent a man to America of late, nor can get a thousand. In short, what I would not mention but by your own courier, nothing can be more deplorable than our prospect. It was but yesterday Lord North could tell the House he had got the money on the loan, and is happy to get it under eight per cent. Then the new taxes are to come, and new discontent; the illhumour certainly rises very little in proportion to the distresses; yet even that has a bad cause-the indifference and dissipation of the whole country. I fear it must be some great blow that will rouse us. I doubt whether the French will think of Minorca. Our greatest felicity is, that they seem to have thought as little as we. Is it credible that they should have attempted nothing? The war hitherto has been a war of privateering, in which France has suffered most. In one word, the backwardness of Spain has saved us. Their junction with France had given the finishing blow.

1 Mr. Rigby.--Walpole.

I

This is but a sketch, and as much as I have time to tell you. do not say so much, nor anything to your nephew that might give him an impression that might recoil on you. Indeed, I do but look on, and lament the fall of England. Easy I am so far, that the illsuccess of the American war has saved us from slavery—in truth, I am content that liberty will exist anywhere, and amongst Englishmen, even 'cross the Atlantic. The Scots, who planned our chains, have, as formerly, given the Court some heart-aches, and would be the first to give more if the tide should turn. I think the King will support Sandwich still; though the load on him is heavy. Admiral Keppel has behaved with much decency, and more temper than could be expected. There was more riot on Saturday, when he dined in the City, and much fracture of windows; but it is generally believed that the Court hired the mob, to make the other side sick of rejoicing. The Admiral has declined another dinner, with the West India merchants, to prevent more tumult; and, now St. Lucia is taken, I believe they are glad to be rid of him.

This is enough for a comment on my late letters. You know, I never shift my principles with times.' The times, alas! have shifted their principles; but I am interrupted, and must seal my letter, lest it be too late.

1800. TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Arlington Street, March 9, 1779.

THERE has been a moment in which the scales have been more equally balanced than for some years; but the fluctuation has not lasted a weck. On Wednesday, the Opposition in the House of Commons mounted to 170, and the majority sunk to 34. Yesterday, though the former mustered four more votes, the Administration rejected the motion by a majority of 72. The questions both days related to the Fleet. Yesterday Admiral Keppel and Lord Howe declared they could not serve under the present Ministers; yet I think the latter will stand their ground, even to Lord Sandwich, though the general opinion is that he will have the Seals, which Lord Suffolk's death has vacated. He died at the Bath on Saturday,

1 Manners with fortunes, humours turn with climes,

Tenets with books, and principles with times.-Pope.—WALPOLE.

2 Lord Stormont succeeded.-CUNNINGHAM.

whither he was but just arrived in a desperate state. His death is no blow but to his family. Seldom was he able to do any business; and had no talents when he could.

While I am writing to you I am wishing for some member of the House of Commons to come in, to give me an account of your nephew for one of the morning papers says he spoke yesterday for the Court; and, though I am persuaded well, I want to be told so; and, as I dine abroad, I am at least as eager to be able to tell you so, and am afraid of not knowing it in time. I did write to you by your courier, but believe he did not set out by some days so soon as I expected; however, he must arrive before this.

We have, undoubtedly, made a great number of French prizes; and D'Estaing, in particular, has made a woful figure. They say at Paris, that, if ever he is Marshal of France, "au moins son bâton ne sera pas du bois de Sainte Lucie." There do not seem to spring many heroes out of this war on either side. Fame has shut her temple, too, in Germany: yet I think both the Emperor and King of Prussia have some claim on history; the latter by clipping Cæsar's soaring wings, and Cæsar by having kept so old and so able a professor at bay for a whole campaign. Still, the professor has carried a great point by having linked his interests with those of the Empire. The gratitude of those princes might soon wear out; but it is their interest to maintain a great, though new, power, that can balance the House of Austria.

We have no private news of any sort. As, by your desire, I write more frequently than formerly, you must be content with shorter letters; for distance and absence deprive us of the little incidents of common correspondence. I am forced to write to you of such events only as one would write to posterity. One cannot say, "I dined with such a person yesterday," when the letter is to be a fortnight on the road; still less, when you know nothing of my Lord or Mr. Such-an-one, whom I should mention.

Your nephew desired me to give him a list of pamphlets for you; I told him, as is true, that there is scarcely any such thing. The pamphleteers now vent themselves in quotidian letters in the newspapers. Formerly, you know, there were only weekly essays in a Fog's Journal' or 'Craftsman:' at present, every morning paper has one page of political invective at least, and so coarse, that they would be as sour as vinegar before they reached Florence: you would cross yourself at reading them.

I asked you about a report of Lord Maynard's sudden death. We

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