 As this is a season of great devotion and solemnity in all Catholic countries, pray and inform yourself of, and constantly attend to, all their silly and pompous church ceremonies. One ought to know them. I am very glad that you wrote the letter to Lord, which, in every different case that can possibly be supposed, was, I am sure, both a decent and a prudent step. You will find it very difficult, whenever we meet, to convince me that you could have any good reasons for not doing it, for I will, for argument's sake, suppose what I cannot in reality believe, that he has both said and done the worst he could of and by you. What then? How will you help yourself? Are you in a situation to hurt him? Certainly not, but he certainly is in a situation to hurt you. Would you show a sullen, pouting, impotent resentment? I hope not. Leave that silly, unavailing sort of resentment to women, and men like them, who are always guided by humor, never by reason and prudence. That pettish, pouting conduct is a great deal too young and implies too little knowledge of the world, for one who has seen so much of it as you have. Let this be one invariable rule of your conduct. Never to show the least symptom of resentment which you cannot to a certain degree gratify, but always to smile, where you cannot strike. There would be no living in courts, nor indeed in the world, if one could not conceal, and even dissemble, the just causes of resentment, which one meets with every day in active and busy life. Whoever cannot masterous humor enough, pour faire bon mien à mauvais jus, should leave the world and retire to some hermitage in an unfrequented desert. By showing an unavailing and sullen resentment you authorize the resentment of those who can hurt you and whom you cannot hurt, and give them that very pretense which perhaps they wished for, of breaking with and injuring you, whereas the contrary behavior would lay them under the restraints of decency at least, and either shackle or expose their malice. Besides, caputiousness, sullenness, and pouting are most exceedingly illiberal and vulgar. Anonatom ne les connoi poin. I am extremely glad to hear you are soon to have Voltaire at Mannheim. Immediately upon his arrival, pray make him a thousand compliments from me. I admire him most exceedingly, and whether as an epic, dramatic, or lyric poet, or prose writer, I think I justly apply to him neo-molatur et nepte. I long to read his own correct edition of Les Annales de l'Empire, of which the Abrége chronologique de l'histoire universelle, which I have read, is, I suppose, a stolen and imperfect part. However imperfect as it is, it has explained to me that chaos of history, of seven hundred years, more clearly than any other book had done before. You judge very rightly that I love l'estil et le ferrit. I do, and so does everybody who has any parts and taste. It should, I confess, be more or less fleurie, according to the subject, but at the same time I assert that there is no subject that might not properly, and which ought not to be adorned, by a certain elegance and beauty of style. What can be more adorned than Cicero's philosophical works? What more than play-dohs? It is their eloquence only that has preserved and transmitted them down to us through so many centuries, for the philosophy of them is wretched, and the reasoning part miserable. But eloquence will always please, and has always pleased. Study it, therefore, make it the object of your thoughts and attention. Use yourself to relate elegantly. That is a good step toward speaking well in Parliament. Take some political subject, turn it in your thoughts, consider what may be said both for and against it, then put those arguments into writing, in the most correct and elegant English you can. For instance, a standing army, a place-bill, etc. As to the former, consider on one side the dangers arising to a free country from a great standing military force. On the other, consider the necessity of a force to repel force with. Even whether a standing army, though in itself an evil, may not from circumstances become a necessary evil, and preventive of greater dangers. As to the latter, consider how far places may bias and warp the conduct of men, from the service of their country, into an unwarrantable complacence to the court. And on the other hand, consider whether they can be supposed to have that effect upon the conduct of people of probity and property, who are more solidly interested in the permanent good of their country, than they can be in an uncertain and precarious employment. Seek for and answer in your own mind all the arguments that can be argued on either side, and write them down in an elegant style. This will prepare you for debating, and give you an habitual eloquence, for I would not give a farthing for a mere holiday eloquence, displayed once or twice in a session, in a set declamation, but I want an every day, ready and habitual eloquence, to adorn extempore and debating speeches, to make business not only clear but agreeable, and to please even those whom you cannot inform, and who do not desire to be informed. All this you may acquire and make habitual to you, with as little trouble as it cost you to dance a minuet as well as you do. You now dance it mechanically and well without thinking of it. I am surprised that you found but one letter for me at Mannheim, for you ought to have found four or five. There are as many lying for you at your bankers at Berlin, which I wish you had, because I always endeavour to put something into them, which I hope may be of use to you. When we meet at Spa next July we must have a great many serious conversations, in which I will pour out all my experience of the world, and which I hope you will trust to more than to your own young notions of men and things. You will in time discover most of them to have been erroneous, and if you follow them long you will perceive your error too late. But if you will be led by a guide, who you are sure does not mean to mislead you, you will unite two things seldom united in the same person, the vivacity and spirit of youth, with the caution and experience of age. Last Saturday Sir Thomas Robinson, who had been the king's minister at Vienna, was declared Secretary of State for the Southern Department, Lord Holderness having taken the Northern. Sir Thomas accepted it unwillingly, and as I hear, with a promise that he shall not keep it long. Both his health and spirits are bad, two very disqualifying circumstances for that employment. Yours I hope will enable you, some time or other, to go through with it. In all events, aim at it, and if you fail or fall, let it at least be said of you. Magnus Tommen, Exidit Ossis, Adjou. End of Section 168, read by Professor Heather M. Baye. For more free audiobooks or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Section 169 of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. Letter 201, London, April 5th, 1754. My dear friend. I received yesterday your letter of the 20th March, from Mannheim, with the enclosed for Mr. Elliot. It was a very proper one, and I have forwarded it to him by Mr. Hart, who sets out for Cornwall tomorrow morning. I am very glad that you use yourself to translations, and I do not care of what, provided you study the correctness and elegance of your style. The Life of Sextus Quintus is the best book of the innumerable books written by Gregorio Letti, whom the Italians very justly call Letti cacalibro. But I would rather that you chose some pieces of oratory for your translations, whether ancient or modern, Latin or French, which would give you a more oratorical train of thought and turn of expression. In your letter to me you make use of two words, which, though true and correct English, are, from long disuse, become inelegant, and seem now to be stiff, formal, and in some degree scriptural. The first is the word, namely, which you introduce thus. You inform me of a very agreeable piece of news, namely, that my election is secured. Instead of, namely, I would always use which is, or that is, that my election is secured. The other word is, my known inclinations. This is certainly correct before a subsequent word that begins with a vowel. But it is too correct, and is now disused as too formal, notwithstanding the hiatus occasioned by my own. Every language has its peculiarities. They are established by usage, and, whether right or wrong, they must be complied with. I could instance very many absurd ones in different languages, but so authorized by the jus et norma locendi, that they must be submitted to. They, and, to wit, are very good words in themselves, and contribute to clearness more than the relatives which we now substitute in their room. But however they cannot be used, except in some sermon or some very grave and formal compositions. It is with language as with manners. They are both established by the usage of people of fashion. It must be imitated. It must be complied with. Singularity is only pardonable in old age and retirement. I may now be as singular as I please, but you may not. We will, when we meet, discuss these and many other points, provided you will give me attention and credit, without which it is to no purpose to advise either you or anybody else. I want to know your determination, where you intend to, if I may use that expression, while away your time to the last week of June, when we are to meet at Spa. I continue rather in the opinion which I mention to you formally, in favor of the Hague, but however have not the least objection to Dresden, or to any other place that you may like better. If you prefer the Dutch scheme, you take Treves and Koblenz in your way, as also Düsseldorf, all which places I think you have not yet seen. At Mannheim you may certainly get good letters of recommendation to the courts of the two electors of Treves and Kolonia, whom you are yet unacquainted with, and I should wish you to know them all, as I have often told you, Olem, Hec, Miminis, Juvabit. There is in utility in having seen what other people have seen, and there is a justifiable pride in having seen what others have not. In the former case you are equal to others, in the latter superior. As your stay abroad will not now be very long, pray while it lasts, see everything in everybody you can, and see them well, with care and attention. It is not to be conceived of what advantage it is to anybody to have seen more things, people and countries, than other people in general have. It gives them a credit, makes them referred to, and they become the objects of the attention of the company. They are not out in any part of polite conversation. They are acquainted with all the places, customs, courts, and families that are likely to be mentioned. They are, as Monsieur de Maupertuis justly observes, de tous les pays, comme les savants, sont de tous les temps. You have fortunately both those advantages. The only remaining point is de savoir les faire valoir. For without that, one may not as well have them. Remember that very true maxim of l'abrière, quand ne vaut dans ce monde que ce qu'on vaut valoir. The knowledge of the world will teach you to what degree you ought to show que vous voulez. One must by no means, on one hand, be indifferent about it, as on the other one must not display it with affectation, and in an overbearing manner, but of the two it is better to show too much than too little. Adieu. My dear friend, I heartily congratulate you upon the loss of your political maiden head, of which I have received for mothers a very good account. I hear that you were stopped for some time in your career, but recovered breath and finished it very well. I am not surprised nor indeed concerned at your accident, for I remember the dreadful feeling of that situation in myself, and as it must require a most uncommon share of impudence to be unconcerned upon such an occasion, I am not sure that I am not rather glad you stopped. You must now therefore think of hardening yourself by degrees, by using yourself insensibly to the sound of your own voice, and to the act, trifling as it seems, of rising up and sitting down. Nothing will contribute so much to this as committee work of elections at night and of private bills in the morning. There asking short questions, moving for witnesses to be called in, and all that kind of smallware, will soon fit you to set up for yourself. I am told that you are much mortified at your accident, but without reason. Pray, let it rather be a spur than a curb to you. Persevere and depend upon it it will do very well at last. When I say persevere, I do not mean that you should speak every day, nor in every debate. Moreover, I would not advise you to speak again upon public matters for some time, perhaps a month or two, but I mean never lose view of that great object. Pursue it with discretion, but pursue it always. You know I have always told you that speaking in public was but a knack, which those who apply to the most will succeed in the best. Two old members, very good judges, have sent me compliments upon this occasion, and have assured me that they plainly find it will do, though they proceed from that natural confusion you were in, that you neither said all, nor perhaps what you intended. Upon the whole you have set out very well, and have sufficient encouragement to go on. Attend therefore assiduously, and observe carefully all that passes in the house, for it is only knowledge and experience that can make a debater. But if you still want comfort, Mrs., I hope, will administer it to you, for in my opinion she may, if she will, be very comfortable, and with women, as with speaking in Parliament, perseverance will most certainly prevail sooner or later. Little I have played for here I have won, but that is very far from the considerable sum which you heard of. I play every evening, from seven till ten, at a crown-wist party, merely to save my eyes from reading or writing for three hours by candlelight. I propose being in town the week after next, and hope to carry back with me much more health than I brought down here. Good night. Mr. Standhope, being returned to England, and seeing his father almost every day, is the occasion of an interruption of two years in their correspondence. My dear friend, I received yours yesterday morning together with the Prussian papers, which I have read with great attention. If courts could blush, those of Vienna and Dresden ought to have their falsehoods so publicly and so undeniably exposed. The former will, I presume, next year employ a hundred thousand men to answer the accusation, and if the empress of the two rushes is pleased to argue in the same cogent manner, their logic will be too strong for all the king of Prussia's rhetoric. I well remember the treaty so often referred to in those pieces, between the two empresses, in 1746. The king was strongly pressed by the empress's queen to accede to it. Wassener communicated it to me for that purpose. I asked him if there were no secret articles, suspecting that there were some, because the ostensible treaty was a mere harmless defensive one. He assured me that there were none. On which I told him that as the king had already defensive alliances with those two empresses, I did not see of what use his accession to this treaty, if merely a defensive one could be, either to himself or the other contracting parties. But that, however, if it was only desired as an indication of the king's good will, I would give him an act by which his majesty should accede to that treaty, as far but no further as at present he stood engaged to the respective empresses by the defensive alliances subsisting with each. This offer by no means satisfied him, which was a plain proof of the secret articles now brought to light, and into which the court of Vienna hoped to draw us. I told Wassener so, and after that I heard no more of his invitation. I am still bewildered in the changes at court, of which I find that all the particulars are not yet fixed. Who would have thought, a year ago, that Mr. Fox, the chancellor, and the Duke of Newcastle should all three have quitted together? Or can I yet account for it? Explain it to me, if you can. I cannot see neither what the Duke of Devonshire and Fox, whom I looked upon as intimately united, can have quarreled about, with relation to the treasury. Inform me if you know. I never doubted of the prudent versatility of your vicar of Bray, but I am surprised at O'Brien Wyndham's going out of the treasury, where I should have thought that the interest of his brother-in-law, George Grenville, would have kept him. Having found myself rather worse these two or three last days, I was obliged to take some Ipacaquana last night, and, what you will think odd for a vomit, I brought it all up again in about an hour to my great satisfaction and emolument, which has seldom the case in restitutions. You did well to go to the Duke of Newcastle, who I suppose will have no more levies. However, go from time to time and leave your name at his door, for you have obligations to him. Adieu. Letter 204, Bath December 14th, 1756 My dear friend, what can I say to you from this place where every day is still but as the first, though by no means so agreeably past, as Anthony describes his to have been? The same nothings succeed one another every day with me, as regularly and uniformly as the hours of the day. You will think this tiresome, and so it is, but how can I help it? Cut off from society by my deafness and dispirited by my ill health, where could I be better? You will say, perhaps, where could you be worse? Only in prison or the galleys I confess. However, I see a period to my stay here, and have fixed in my own mind a time for my return to London. Not invited there by either politics or pleasures, to both which I am equally a stranger, but merely to be at home, which, after all, according to the vulgar saying, is home be it ever so homely. The political settlement, as it is called, is, I find, by no means settled. Mr. Fox, who took this place in his way to his brothers, where he intended to pass a month, was stopped short by an express which he received from his connection to come to town immediately, and accordingly he set out from hence very early two days ago. I had a very long conversation with him, in which he was, seemingly at least, very frank and communicative. But still I own myself in the dark. In those matters, as in most others, half knowledge, and mine is at most that, is more apt to lead one into error than to carry one to truth, and our own vanity contributes to this adduction. Our conjectures pass upon us for truths. We will know what we do not know, and often what we cannot know. So mortifying to our pride is the bare suspicion of ignorance. It has been reported here that the Empress of Russia is dying. This would be a fortunate event indeed for the King of Prussia, and necessarily produce neutrality and inaction, at least of that great power, which would be a heavy weight taken out of the opposite scale to the King of Prussia. The Augustissima must, in that case, do all herself, for though France will no doubt promise largely, it will, I believe, perform but scantily, as it desires no better than that the different powers of Germany should tear one another to pieces. I hope you frequent all the courts. A man should make his face familiar there. Long habit produces favor insensibly, and acquaintance often does more than friendship, in that climate where les beaux sentiments are not the natural growth. Adieu! I am going to the ball to save my eyes from reading and my mind from thinking. End of Section 171 I waited quietly to see when either your leisure or your inclinations would allow you to honor me with a letter, and at last I received one this morning very near a fortnight after you went from hence. You will say that you had no news to write me, and that probably may be true, but without news one has always something to say to those with whom one desires to have anything to do. Your observation is very just with regard to the King of Prussia, whom the most august house of Austria would most unquestionably have poisoned a century to a go. But now that terrace Austria reliquid, kings and princes die of natural deaths, even war is pucilla unanimously carried on in this degenerate age. Quarter is given, towns are taken, and the people spared. Even in a storm a woman can hardly hope for the benefit of a rape. Whereas, such was the humanity of former days, prisoners were killed by thousands in cold blood, and the generous victors spared neither man, woman, nor child. Public actions of this kind were performed at the taking of Magdeborg. The King of Prussia is certainly now in a situation that must soon decide his fate, and make him Caesar or nothing. Notwithstanding the march of the Russians, his great danger in my mind lies westward. I have no notions of Afraxon's abilities, and I believe many oppression colonel would out-general him. But Brown, Piccolomini, Luceze, and many other veteran officers in the Austrian troops, are respectable enemies. Mr. Pitt seems to me to have almost as many enemies to encounter as his Prussian majesty. The late ministry and the Duke's party will, I presume, unite against him and his Tory friends, and then quarrel among themselves again. His best, if not his only, chance of supporting himself would be, if he had credit enough in the city to hinder the advancing of the money to any administration but his own, and I have met with some people here who think that he has. I have put off my journey from Hentz for a week, but no longer. I find I still gain some strength and some flesh here, and, therefore, I will not cut while the run is for me. By a letter which I received this morning from Lady Allen, I observe that you are extremely well with her, and it is well for you to be so, for she is an excellent and warm puff. A propos, an expression which is commonly used to introduce whatever is unrelative to it. You should apply to some of Lord Holderness's people, for the perusal of Mr. Cope's letters. It would not be refused you, and the sooner you have them the better. I do not mean them as models for your manner of writing, but as outlines of the matter you are to write upon. If you have not read Hume's essays, read them. They are four very small volumes. I have just finished, and am extremely pleased with them. He thinks impartially, deep, often new, and, in my mind, commonly just. Adju. Letter 206 Blackheath, September 17, 1757 My dear friend, Lord Holderness has been so kind as to communicate to me all the letters which she has received from you hitherto, dated the 15th, 19th, 23rd, and 26th August, and also a drafted that which he wrote to you on the 9th instant. I am very well pleased with all your letters, and what is better I can tell you that the King is so too, and he said but three days ago to Monsieur Munchhausen, he, meaning you, sets out very well, and I like his letters, provided that, like most of my English ministers abroad, he does not grow idle hereafter. So that here is both praise to flatter and a hint to warn you. What Lord Holderness recommends to you, being by the King's order, intimates also a degree of approbation. Where the blacker ink, and the larger character, show that his majesty, whose eyes are grown weaker, intends to read all your letters himself. Therefore, pray do not neglect to get the blackest ink you can, and to make your secretary enlarge his hand, though d'allure it is a very good one. Had I been to wish an advantageous situation for you, and a good debut in it, I could not have wished you either better than both hitherto proved. The rest will depend entirely upon yourself, and I own I begin to have much better hopes than I had, for I know by my own experience that the more one works, the more willing one is to work. We are all, more or less, des animaux d'habitude. I remember very well that when I was in business I wrote four or five hours together every day, more willingly than I should now have an hour. And this is most certain, that when a man has applied himself to business half the day, the other half goes off the more cheerfully and agreeably. This I found so sensibly when I was at the Hague, that I never tasted company so well nor was so good company myself as at the suppers of my post-days. I take Hamburg now to be le centre du refuge allemande. If you have any Hanover refugees among them, pray take care to be particularly attentive to them. How do you like your house? Is it a convenient one? Have the castle rolls been employed in it yet? You will find les petits superfins less expensive and turn to better account than large dinners for great companies. I hope you have written to the Duke of Newcastle. I take it for granted that you have to all your brother ministers of the northern department. For God's sake be diligent, alert, active, and indefatagable in your business. You want nothing but labour and industry to be, one day, whatever you please, in your own way. We think and talk of nothing here but breast, which is universally supposed to be the object of our great expedition. A great and important object it is. I suppose the affair must be brusque, or it will not do. If we succeed, it will make France put some water into its wine. As for my own private opinion, I rather wish than hope success. However, should our expedition fail, Magnus Tommen exidit Ossis, and that will be better than our late, languid method of making war. To mention a person to you, whom I am very indifferent about, I mean myself. I vegetate still just as I did when we parted, but I think I begin to be sensible of the autumn of the year, as well as of the autumn of my own life. I feel an internal awkwardness, which in about three weeks I shall carry with me to the bath, where I hope to get rid of it, as I did last year. The best cordial I could take would be to hear from time to time of your industry indeligence, for in that case I should consequently hear of your success. Remember your own motto, nullum numen abes siset prudentia. Nothing is truer, yours. End of Section 172. Read by Professor Heather Mby. For more free audio books or to volunteer, please visit Librebox.org. In 173 of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son, read for Librebox.org into the public domain. Letter 207. Blackheath, September 23, 1757. My dear friend, I received but the day before yesterday your letter of the Third from the headquarters at Selsingen, and, by the way, it is but the second that I have received from you since your arrival at Hamburg. Whatever was the cause of your going to the army, I approve of the effect. For I would have you as much as possible see everything that is to be seen. That is true useful knowledge, which informs and improves us when we are young, and amuses us and others when we are old. Olim Huck, Meme Nisse, Jüvabit. I could wish that you would, but I know you will not, enter in a book, a short note only, of whatever you see or hear that is very remarkable. I do not mean a German album stuffed with people's names and Latin sentences, but I mean such a book, as if you do not keep now thirty years hence you would give a great deal of money to have kept. I propose to both, for I am told he always wears his, was his royal highness very gracious to you or not. I have my doubts about it. The neutrality which he has concluded with Marichel de Richelieu will prevent that bloody battle which you expected, but what the king of Prussia will say to it is another point. He was our only ally. At present probably we have not one in the world. If the king of Prussia can get at Monsieur de Subises and all the imperial army before other troops have joined him I think he will beat them, but what then? He has three hundred thousand men to encounter afterward. He must submit, but he may say with truth, see Pergamma Dextre Defendi Potuisin. The late action between the Prussians and Russians has only thinned the human species, without giving either party a victory, which is plain by each party's claiming it. Upon my word our species will pay very dear for the quarrels and ambitions of a few, and those by no means the most valuable part of it. If the many were wiser than they are the few must be quieter and would perhaps be juster and better than they are. Hamburg I find swarms with grafts, graffins, bursts and furstins, hawk-heights, and durch-lach-tick-heights. I am glad of it, for you must necessarily be in the midst of them, and I am still more glad that being in the midst of them you must necessarily be under some constraint of ceremony, a thing which you do not love, but which is, however, very useful. I desired you in my last, and I repeated again in this, to give me an account of your private and domestic life. How do you pass your evenings? Have they at Hamburg what are called at Paris des maisons, where one goes without ceremony, sups or not, as one pleases? Are you adopted in any society? Have you any rational brother-ministers and which? What sort of things are your operas? In the tender I doubt they do not excel, for mine libre shots and the other tendernesses of the Teutonic language would in my mind sound but indifferently, set to soft music. For the bravura parts I have a great opinion of them, and das der Donnerdischischslag must, no doubt, make a tremendously fine piece of recitativo, when uttered by an angry hero to the rumble of a whole orchestra, including drums, trumpets and French horns. Tell me your whole allotment of the day, in which I hope four hours at least are sacred to writing. The others cannot be better employed than in liberal pleasures. In short, give me a full account of yourself in your unministerial character, your incognito, without your fioci. I love to see those in whom I interest myself in their undress, rather than in gala. I know them better so. I recommend to you, etiam atque etiam, method and order in everything you undertake. Do you observe it in your accounts? If you do not, you will be a beggar, though you were to receive the appointments of a Spanish ambassador extraordinary, which are a thousand pistoles a month. And in your ministerial business, if you have no regular and stated hours for such and such parts of it, you will be in the hurry and confusion of the Duke of N., doing everything by haves and nothing well, nor soon. I suppose you have been feasted through the corps diplomatique at Hamburg, excepting Mr. Champot, with whom, however, I hope you live polement et galement at all third places. Lord Loudon is much blamed here for his retrait de demille, for it is said that he had above that number, and might consequently have acted offensively, instead of retreating, especially as his retreat was contrary to the unanimous opinion, as it is now said, of the Council of War. In our ministry, I suppose, things go pretty quietly, for the Duke of N. has not plagued me these two months. When his royal highness comes over, which I take it for granted he will do very soon, the great push-will, I presume, be made at his grace and Mr. Pitt. But without effect, if they agree, as it is visibly their interest to do, and in that case their parliamentary strength will support them against all attacks. You may remember, I said at first, that the popularity would soon be on the side of those who opposed the popular militia-bill, and now it appears so with a vengeance, in almost every county in England, by the tumults and insurrections of the people, who swear that they will not be enlisted. That silly scheme must therefore be dropped, as quietly as may be. Now that I have told you all that I know, and almost all that I think, I wish you a good supper and a good night. End of Section 173. Read by Professor Heather M. By. For more free audiobooks or to volunteer, please visit LibreVox.org. Section 174 of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son. Read for LibreVox.org into the public domain. Letter 208. Blackheath, September 30th, 1757. My dear friend, I have so little to do that I am surprised how I can find time to write to you so often. Do not stare at the seeming paradox, for it is an undoubted truth that the less one has to do, the less time one finds to do it in. One yawns, one procrastinates, one can do it when one will, and therefore one seldom does it at all, whereas those who have a great deal of business must, to use a vulgar expression, buckle to it, and then they always find time enough to do it in. I hope your own experience has by this time convinced you of this truth. I received your last of the eighth. It is now quite over with a very great man, who will still be a very great man, though a very unfortunate one. He has qualities of the mind that put him above the reach of those misfortunes, and if reduced, as perhaps he may, to the marsh of Brandenburg, he will always find in himself the comfort and with all the world the credit of a philosopher, a legislator, a patron, and a professor of arts and sciences. He will only lose the fame of a conqueror, a cruel fame that arises from the destruction of the human species. Could it be any satisfaction to him to know, I could tell him, that he is at this time the most popular man in this kingdom, the whole nation being enraged at that neutrality which hastens and completes his ruin. Between you and me the king was not less enraged at it himself, when he saw the terms of it, and it affected his health more than all that had happened before. Indeed it seems to me a voluntary concession of the very worst that could have happened in the worst event. We now begin to think that our great and secret expedition is intended for Martinico and San Domingo. If that be true, and we succeed in the attempt, we shall recover, and the French lose, one of the most valuable branches of commerce, I mean, sugar. The French now supply all the foreign markets in Europe with that commodity. We only supply ourselves with it. This would make us some amends for our ill luck or ill conduct in North America, where Lord Loudon, with twelve thousand men, thought himself no match for the French with but seven. And Admiral Holburn, with seventeen ships of the line, declined attacking the French because they had eighteen, and a greater weight of metal, according to the new sea phrase, which was unknown to Blake. I hear that letters have been sent to both with very severe reprimands. I am told, and I believe it is true, that we are negotiating with the Corsican—I will not say rebels, but assertors of their natural rights—to receive them, and whatever form of government they think fit to establish, under our protection, upon condition of their delivering up to us Port Allaccio, which may be made so strong and so good a one as to be a full equivalent for the loss of Port Mayhan. This is, in my mind, a very good scheme, for though the Corsicans are a parcel of cruel and perfidious rascals, they will in this case be tied down to us by their own interest and their own danger, a solid security with knaves, though none with fools. His royal highness the Duke is hourly expected here. His arrival will make some bustle, for I believe it is certain that he is resolved to make a push at the Duke of End, Pitt, and Company. But it will be ineffectual, if they continue to agree, as to my certain knowledge they do at present. This Parliament is theirs, Cetera quiznesit. Now that I have told you all that I know or have heard of public matters, let us talk of private ones that more nearly and immediately concern us. Admit me to your fireside, in your little room, and, as you would converse with me there, write to me for the future from thence. Are you completely nip yet? Have you formed what the world calls connections? That is a certain number of acquaintances whom, from accident or choice, you frequent more than others. Have you either fine or well-bred women there? I atil qu'a bon tolle, all fat and fair, I presume, too proud and too cold to make advances, but at the same time too well-bred and too warm to reject them, when made by un honnête homme avec des maniers. Mr. is to be married in about a month, to miss—I am very glad of it, for, as he will never be a man of the world, but will always lead a domestic and retired life, she seems to have been made on purpose for him. Her natural turn is as grave and domestic as his, and she seems to have been kept by her aunts, à la grâce, instead of being raised in a hot bed, as most young ladies are of late. If three weeks hence you write him a short compliment of congratulation upon the occasion, he, his mother, and tootie conti, would be extremely pleased with it. Those attentions are always kindly taken, and cost one nothing but pen, ink, and paper. I consider them as drafts upon good-breeding, where the exchange is always greatly in favour of the drawer. À propos of exchange, I hope you have, with the help of your secretary, made yourself correctly master of all that sort of knowledge, course of exchange, à gie banco resch tolle, down to Mary and Groschen. It is very little trouble to learn it, it is often of great use to know it. Good night, and God bless you. CHESTERFIELDS' OCTOBER 10, 1757 My dear friend, it is not without some difficulty that I snatched this moment of leisure from my extreme idleness to inform you of the present lamentable and astonishing state of affairs here, which you would know but imperfectly from the public papers, and but partially from your private correspondence. Or sus then, our invincible armada, which cost at least half a million, sailed, as you know, some weeks ago, the object kept an invaluable secret, conjectures various and expectations great. It was perhaps to be taken, but Martinico and Sint Dominico at least. When lo, the important island of X was taken without the least resistance, seven hundred men made prisoners and some pieces of cannon carried off. From thence we sailed toward Rochefort, which it seems was our main object, and consequently one should have been supposed that we had pilots on board who know all the surroundings and landing places thereabouts. But no, for General M asked the admiral if he could land him and the troops near Rochefort. The admiral said with great ease. To which the general replied, but can you take us on board again? To which the admiral answered, that, like all naval operations, will depend upon the wind. If so, said the general, I'll even go home again. A council of war was immediately called, where it was unanimously resolved that it was advisable to return. Accordingly they are returned. As the expectations of the whole nation had been raised to the highest pitch, the universal disappointment and indignation have arisen in proportion, and I question whether the ferment of men's minds was ever greater. Suspicions, you may be sure, are various and endless, but the most prevailing one is that the tale of the Hanover neutrality, like that of a comet, extended itself to Rochefort. What encourages this situation is that a French man of war went unmolested through our whole fleet, as it laid near Rochefort. Had its whole story is revived, Michelle's representations are combined with other circumstances, and the whole together makes up a mass of discontent, resentment and even fury, greater than perhaps was ever known in this country before. These are the facts. Draw your own conclusions from them. For my part I am lost in astonishment and conjectures, and do not know where to fix. My experience has shown me that many things which seem extremely probable are not true, and many which seem highly improbable are true, so that I will conclude this article, as Josephus does almost every article of his history, with saying, But of this every man will believe as he thinks proper. What a disgraceful year will this be in the annals of the country! May its good genius, if ever it appears again, tear out those sheets, thus stained and blotted by our own ignominy. Our domestic fares are, as far as I know anything of them, in the same situation as when I wrote to you last, but they will begin to be in motion upon the approach of the session and upon the return of the Duke, whose arrival is most impatiently expected by the mob of London, though not to strew flowers in his way. I leave this place next Saturday and London the Saturday following, to be the next day at Bath. Adjou. Letter 210 London, October 17th, 1757 My dear friend, your last of the thirtieth past was a very good letter, and I will believe half of what you assure me that you are returned to the landgrave's civilities. I cannot possibly go farther than half, knowing that you are not lavish of your words, especially in that species of eloquence called the adjulatory. Do not use too much discretion in profiting of the landgrave's naturalization of you, but go pretty often and feed with him. Choose the company of your superiors whenever you can have it. That is the right and true pride. The mistaken and silly pride is to primer among inferiors. Here O Israel and wonder! On Sunday morning last the Duke gave up his commission of Captain General and his Regiment of Guards. You will ask me, why? I cannot tell you, but I will tell you the causes assigned, which perhaps are none of them the true ones. It is said that the King reproached him with having exceeded his powers in making the Hanover Convention, which his royal highness absolutely denied, and threw up thereupon. This is certain that he appeared at the drawing-room at Kensington last Sunday after having quitted, and went straight to Windsor, where his people say that he intends to reside quietly and amuse himself as a private man. But I conjecture that matters will soon be made up again, and that he will resume his employments. You will easily imagine the speculations this event has occasioned in the public. I shall neither trouble you nor myself with relating them, nor would this sheet of paper, or even acquire more, contain them. Some were fine enough to suspect that it is a concerted quarrel to justify somebody to somebody with regard to the convention, but I do not believe it. His royal highness's people load the Hanover ministers, and more particularly our friend Munchhausen here, with the whole blame. But with what degree of truth I know not. This only is certain that the whole negotiation of that affair was broached and carried on by the Hanover ministers and Mr. Stenberg at Vienna, absolutely unknown to the English ministers till it was executed. This affair combined, for people will combine it, with the astonishing return of our great armament. Not only, rey infecta, but even intentata, makes such a jumble of reflections, conjectures, and refinements that one is weary of hearing them. Our tacitices and Machiavelles go deep, suspect the worst, and perhaps as they often do, overshoot the mark. For my own part I fairly confess that I am bewildered, and have not certain postulata enough, not only to found any opinion, but even to form conjectures upon. And this is the language which I think you should hold to all who speak to you, as to be sure all will upon that subject. Plead as you truly may your own ignorance, and say that it is impossible to judge of those nice points at such a distance, and without knowing all circumstances, which you cannot be supposed to do. And as to the duke's resignation, you should in my opinion say, that perhaps there might be a little too much vivacity in the case, but that upon the whole you make no doubt of the things being soon set to write again, as in truth I dare say it will. Upon these delicate occasions you must practice the ministerial shrugs and persiflage, for silent gesticulations, which you would be most inclined to, would not be sufficient. Something must be said, but that something when analyzed must amount to nothing. As for instance, il est vrai qu'on s'y perd, mais que voulez-vous que je vous dis? Il y a bien du preu et du contra, et petit résident ne voit que le fond du sac. Il faut attendre. Those sort of explotives are of infinite use, and nine people in ten think they mean something. But to the land grave of Hess I think you would do well to say, in seeming confidence, that you have good reason to believe that the principal objection of his majesty to the convention was that his highness's interests, and the affair of his troops, were not sufficiently considered in it. To the Prussian minister assert boldly that you know, de s'y en certain, that the principal object of his majesties and his British majesties' intention is not only to perform all their present engagements with his master, but to take new and stronger ones for his support. For this is true, at least at present. You did very well in inviting Comte Bothemère to dine with you. You see how minutely I am informed of your proceedings, though not from yourself. Adieu. I go to Bath next Saturday, but direct your letters as usual to London. End of Section 175. Read by Professor Heather M. Baye. For more free audiobooks or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Section 176 of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son. LibriVox.org into the Public Domain. Letter 211. Bath October 26th, 1757. My dear friend, I arrived here safe but far from sound last Sunday. I have consequently drunk these waters but three days, and yet I find myself something better for them. The night before I left London I was for some hours at New Castle House, where the letters which came that morning lay upon the table, and as Grace singled out yours with great approbation, and at the same time assured me of His Majesty's approbation, too. To these two approbations I truly add my own, which, sans vanité, may perhaps be near as good as the other two. In that letter you venture vos petits raisonnements very properly, and then as properly make an excuse for doing so. Go on with some diligence, and you will be when I began to despair of your ever-being, somebody. I am persuaded, if you would own the truth, that you feel yourself now much better satisfied with yourself than you were while you did nothing. Application to business, attended with approbation and success, flatters and animates the mind, which in idleness and inaction stagnates and putrefies. I could wish that every rational man would, every night when he goes to bed, ask himself this question. What have I done today? Have I done anything that can be of use to myself or others? Have I employed my time? Or have I squandered it? Have I lived out the day? Or have I dozed it away in sloth and laziness? A thinking being must be pleased or confounded, according as he can answer himself these questions. I observe that you are in the secret of what is intended, and what Munchhausen is going to start to prepare, a bold and dangerous experiment in my mind, and which may probably end in the second volume to the history of the Pelotonate in the last century. His serene highness of Brunswick has, in my mind, played a prudent and saving game, and I am apt to believe that the other serene highness at Hamburg is more likely to follow his example than to embark in the great scheme. I see no signs of the Dukes resuming his employments, but on the contrary I am assured that his majesty is coolly determined to do as well as he can without him. The Duke of Devonshire and Fox have worked hard to make up matters in the closet, but to no purpose. People's self-love is very apt to make them think themselves more necessary than they are, and I shrewdly suspect that his royal highness has been the dupe of that sentiment, and was taken at his word when he least suspected it, like my predecessor, Lord Harrington, who, when he went into the closet to resign the seals, had not them about him, so sure he thought himself of being pressed to keep them. The whole talk of London, of this place, and of every place in the whole kingdom, is of our great, expensive, and yet fruitless expedition. I have seen an officer who was there, a very sensible and observing man, who told me that, had we attempted Rocheford, the day after we took the island of Ex, our success had been infallible, but that after we had sauntered, God knows why, eight or ten days in the island, he thinks the attempt would have been impracticable, because the French had in that time got together all the troops in that neighborhood to a very considerable number. In short, there must have been some secret in that whole affair that has not yet transpired, and I cannot help suspecting that it came from Stod. We had not been successful there, and perhaps we were not desirous that an expedition, in which we had neither been concerned nor consulted, should prove so. Em was our creature, and a word to the wise will sometimes go a great way. M.T. is to have a public trial, from which the public expects great discoveries, not I. Do you visit Saulte-Cal, the Russian minister, whose house I am told is the great scene of pleasures at Hamburg? His mistress, I take for granted, is by this time dead, and he wears some other body shackles. Her death comes with regard to the king of Prussia, comme le moutard de Prédiné. I am curious to see what tyrant will succeed her, not by divine but by military right. For barbarous as they are now, and still more barbarous as they have been formerly, they have had very little regard to the more barbarous notion of divine, indivisible, hereditary right. The Praetorian bands, that is, the guards, I presume, have been engaged in the interests of the imperial prince. But still I think that little John of Archangel will be heard upon this occasion, unless prevented by a quieting draft of hemlock or nightshade, for I suppose they are not arrived to the polider and gentiler poisons of aqua tufana, sugar plums, etc. Editors Note Aqua tufana, a Neapolitan slow poison resembling clear water and invented by a woman at Naples, of the name Tufana. End Note Lord Halifax has accepted his old employment with the honorary addition of the Cabinet Council, and so we heartily wish you a good night. End of Section 176 My dear friend, the sons of Britain, like those of Noah, must cover their parents' shame as well as they can, for to retrieve its honour is now too late. One would really think that our ministers and generals were all as drunk as the patriarch was. However, in your situation you must not be chum, but spread your cloak over our disgrace as far as it will go. M. calls aloud for a public trial, and in that, and that only, the public agree with him. There will certainly be one, but of what kind is not yet fixed? Some are for a parliamentary inquiry, others for a marshal one. Neither will, in my opinion, discover the true secret, for a secret their most unquestionably is. Why we stayed six whole days in the Island of Eggs mortal cannot imagine, which time the French employed, as it was obvious they would, in assembling their troops in the neighbourhood of Rochefort, and making our attempt then really impracticable. The day after we had taken the Island of Eggs, your friend, Colonel Wolfe, publicly offered to do the business with five hundred men and three ships only. In all these complicated political machines there are so many wheels that it is always difficult, and sometimes impossible, to guess which of them gives direction to the whole. Mr. Pitt is convinced that the principal wheels, or if you will, the spoke in his wheel, came from Stod. This is certain at least, that M. was the man of confidence with that person. Whatever be the truth of the case there is, to be sure, hitherto, and hiatus valde deflendis. The meeting of the Parliament will certainly be very numerous, where it only from curiosity. But the majority on the side of the court will, I dare say, be a great one. The people of the late Captain General, however inclined to oppose, will be obliged to concur. Their commissions, which they have no desire to lose, will make them tractable. For those gentlemen, though all men of honour, are of Sosia's mind. K'levrei infritiron esslui ou londine. The Tories and the City have engaged to support Pitt. The Whigs, the Duke of Newcastle. The Independent and the Impartial, as you well know, are not worth mentioning. It is said that the Duke intends to bring the affair of his Convention into Parliament, for his own justification. I can hardly believe it, as I cannot conceive that transactions so merely electoral can be proper objects of inquiry or deliberation for a British Parliament. And therefore, should such emotion be made, I presume it will be immediately quashed. By the commission lately given to Sir John Legogne of General and Commander-in-Chief of all his Majesty's forces in Great Britain, the door seems to be not only shut but bolted against his Highness's return, and I have good reason to be convinced that that breach is irreparable. The reports of changes in the Ministry I am pretty sure are idle and groundless. The Duke of Newcastle and Mr. Pitt really agree very well. Not, I presume, from any sentimental tenorness for each other, but from a sense that it is their mutual interest. And as the late Captain General's party is now out of the question, I do not see what should produce the least change. The visit made lately to Berlin was, I dare say, neither a friendly nor an inoffensive one. The Austrians always leave behind them pretty lasting monuments of their visits, or rather visitations. Not so much, I believe, from their thirst of glory as from their hunger of prey. This winter I take for granted must produce a piece of some kind or other, a bad one for us, no doubt, and yet perhaps better than we should get the year after. I suppose the King of Prussia is negotiating with France, and endeavouring by those means to get out of the scrape with the loss of Silesia, and perhaps Halbertsdott, by way of indemnification to Saxony, and, considering all circumstances, he would be well off upon those terms. But then how is Sweden to be satisfied? Will the Russians restore memel? Will France have been at all this expense, Grati? Must there be no acquisition for them in Flanders? I dare say they have stipulated something of that sort for themselves, by the additional and secret treaty which I know they made last May with the Queen of Hungary. Must we give up whatever the French pleased to desire in America, besides the session of Menorca in perpetuity? I fear we must, or else raise twelve millions more next year, to as little purpose as we did this, and have consequently a worst piece afterward. I turn my eyes away as much as I can from this miserable prospect, but as a citizen and member of society it recurs to my imagination, notwithstanding all my endeavours to banish it from my thoughts. I can do myself nor my country no good, but I feel the wretched situation of both. The state of the latter makes me better bear that of the former, and when I am called away from my station here, I shall think it rather, as Cicero says of Crassus, Mor's Donata Quamvita Erupta. I have often desired, but in vain, the favour of being admitted into your private apartment at Hamburg, and of being informed of your private life there. Your mornings, I hope and believe, are employed in business, but give me an account of the remainder of the day, which I suppose is and ought to be appropriated to amusements and pleasures. In what houses are you domestic? Who are so in yours? In short, let me in, and do not be denied me. Here I am, as usual, seeing few people and hearing fewer, drinking the waters regularly to a minute, and I am something the better for them. I read a great deal, and very occasionally my dead company. I converse with grave folios in the morning, while my head is clearest and my attention strongest. I take up less severe quarters after dinner, and at night I choose the mixed company and amusing chit-chat of octavos and duodesimos. Yetir pati de tu segui je puis. That is my philosophy, and I mitigate, as much as I can, my physical ills by diverting my attention to other objects. Here is a report that Admiral Hullborn's fleet is destroyed, in a manner by a storm. I hope it is not true in the full extent of the report, but I believe it has suffered. This would fill up the measure of our misfortunes. Adju. CHESTERFIELD'S LEADERS to his son, read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. LETTER 213 BATH November 20th, 1757 My dear friend, I write to you now, because I love to write to you, and hope that my letters are welcome to you, for otherwise I have very little to inform you of. The King of Prussia's late victory you are better informed of than we are here. It has given infinite joy to the unthinking public, who are not aware that it comes too late in the year and too late in the war, to be attended with any very great consequences. There are six or seven thousand of the human species less than there were a month ago, and that seems to me to be all. However, I am glad of it, upon account of the pleasure and the glory which it gives to the King of Prussia, to whom I wish well as a man, more than as a king. And surely he is so great a man, that had he lived seventeen or eighteen hundred years ago, and his life been transmitted to us in a language that we could not very well understand, I mean either Greek or Latin, we should have talked of him now as we do of your Alexanders, your Caesars, and others, with whom I believe we have but a very slight acquaintance. Ogress, I do not see that his affairs are much mended by this victory. The same combination of the great powers of Europe against him still subsists, and must at last prevail. I believe the French army will melt away, as is usual in Germany, but this army is extremely diminished by battles, fatigues, and desertion, and he will find great difficulties in recruiting it from his own already exhausted dominions. He must, therefore, and to be sure will, negotiate privately with the French, and get better terms that way than he could any other. The report of the three General Officers, the Duke of Marlboro, Lord George Sackville, and General Waldgrabe, was laid before the King last Saturday, after their having sat four days upon M's affair. Nobody yet knows what it is, but it is generally believed that M will be brought to a court-martial. What you may not mistake this matter, as most people do hear, I must explain to you that this examination before the three above mentioned General Officers was by no means a trial, but only a previous inquiry into his conduct, to see whether there was, or was not, cause to bring him to a regular trial before a court-martial. The case is exactly parallel to that of a grand jury, who upon a previous and general examination, find or do not find a bill to bring the matter before the petty jury, where the fact is finally tried. For my own part, my opinion is fixed upon that affair. I am convinced that the expedition was to be defeated, and nothing that can appear before a court-martial can make me alter that opinion. I have been too long acquainted with human nature to have great regard for human testimony, and a very great degree of probability, supported by various concurrent circumstances, conspiring in one point, will have much greater weight with me than human testimony upon oath, or even upon honor, both which I have frequently seen considerably warped by private views. The Parliament, which now stands prolonged to the first of next month, it is thought will be put off for some time longer, till we know in what light to lay before it the state of our alliance with Prussia, since the conclusion of the Hanover neutrality, which, if it did not quite break it, made at least a great flaw in it. The birthday was neither fine nor crowded, and no wonder, since the King was that day seventy-five. The old court and the young one are much better together since the Duke's retirement, and the King has presented the Prince of Wales with the service of plate. I am still unwell, though I drink these waters very regularly. I will stay here at least six weeks longer, where I am much quieter than I should be allowed to be in town. When things are in such a miserable situation as they are at I desire neither to be concerned nor consulted, still less quoted. Adieu. End of Section 178, read by Professor Heatheran Bye. For more free audio books or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Section 179 of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. Chapter 214, Bath, November 26, 1757 My dear friend, I received by the last mail your short account of the King of Prussia's victory, which victory, contrary to custom, turns out more complete than it was at first reported to be. This appears by an intercepted letter from Monsieur de Saint-Germain to Monsieur d'Orphry at the Hague, in which he tells him S'et-aum est entièrement fondue, and lays the blame very strongly upon Monsieur de Subis. But be it greater or be it less, I am glad of it, because the King of Prussia, whom I honor and almost adore, I am sure is. Tho d'allure between you and me, ou ce que c'est la mine? To nothing, while that formidable union of three great powers of Europe subsists against him. Could that be in any way broken, something might be done? Not which nothing can. I take it for granted that the King of Prussia will do all he can to detach France. Why should not we, on our part, try to detach Russia? At least in our present distressed, omnia tetanda, and sometimes a lucky and unexpected hit turns up. This thought came into my head this morning, and I give it to you, not as a very probable scheme, but as a possible one, and consequently worth trying. The year of the Russian subsidies, nominally paid by the Court of Vienna, but really by France, is near expired. The former probably cannot, and perhaps the latter will not renew them. The Court of St. Petersburg is beggarly, profuse, greedy, and by no means scrupulous. Why should we not step in there and outbid them? If we could, we buy a great army at once, which would give an entire new turn to the affairs of that part of the world at least. And if we bid handsomely, I do not believe the bon foie of that Court would stand in the way. Both our Court and our Parliament would, I am very sure, give a very great sum, and very cheerfully for this purpose. In the next place, why should not you wriggle yourself, if possible, into so great a scheme? You are, no doubt, much acquainted with the Russian resident, Soltokov. Why should you not sound him, as entirely from yourself, upon this subject? You may ask him, what, does your Court intend to go on next year in the pay of France, to destroy the liberties of all Europe, and throw universal monarchy into the hands of that already great and always ambitious power? I know you think, or at least call yourselves, the allies of the Empress Queen. But is it not plain that she will be, in the first place, and you in the next, the dupes of France? At this very time you are doing the work of France and Sweden, and that for some miserable subsidies, much inferior to those which I am sure you might have, in a better cause, and more consistent with the true interest of Russia. Though not empowered, I know the manner of thinking of my own Court so well upon this subject, that I will venture to promise you much better terms than those you have now, without the least apprehensions of being disavowed. Should he listen to this, and what more may occur to you to say upon this subject, and ask you, En écréerai j'ai de ma corps? Answer him, écréerai, écréerai, monsieur Radmon, je prendrai tout cela sous moi. Should this happen, as perhaps, and as I heartily wish it may, then write an exact relation of it to your own Court. Tell them that you thought the measure of such great importance that you could not help taking this little step toward bringing it about, but that you mentioned it is only from yourself, and that you have not in the least committed them by it. If Sultakov lends himself in any degree to this, insinuate that, in the present situation of affairs, and particularly of the king's electoral dominions, you are very sure that his majesty would have une reconnaissance sans bon, for all those by whose means so desirable a revival of an old and long friendship should be brought about. You will perhaps tell me that, without doubt, Mr. Keith's instructions are to the same effect, but I will answer you that if you can, if you please, do it better than Mr. Keith, and in the next place, that be all that is at will, it must be very advantageous to you at home, to show that you have at least a contriving head, and an alertness in business. I had a letter by the last post, from the Duke of New Castle, in which he congratulates me, in his own name and in Lord Hardwick's, upon the approbation which your dispatches give, not only to them too, but to others. This success so early should encourage your diligence and rouse your ambition, if you have any. You may go a great way if you desire it, having so much time before you. I send you here in close the copy of the report of the three officers, appointed to examine previously into the conduct of General M. It is ill-written and ill-spelled, but no matter. You will decipher it. You will observe, by the tenor of it, that it points strongly to a court-martial, which no doubt will soon be held upon him. I presume there will be no shooting in the final sentence, but I do suppose there will be breaking, etc. I have had some severe returns of my old complaints last week, and am still unwell. I cannot help it. A friend of yours arrived here three days ago. She seems to me to be a serviceable, strong-bodied bay mare, with black mane and tail. You easily guess who I mean. She has come with mamma, and without carouspozo. Adju, my head will not let me go on longer. Section 180 of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. Letter 215, Bath December 31st, 1757 My dear friend, I have this moment received your letter of the eighteenth, with the enclosed papers. I cannot help observing that, till then you never acknowledge the receipt of any one of my letters. I can easily conceive that party spirit, among your brother ministers at Hamburg, runs as high as you represent it, because I can easily believe the errors of the human mind, but at the same time I must observe that such a spirit is the spirit of little minds and subaltern ministers, who think to atone by zeal for their want of merit and importance. The political differences of the several courts should never influence the personal behavior of their several ministers toward one another. There is a certain procéd noble aiglant, which should always be observed among the ministers of powers even at war with each other, which will always turn out to the advantage of the ableist, who will, in those conversations, find, or make, opportunities of throwing out, or of receiving useful hints. When I was last at the Hague we were at war with both France and Spain, so that I could neither visit nor be visited by the ministers of those two crowns. But we met every day, or dined at third places, where we embraced as personal friends, and trifled at the same time upon our being political enemies, and by this sort of badinage I discovered some things which I wanted to know. There is not a more prudent maxim than to live with one's enemies as if they may one day become one's friends, as it commonly happens sooner or later in the vicissitudes of political affairs. To your question, which is a rational and prudent one, whether I was authorized to give you the hints concerning Russia by any people in power here, I will tell you that I was not. But as I had pressed them to try what might be done with Russia, and got Mr. Keith to be dispatched there some month sooner than otherwise, I daresay he would, with the proper instructions for that purpose. I wished that, by the hints I gave you, you might have got the start of him, and the merit at least of having un-tom that matter with Sotokalp. What you have to do with him now, when you meet with him in any third place, or at his own house, where you are at liberty to go, while Russia has a minister in London, and we a minister at Petersburg, is, in my opinion, to say to him, in an easy and cheerful manner, He bien, monsieur, je me flat que nous serons bien tôt à mes publics, aussi bien qu'à mes personales, to which he will probably ask why or how. You will reply, because you know that Mr. Keith is gone to his court with instructions, which you think must necessarily be agreeable there, and throw out to him that nothing but a change of their present system can save Livonia to Russia, for he cannot suppose that, while the Swedes shall have recovered Pomerania, they will long leave Russia in quiet possession of Livonia. If he is so much a Frenchman as you say, he will make you some weak answers to this, but as you will have the better of the argument on your side, you may remind him of the old and almost uninterrupted connection between France and Sweden, the inveterate enemy of Russia. Many other arguments will naturally occur to you in such a conversation, if you have it. In this case there is a piece of ministerial art which is sometimes abuse, and that is to sow jealousies among one's enemies, by a seeming preference shown to some one of them. Monsieur Hex's reveries are reveries indeed. How should his master have made the golden arrangements which he talks of, and which are to be forged into shackles for general firmer? The Prussian finances are not in a condition now to make such expensive arrangements. But I think you may tell Monsieur Hex, in confidence, that you hope the instructions with which you know Mr. Keith is gone to Petersburg may have some effect upon the measures of that court. I would advise you to live with that same Monsieur Hex in all the confidence, familiarity, and connection which prudence will allow. I mean it with regard to the King of Prussia himself, by whom I could wish you to be known and esteemed as much as possible. It may be of use to you some day or other. If man, courage, conduct, constancy, can get the better of all the difficulties which the King of Prussia has to struggle with, he will rise superior to them. But still, while his alliance subsists against him, I dread les grosses cadrons. His last victory of the fifth was certainly the completest that has been heard of these many years. I heartily wish the Prince of Brunswick just such a one over Monsieur de Richelieu's army, and that he may take my old acquaintance, the Marshal, and send him over here to polish and perfume us. I heartily wish you, in the plain, home-spun style, a great number of happy new years, well employed in forming both your mind and your manners, to be useful and agreeable to yourself, your country, and your friends. That these wishes are sincere, your Secretary's brother will, by the time of your receiving this, have admitted you a proof from yours. CHESTORFIELD'S LETTERS to his son, read for LibriVox.org, into the public domain. LETTER 216, London, February 8th, 1758. My dear friend, I received by the same post your two letters of the thirteenth and seventeenth past, and yesterday that of the twenty-seventh, with the Russian manifesto enclosed, in which her imperial majesty of all the rushes has been pleased to give every reason except the true one, for the march of her troops against the King of Prussia. The true one, I take it to be, that she has just received a very great sum of money from France, or the Empress-Queen, or both, for that purpose. Poin d'argent, poin de russe, is now become a maxim. Never may be the motive of their march, the effects must be bad. And according to my speculations, those troops will replace the French in Hanover and Lower Saxony, and the French will go and join the Austrian army. You asked me if I still despond, not so much as I did after the Battle of Cullen. The battles of Raspach and Lyssa were drams to me, and gave me some momentary spurts, but though I do not absolutely despair, I own I greatly distrust. I readily allow the King of Prussia to be neck-pluribus impar, but still, when the pluris amount to a certain degree of plurality, courage and abilities must yield at last. Michel here assures me that he does not mind the Russians, but as I have it from the gentleman's own mouth I do not believe him. We shall very soon send a squadron to the Baltic to entertain the Swedes, which I believe will put an end to their operations in Pomerania, so that I have no great apprehensions from that quarter. But Russia, I confess, sticks in my stomach. Everything goes smoothly in Parliament. The King of Prussia has united all our parties in his support, and the Tories have declared that they will give Mr. Pitt unlimited credit for this session. There has not been one single division yet upon public points, and I believe will not. Our American expedition is preparing to go soon. The disposition of that affair seems to me a little extraordinary. Your crombie is to be the sedentary and not the acting commander. Amherst, Lord Howe, and Wolf are to be the acting, and I hope the active officers. I wish they may agree. Amherst, who is the oldest officer, is under the influence of the same great person who influenced Mordant, so much to honor and advantage of this country. This is most certain, that we have force enough in America to eat up the French alive in Canada, Quebec, and Louisburg, if we have but skill and spirit enough to exert it properly. But of that I am modest enough to doubt. When you come to the egotism, which I have long desired you to come to with me, you need make no excuses for it. The egotism is as proper and as satisfactory to one's friends as it is impertinent and misplaced with strangers. I desire to see you in your everyday clothes, by your fireside, in your pleasures, in short, in your private life, but I have not yet been able to obtain this. Whenever you condescend to do it, as you promise, stick to truth, for I am not so uninformed of Hamburg as perhaps you may think. As for myself, I am very unwell, and very weary of being so, and with little hopes at my age of ever being otherwise. I often wish for the end of the wretched remnant of my life, and that wish is a rational one. But then the innate principle of self-preservation, wisely implanted in our natures for obvious purposes, oppresses that wish, and makes us endeavour to spin out our thread as long as we can, however decayed and rotten it may be. And in defiance of common sense, we seek on for that comic gold, which beggars us when old. Whatever your amusements or pleasures may be at Hamburg, I dare say you taste them more sensibly than ever you did in your life, now that you have business enough to wet your appetite to them. Since one half of the day is the best preparation for the pleasures of the other half. I hope and believe that it will be with you as it was with an apothecary whom I knew at Twickenham. A considerable estate fell to him by an unexpected accident, upon which he thought it decent to leave off his business. Accordingly he generously gave up his shop and his stock to his headman, set up his coach, and resolved to live like a gentleman. But in less than a month the man, used to business, found that living like a gentleman was dying of ennui, upon which he bought his shop and stock, resumed his trade, and lived very happily, after he had something to do. I received yesterday your letter of the second instant, with the which I returned to you, that there may be no chasm in your papers. I had heard before of Burish's death, and had taken some steps there upon, but I very soon dropped that affair for ninety-nine good reasons, the first of which was that nobody is to go in his room, and that, had he lived, he was to have been recalled from Munich. But another reason, more flattering for you, was that you could not be spared from Hamburg. On the whole I am not sorry for it, as the place where you are now is the great entrepot of business, and when it ceases to be so, you will necessarily go to some of the courts in the neighborhood, Berlin I hope and believe, which will be a much more desirable situation than to rush at Munich, where we can never have any business beyond a subsidy. Do but go on, and exert yourself where you are, and better things will soon follow. Surely the inaction of our army at Hanover continues too long. We expected wonders from it some time ago, and yet nothing is attempted. The French will soon receive reinforcements, and then be too strong for us, whereas they are now most certainly greatly weakened by desertion, sickness, and deaths. Does the king of Prussia send a body of men to our army or not, or has the march of the Russians cut him outwork for all his troops? I am afraid it has. If one body of Russians joins the Austrian army in Moravia, and another body the Swedes in Pomerania, he will have his hands very full. Too full, I fear. The French say they will have an army of 180,000 men in Germany this year. The empress queen will have 150,000. If the Russians have but 40,000, what can resist such a force? The king of Prussia may say, indeed, with more justice than ever any one person could before him, moi mesdier suprest. You promised some egotism, but I have received none yet. Do you frequent the land-grave? Hintex vous les grands de la terre? What are the connections of the evening? All this and a great deal more of this kind, let me know in your next. The House of Commons is still very unanimous. There was a little popular squib let off this week in a motion of Sir John Glens, seconded by Sir John Phillips, for annual parlements. It was a very cold scent, and put an end to by a division of 190 to 70. Good night. Work hard that you may divert yourself well. Letter 218 London, March 4, 1758 My dear friend, I should have been much more surprised at the contents of your letter of the 17th past if I had not happened to have seen Sir C. W. about three or four hours before I received it. I thought he talked in an extraordinary manner. He engaged that the king of Prussia should be master of Vienna in the month of May, and he told me that you were very much in love with his daughter. Your letter explained all this to me, and next day Lord and Lady E. gave me innumerable instances of his frenzy, with which I shall not trouble you. What it inflamed the more, if it did not entirely occasion it, was a great quantity of Ken Thurides, which, it seems, he had taken at Hamburg, to recommend himself, I suppose, to Mademoiselle Jean. He was let blood four or five times on board the ship, and has been let blood four or five times since his arrival here, but still the inflammation continues very high. He is now under the care of his brothers, who do not let him go abroad. They have written to this same Mademoiselle Jean to prevent, if they can, her coming to England, and hold her the case, which when she hears she must be as mad as he is if she takes the journey. By the way, she must be un dame aventurier, to receive a note for ten thousand rubles from a man whom she had known but three days, to take a contract of marriage, knowing he was married already, and to engage herself to follow him to England. I suppose this is not the first aventure of the sort which she has had. After the news we received yesterday, that the French had evacuated Hanover, all but Hamel, we daily expect much better. We pursue them, we cut them off and detail, and at last we destroy their whole army. I wish it may happen, and, moreover, I think it not impossible. My head is much out of order, and only allows me to wish you good night. I have now your letter of the Eighth lying before me, with the favourable account of our progress in lower Saxony, and a reasonable prospect of more decisive success. I confess I did not expect this, when my friend Munchhausen took his leave of me to go to Stade and break the neutrality. I thought it at least a dangerous but rather a desperate undertaking, whereas hitherto it has proved a very fortunate one. I look upon the French army as fondue, and, what with desertions, deaths, and epidemical distempers, I dare say not a third of it will ever return to France. The great object is now what the Russians can or will do, and whether the King of Prussia can hinder their junction with the Austrians by beating either before they join. I will trust him for doing all that can be done. Sir C.W. is still in confinement, and I fear will always be so, for he seems comrassion insanière. The physicians have collected all he has said and done that indicated an alienation of mine, and have laid it before him in writing. He has answered it in writing, too, and justifies himself in the most plausible arguments that can possibly be urged. He tells his brother, and the few who are allowed to see him, that they are such narrow and contracted minds themselves, that they take those for mad who have a great and generous way of thinking. As for instance, when he determined to send his daughter over to you in a fortnight to be married, without any previous agreements or settlements, as it was because he had long known you and loved you as a man of sense and honour, and therefore would not treat with you as with an attorney. That as for Mademoiselle Jean he knew her merit and her circumstances, and asks whether it is a sign of madness to have a due regard for the one, and adjust compassion for the other. I will not tire you with enumerating any more instances of the poor man's frenzy, but conclude this subject with pitying him, and poor human nature, which holds its reason by so precarious a tenure. The lady, who you tell me is set out, inserra pour la scène et les frais de voyage, for her note is worth no more than her contract. By the way, she must be a kinder aventurier, to engage so easily in such an adventure with a man whom she had not known above a week, and whose debut of ten thousand rubles showed him not to be in his right senses. You will probably have seen General York by this time in his way to Berlin or Breslau, or wherever the king of Prussia may be. As he keeps his commission to the state's general, I presume he is not long to stay with his Prussian majesty. But however, while he is there, take care to write to him very constantly, and to give all the information you can. His father, Lord Hardwick, is your great puff. He commends your office-letters exceedingly. I would have the Berlin commission your object in good time. Never lose view of it. Do all you can to recommend yourself to the king of Prussia on your side of the water, and to smooth your way for that commission on this. By the turn which things have taken of late, it must always be the most important of all foreign commissions from hence. I have no news to send you, as things here are extremely quiet. So good night. Letter 222 London, April 25th, 1758 Dear friend, I am now two letters in your debt, which I think is the first time that ever I was so, in the long course of our correspondence. But besides that my head has been very much out of order of late, writing is by no means that easy thing that it was to me formerly. I find by experience that the mind and the body are more than married, for they are most intimately united, and when the one suffers the other sympathizes. Nonsum qualus erum. Neither my memory nor my invention are now what they formerly were. It is in a great measure my own fault. I cannot accuse nature for I abused her, and it is reasonable I should suffer for it. I do not like the return of the impression upon your lungs, but the rigor of the cold may probably have brought it upon you, and your lungs not in fault. Take care to live very cool and let your diet be rather low. We have had a second winter here, more severe than the first, at least it seems so, from a premature summer that we had, for a fortnight in March, which brought everything forward only to be destroyed. I have experienced it at Blackheath, where the promise of fruit was a most flattering one, and all nipped in the bud by frost and snow in April. I shall not have a single peach or apricot. I have nothing to tell you from hence concerning public affairs, but what you read in the newspapers. This only is extraordinary, that last week in the House of Commons, above ten millions were granted, and the whole Hanover army taken into British pay, with but one single negative, which was Mr. Viner's. Mr. Pitt gains ground in the closet, and yet does not lose it in the public. That is new. Mr. Niphausen has dined with me. He is one of the prettiest fellows I have seen. He has, with a great deal of life and fire, les manières du nonneton, et le temps de la parfaitement bon compagnie. You like him yourself. Try to be like him. It is in your power. I hear that Mr. Mitchell is to be recalled, not withstanding the King of Prussia's instances to keep him. But why is the secret that I cannot penetrate? You will not fail to offer the land-grave and the Princess of Hesse, who I find are going home, to be their agent and commissioner at Hamburg. I cannot comprehend the present state of Russia, nor the motions of their armies. They change their generals once a week, and sometimes they march with rapidity, and now they lie quiet behind the Vistula. We have a thousand stories here of the interior of that government, none of which I believe. Some say that the Great Duke will be set aside. Warnshoff is said to be entirely a Frenchman, and that Monsieur de l'Hôpital governs both him and the court. Cersei W. is said, by his indiscretions, to have caused the disgrace of Bestiussev, which seems not impossible. In short, everything of every kind is said, because I believe very little is truly known. Apropos of Cersei W., he is out of confinement, and gone to his house in the country for the whole summer. They say he is now very cool and well. I have seen his Cersei at her window in Parmal. She is painted, powdered, curled, and patched, and looks, la venteur. She has been offered, by Cersei W.'s friends, five hundred pounds in full of all demands, but will not accept of it. La comtesse vous plaît d'air, and, I fancy, fait autre chose s'y opute, j'ai bien évalueré. CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS TO HIS SON My dear friend, I have your letter of the ninth, now before me, and can dull with you upon the present solitude and inaction of Hamburg. You are now shrunk from the dignity and importance of a consimate minister, to be but, as it were, a common man. But this has, at one time or another, been the case of most great men who have not always had equal opportunities of exerting their talents. The greatest must submit to the capriciousness of fortune, though they can, better than others, improve the favorable moments. For instance, who could have thought, two years ago, that you would have been the Atlas of the Northern Pole, but the good genius of the North ordered it so? And now that you have set that part of the globe right, you return to Othium come dignitate. But to be serious, now that you cannot have much office business to do, I could tell you what to do that would employ you, I should think, both usefully and agreeably. I mean that you should write short memoirs of that busy scene, in which you have been enough concerned, since your arrival at Hamburg, to be able to put together authentic facts and anecdotes. I do not know whether you will give yourself the trouble to do it or not, but I know that if you will, allem hech me minnes jevabet. I would have them short, but correct as to facts and dates. I have told Alt, in the strongest manner, your lamentations for the loss of the House of Castle, et il in ferrag repos asson sernisme martre. When you are quite idle, as probably you may be some time this summer, why should you not ask leave to make a tour to Castle for a week? Which would certainly be granted you from hence, which would be looked upon as a bon porced at Castle. The King of Prussia is probably by this time at the gates of Vienna, making the Queen of Hungary really do what Monsieur de Belle-Hille only threatened, sign a peace upon the ramparts of her capital. If she is obstinate, and will not, she must fly either to Pressburg or Innsbruck, and Vienna must fall. But I think he will offer her reasonable conditions enough for herself, and I suppose that, in that case, Connitz will be reasonable enough to advise her to accept of them. What turn would the war take then? Would the French and Russians carry it on without her? The King of Prussia and the Prince of Brunswick would soon sweep them out of Germany. By this time, too, I believe, the French are entertained in America with the loss of Kate Bretton. And in consequence of that, Quebec, for we have a force there equal to both those undertakings, and officers there now that will execute what Lord L. never would so much as attempt. His appointments were too considerable to let him do anything that might possibly put an end to the war. Lord Howe, upon seeing plainly that he was resolved to do nothing, had asked leave to return, as well as Lord Charles Haye. We have a great expedition preparing, and which will soon be ready to sail from the Isle of Wight. Fifteen thousand good troops, eighty battering cannons, besides mortars, and every other thing in abundance, fit for either battle or siege. Lord Anson desired, and is appointed, to command the fleet employed upon this expedition, a proof that it is not a trifling one. Conjectures concerning its destination are infinite, and the most ignorant are, as usual, the boldest conjecturers. If I form any conjectures I keep them to myself, not to be disproved by the event, but in truth I form none. I might have known, but would not. Everything seems to tend to peace next winter, our success in America which is hardly doubtful, and the King of Prussia's in Germany which is, as little so, will make France, already sick of the expense of the war, very tractable for a peace. I heartily wish it, for though people's heads are half turned with the King of Prussia's success, and will be quite turned if we have any in America or at sea, a moderate peace will suit us better than this immoderate war of twelve millions a year. Domestic affairs go just as they did. The Duke of Newcastle and Mr. Pitt jog on like man and wife, that is, seldom agreeing, often quarreling, but by mutual interest upon the whole not parting. The latter, I am told, gains ground in the closet, though he still keeps his strength in the house, and his popularity in the public, or perhaps because of that. Do you hold your resolution of visiting your dominions of Bremen and Lubeck this summer? If you do, pray take the trouble of informing yourself correctly of the several constitutions and customs of those places, and of the present state of the Federal Union of the Hanseatic towns. It will do you no harm, nor cost you much trouble, and it is so much clear gain on the side of useful knowledge. I am now settled at Blackheath for the summer, where unseasonable frost and snow, and hot and parching east winds, have destroyed all my fruit, and almost my fruit trees. I vegetate myself little better than they do. I crawl about on foot and on horseback, read a great deal, and write a little, and am very much yours. Section 185 of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son. Read for Librebox.org into the public domain. Letter 222. Blackheath. May 30th, 1758. My dear friend, I have no letter from you to answer, so this goes to you unprovoked. But apropos of letters, you have had a great honour done you in a letter from a fair and royal hand, no less than that of her royal Highness the Princess of Castle. She has written your pentagery to her sister, Princess Amelia, who sent me a compliment upon it. This has likewise done you no harm with the King, who said gracious things upon that occasion. I suppose you had for her royal Highness those attentions which I wished to God you would have and due proportions for everybody. You see by this instance the effects of them. They are always repaid with interest. I am more confirmed by this in thinking that, if you can conveniently, you should ask leave to go for a week to Castle, to return your thanks for all favours received. I cannot expound to myself the conduct of the Russians. There must be a trick in their not marching with more expedition. They have either had a sought from the King of Prussia, or they want an animating dram from France and Austria. The King of Prussia's conduct always explains itself by the events, and within a very few days we must certainly hear of some very great stroke from that quarter. I think I never in my life remember a period of time so big with great events as the present. Within the same space of time we shall certainly hear of the taking of Cape Breton, and of our armies proceeding to Quebec. Within a few days we shall know the good or ill success of our great expedition, for it is sailed, and it cannot be long before we shall hear something of the Prince of Brunswick's operations, from whom I also expect good things. If all these things turn out, as there is good reason to believe they will, we may once in our turn dictate a reasonable piece to France, who now pays seventy percent insurance upon its trade, and seven percent for all the money raised for the service of the year. Not Bothmar has got the smallpox, and of a bad kind. Niphausen diverts himself much here, he sees all places in all people, and is ubiquity itself. Mitchell, who was much threatened, stays at last at Berlin, at the earnest request of the King of Prussia. Lady is safely delivered of a son to the great joy of that noble family. The expression of a woman's having brought her husband a son seems to be a proper and cautious one, for it is never said from whence. I was going to ask you how you passed your time at Hamburg, since it is no longer the seat of strangers and of business. But I will not, because I know it is to no purpose. You have sworn not to tell me. Sir William Stanhope told me that you promised to send him some old hot from Hamburg, and so you did not. If you meet with any superlatively good, and not else, pray send over a fudra of it, and write to him. I shall have a share in it. But unless you find some, either at Hamburg or at Brayman, uncommonly and almost miraculously good, do not send any. Dixie, yours. Letter 223. Blackheath, June 13th, 1758. My dear friend. The secret is out, Sintmallow is the devoted place. Our troops began to land at the Bay of Kankal, the fifth, without any opposition. We have no further accounts yet, but expect some every moment. By the plan of it which I have seen, it is by no means a weak place, and I fear there will be many hats to be disposed of, before it is taken. There are in the port above thirty privateers, about sixteen of their own, and as many taken from us. Now for Africa, where we have had great success. The French have been driven out of all their forts and settlements upon the gum-coast and upon the river Senegal. They had been many years in possession of them, and by them annoyed our African trade exceedingly, which by the way, toute proportion gardée, is the most lucrative trade we have. The present booty is likewise very considerable in gold dust and gum Seneca, which is very valuable by being a very necessary commodity for all our stained and printed linens. Now for America. The least sanguine people here expect, the latter end of this month or the beginning of the next, to have the account of the taking of Cape Breton and of all the forts with hard names in North America. Captain Clive has long settled Asia to our satisfaction, so that three parts of the world look very favourable for us. Europe, I submit to the care of the King of Prussia and Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, and I think they will give a good account of it. France is out of luck, and out of courage, and will, I hope, be enough out of spirits to submit to a reasonable peace. By reasonable I mean what all people call reasonable in their own case, an advantageous one for us. I have set all right with Munchhausen, who would not own that he was at all offended, and said, as you do, that his daughter did not stay long enough, nor appear enough at Hamburg, for you possibly to know that she was there. But people are always ashamed to own the little weaknesses of self-love, which, however, all people feel more or less. The excuse I saw pleased. I will send you your quadril tables by the first opportunity, consigned to the care of Mr. Matthias here. Felices fostequecent. May you win upon them when you play with men, and when you play with women, either win or know why you lose. Miss Mary's Mr. next week, who proffers love, proffers death, says weller to a dwarf. In my opinion, the conclusion must instantly choke the little lady. Admiral Mary's lady, there the danger, if danger is, will be on the other side. The lady has wanted a man so long that she now compounds for half a one. Half a loaf. I have been worse since my last letter, but I am now, I think, recovering. Tant va la couche à l'eau, and I have been there very often. Good night. I am faithfully and truly yours. End of Section 185, read by Professor Heather M. Baye. For more free audiobooks or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Section 186 of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son, read with LibriVox.org into the public domain. Letter 224, Blackheath, June 27th, 1758. My dear friend, you either have received already, or will very soon receive, a little case from Amsterdam, directed to you at Hamburg. It is for Princess Amelia, the King of Precious Sister, and contains some books which she desires Sir Charles Hottam to procure her from England, so long ago as when he was at Berlin. He sent for them immediately, but, by I do not know what puzzle, they were recommended to the care of Mr. Selwyn, at Paris, who took such care of them that he kept them near three years in his warehouse, and has at last sent them to Amsterdam from whence they are sent to you. If the books are good for anything, they must be considerably improved, by having seen so much of the world. But as I believe they are English books, perhaps they may, like English travellers, have seen nobody but the several bankers to whom they were consigned. Be that as it will, I think you had best delivered them to Mr. Hect, the Prussian minister at Hamburg, to forward to her Royal Highness, with a respectful compliment from you, which you will, no doubt, turn in the best manner, and Selon le bon ton de la parfaitement bonne compagnie. You have already seen in the papers all the particulars of our Saint Malo's expedition, so I say no more of that, only that Mr. Pitt's friends exult in the destruction of three French ships of war, and one hundred and thirty privateers in trading ships, and affirm that it stopped the march of three score-thousand men, who were going to join the Comte de Clermont's army. On the other hand, Mr. Fox and company call it breaking windows with guineas, and apply the fable of the mountain and the mouse. The next object of our fleet was to be the bombarding of Granville, which is the great entrepôt of their newfoundland fishery, and will be a considerable loss to them in that branch of their trade. These you will perhaps say are no great matters, and I say so too, but at least they are signs of life, which we had not given them for many years before, and will show the French, by our invading them, that we do not fear their invading us. Were those invasions in fishing boats from Dunkirk so terrible as they were artfully represented to be, the French would have had an opportunity of executing them, while our fleet, and such a considerable part of our army, were employed upon their coast. But my Lord Le Guinier does not want an army at home. The Parliament is prorogued by a most gracious speech neither by nor from His Majesty, who was too ill to go to the house. The Lords and gentlemen are, consequently most of them gone, to their several counties, to do, to be sure, all the good that is recommended to them in the speech. London, I am told, is now very empty, for I cannot say so from a knowledge. I vegetate wholly here. I walk and read a great deal, ride and scribble a little, according as my let allows, or my spirits prompt, to write anything tolerable. The mind must be in a natural, proper disposition. Provocatives in that case, as well as in another, will only produce miserable, abortive performances. Now that you have, as I suppose, full leisure enough, I wish you would give yourself the trouble, or rather pleasure, to do what I hinted to you some time ago. That is, to write short memoirs of those affairs which have either gone through your hands, or that have come to your certain knowledge, from the inglorious battle of Hastinbeck, to the still more scandalous treaty of neutrality. Connect at least, if it be by ever so short notes, the pieces and letters which you must necessarily have in your hands, and throw in the authentic anecdotes that you have probably heard. You will be glad when you have done it, and the reviving past ideas, in some ordering method, will be an infinite comfort to you hereafter. I have a thousand times regretted not having done so. It is at present too late for me to begin. This is the right time for you, and your life is likely to be a busy one. Would young men avail themselves of the advice and experience of their old friends, they would find the utility in their youth, and the comfort of it in their more advanced age. But they seldom consider that, and you less than anybody I ever knew. May you soon grow wiser, adieu. Letter 225 Blackheath, June 30th, 1758 My dear friend, this letter follows my last very close, but I received yours of the fifteenth in the short interval. You did very well not to buy any renish at the exorbitant price you mentioned, without further directions. For both my brother and I think the money better than the money, be the wine ever so good. We will content ourselves with our stock in hand of humble renish, of about three shillings a bottle. However, pour la rété du fait, I will lay out twelve duquettes for twelve bottles of the wine of sixteen sixty-five, by way of an eventual corduole, if you can obtain a cenotus consultum for it. I am in no hurry for it, so send it to me only when you can conveniently. Well packed up, c'est temps. You will, I daresay, have leave to go to castle, and if you do, you will perhaps think it reasonable that I, who was the advisor of the journey, should pay the expense of it. I think so, too, and therefore, if you go, I will remit the one hundred pounds which you have calculated it at. You will find the house of castle the house of gladness, for Hanau is already, or must be soon, delivered of its French guests. The Prince of Brunswick's victory is, by all the skillful, thought a chef d'oeuvre, worthy of Turin, Condé, or the most illustrious human butchers. The French behaved better at Rospach, especially the Carbignet Royau, who could not be on Tom. I wish the siege of Olmutz well over, and a victory after it, and that, with good news from America, which I think there is no reason to doubt of, must procure us a good peace at the end of the year. The Prince of Brunswick's death is no public misfortune. There was a jealousy and alienation between the King and him, which could never have been made up between the possessor of the Crown and the next heir to it. He will make something of his nephew, Sile du Bois d'One-en-Faye. He is young enough to forgive, and to be forgiven, the possession and the expectative for at least some years. Adieu, I am unwell, but affectionately yours.