TO THE EARL OF HERTFORD.

Strawberry Hill, August 3, 1764.

As my letters are seldom proper for the post now, I begin them at any time, and am forced to trust to chance for a conveyance. This difficulty renders my news very stale: but what can I do? There does not happen enough at this season of the year to fill a mere gazette. I should be more sorry to have you think me silent too long. You must be so good as to recollect, when there is a large interval between my letters, that I have certainly one ready in my writing-box, and only wait for a messenger. I hope to send this by Lord Coventry. For the next three weeks, indeed, I shall not be able to write, as I go in a few days with your brother to Chatsworth and Wentworth Castle.

I am under more distress about my visit to you-but I will tell you the truth. As I think the Parliament will not meet before Christmas, though they now talk of it for November, I would quit our politics for a few weeks; but the expense frightens me, which did not use to be one of my fears. I cannot but expect, knowing the enemies I have, that the treasury may distress me. I had laid by a little sum which I intended to bawble away at Paris; but I may have very serious occasion for it. The recent example of Lord Holderness, who has had every rag seized at the Custom-house, alarms my present prudence. I cannot afford to buy even clothes, which I may lose in six weeks. These considerations dispose me to wait till I see a little farther into this chaos. You know enough of the present actors in the political drama to believe that the present system is not a permanent one, nor likely to roll on till Christmas without some change. The first moment that I can quit party with honour, I shall seize. It neither suits my inclination nor the years I have lived in the world; for though I am not old, I have been in the world so long, and seen so much of those who figure in it, that I am heartily sick of its commerce. My attachment to your brother, and the apprehension that fear of my own interest would be thought the cause if I took no part for him, determined me to risk every thing rather than abandon him. I have done it, and cannot repent, whatever distresses may follow. One's good name is of more consequence than all the rest, my dear lord. Do not think I say this with the least disrespect to you; it is only to convince you that I did not recommend any thing to you that I would avoid myself; nor engaged myself, nor wished to engage you, in party from pique, resentment, caprice, or choice. I am dipped in it much against my inclination. I can suffer by it infinitely more than you could. But there are moments when one must take one's part like a man. This I speak solely with regard to myself. I allow

a He had the lucrative office of usher of the exchequer, and a couple of other less considerable sinecures.-C.

b Robert, last Earl of Holderness, grandson of the great Duke Schomberg; he had been secretary of state at the accession.-Č.

fairly and honestly that you was not circumstanced as I was. You had not voted with your brother as I did; the world knew your inclinations were different. All this certainly composed serious reasons for you not to follow him, if you did not choose it. My motives for thinking you had better have espoused his cause were for your own sake: I detailed those motives to you in my last long letter; that opinion is as strong within me as ever.

The affront to you, the malice that aimed that affront, the importance that it gives one, upon the long-run to act steadily and uniformly with one's friends, the enemies you make in the opposition, composed of so many great families, and of your own principal allies," and the little merit you gain with the ministry by the contrary conduct,-all these were, to me, unanswerable reasons, and remain so, for what I advised ; yet, as I told you before, I think the season is passed, and that you must wait for an opportunity of disengaging yourself with credit. I am persuaded that occasion will be given you, from one or other of the causes I mentioned in my last; and if the fairest is, I entreat you by the good wishes which I am sure you know from my soul I bear you, to seize it. Excuse me: I know I go too far, but my heart is set on your making a great figure, and your letters are so kind, that they encourage me to speak with a friendship which I am. sensible is not discreet:-but you know you and your brother have ever been the objects of my warmest affection: and however partial you may think me to him, I must labour to have the world think as highly of you, and to unite you firmly for your lives. If this was not my motive, you must be sure I should not be earnest. It is not one vote in the House of Lords that imports us. Party is grown so serious,b and will, I doubt, become every day more so, that one must make one's option; and it will go to my soul to see you embarked against all your friends, against the Whig principles you have ever professed, and with men, amongst whom you have not one wellwisher, and with whom you will not even be able to remain upon tolerable terms, nnless you take a vigorous part against all you love and esteem.

In warm times lukewarmness is a crime with those on whose side you are ranged. Your good sense and experience will judge whether what I say is not strictly the case. It is not your brother or I that have occasioned these circumstances. Lord Bute has thrown this country into a confusion which will not easily be dissipated without

Lady Hertford was daughter of the late, and cousin of the existing Duke of Grafton, who was one of the leaders of the opposition.-C.

The state of the public mind at this time is thus described by Gray :-" Grumble, indeed, every one does; but, since Wilkes's affair, they fall off their metal, and seem to shrink under the brazen hand of Norton and his colleagues. I hear there will be no Parliament till after Christmas. If the French should be so unwise as to suffer the Spanish court to go on in their present measures (for they refuse to pay the ransom of Manilla, and have driven away our logwood cutters already,) down go their friends in the ministry, and all the schemes of right divine and prerogative; and this is perhaps the best chance we have. Are you not struck with the great similarity there is between the first years of Charles the First and the present times? Who would have thought it possible five years ago?" Works, vol. iv. p. 34.-E.

serious hours. Changes may, and, as I said in the beginning of my letter, will probably happen; but the seeds that have been sown will not be rooted up by one or two revolutions in the cabinet. It had taken an hundred and fifty years to quiet the animosities of Whig and Tory; that contest is again set on foot, and though a struggle for places may be now, as has often been, the secret purpose of principals, the court and the nation are engaging on much deeper springs of action. I wish I could elucidate this truth, as I have the rest, but that is not fit for paper, nor to be comprised within the compass of a letter;-I have said enough to furnish you with ample reflections. I submit all to your own judgment:-I have even acted rightly by you, in laying before you what it was not easy for you, my dear lord, to see or know at a distance. I trust all to your indulgence, and your acquaintance with my character, which surely is not artful or mysterious, and which, to you, has ever been, as it ever shall be, most cordial and well-intentioned. I come to my gazette.

There is nothing new, but the resignation of Lord Carnarvon, who has thrown up the bedchamber, and they say, the lieutenancy of Hampshire on Stanley being made governor of the Isle of Wight.

I have been much distressed this morning. The royal family reside chiefly at Richmond, whither scarce necessary servants attend them, and no mortal else but Lord Bute. The King and Queen have taken to going about to see places; they have been at Oatlands and Wanstead. A quarter before ten to-day, I heard the bell at the gate ring, truth is, I was not up, for my hours are not reformed, either at night or in the morning,-I inquired who it was? the Prince of Mecklenburgh and De Witz had called to know if they could see the house; my two Swiss, Favre and Louis, told them I was in bed, but if they would call again in an hour, they might see it. I shuddered at this report, and would it were the worst part! The Queen herself was behind, in a coach: I am shocked to death, and know not what to do! It is ten times worse just now than ever at any other time: it will certainly be said, that I refused to let the Queen see my house. See what it is to have republican servants! When I made a tempest about it, Favre said, with the utmost sang froid, "Why could not he tell me he was the Prince of Mecklenburgh?" I shall go this evening and consult my oracle, Lady Suffolk. If she approves it, I will write to De Witz, and pretend I know nothing of any body but the Prince, and beg a thousand pardons, and assure him how proud I should be to have his master visit my castle at Thundertentronk.

August 4th.

I have dined to-day at Claremont, where I little thought I should

It is not easy to say what hundred and fifty years he alludes to; the contests of Whig and Tory were never so violent as in the last years of Queen Anne, just fifty years before this time.-C.

b The Marquis of Carnarvon, eldest son of the second Duke of Chandos.-E.