our predecessors the Romans had any pretensions to, and larger than I hope our descendants will see written of them, for conquest, unless by necessity, as ours has been, is an odious glory; witness my hand H. WALPOLE.

me.

P.S. I recollect that my last letter was a little melancholy; this to be sure, has a grain or two of national vanity; why, I must own I am a miserable philosopher; the weather of the hour does affect I cannot here, at a distance from the world and unconcerned in it, help feeling a little satisfaction when my country is successful; yet, tasting its honours and elated with them, I heartily, seriously wish they had their quietus. What is the fame of men compared to their happiness? Who gives a nation peace, gives tranquillity to all. How many must be wretched, before one can be renowned! A hero bets the lives and fortunes of thousands, whom he has no right to game with: but alas! Cæsars have little regard to their fish and counters!

Arlington Street, Oct. 4th.

I find I have told you an enormous lie,' but luckily I have time to retract it. Lady Mary Wortley has left nothing like the number of volumes I have said. At the Installation I hear Charles Townshend said they were four-last Thursday he told me twenty-one. I seldom do believe or repeat what he says-for the future I will think of these twenty-one volumes.

There has been a disagreeable bloody affair in Germany. Soubize sent Lord Granby word that he hoped soon to embrace him-in two days they cannonaded us. It was entirely a cannonading affair, but it lasted fourteen hours, and cost them between two and three thousand men. We have lost between seven and eight hundred, with fourteen officers of the Guards killed and wounded. Prince Ferdinand, who either suspected the Danaos, or had a mind his army should, gave it out in orders that the whole army should be upon their guard. If our amity begins thus, how will it end?

It was true that Lady Mary Wortley did leave seventeen volumes of her works and memoires. She gave her letters from Constantinople to an English clergyman in Holland [Mr. Sowden, minister of the English church at Rotterdam], who published them; and, the day before she died, she gave him those seventeen volumes, with injunctions to publish them too; but, in two days, the man had a crown-living from Lord Bute, and Lady Bute had the seventeen volumes.-WALPOLE. Lady Bute's daughter, Lady Louisa, says that the price demanded and paid (for the letters afterwards printed in spite of her), was five hundred pounds.- CUNNINGHAM.

2 We have now, I fear, got everything in print that exists of Lady Mary Wortley's writings. See Lady Louisa Stuart's charming introduction to Lord Wharncliffe's edition of her grandmother's works, 3 vols. 8vo, 1837; second edition.-CUNNINGHAM.

VOL. IV.

D

821. TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY.

2

Arlington Street, Oct. 4, 1762.

I AM concerned to hear you have been so much out of order, but should rejoice your sole command' disappointed you, if this late cannonading business did not destroy all my little prospects. Can one believe the French negotiators are sincere, when their marshals are so false? What vexes me more is to hear you seriously tell your brother that you are always unlucky, and lose all opportunities of fighting. How can you be such a child? You cannot, like a German, love fighting for its own sake. No: you think of the mob of London, who, if you had taken Peru, would forget you the first lord mayor's day, or for the first hyæna that comes to town. How can one build on virtue and on fame too? When do they ever go together? In my passion, I could almost wish you were as worthless and as great as the King of Prussia! If conscience is a punishment, is not it a reward too? Go to that silent tribunal, and be satisfied with its sentence.

I have nothing new to tell you. The Havannah is more likely to break off the Peace than to advance it.' We are not in a humour to give up the world; anzi, are much more disposed to conquer the rest of it. We shall have some cannonading here, I believe, if we sign the peace. Mr. Pitt, from the bosom of his retreat, has made Beckford mayor. The Duke of Newcastle, if not taken in again, will probably end his life as he began it-at the head of a mob. Personalities and abuse, public and private, increase to the most outrageous degree, and yet the town is at the emptiest. You may guess what will be the case in a month. I do not see at all into the

1 During Lord Granby's absence from the army in Flanders, the command in chief had devolved on Mr. Conway.-WALPOLE.

2 The affair of Bucker-Muhl.-WALPOLE.

3 On this subject, Sir Joseph Yorke, in a letter to Mr Mitchell of the 9th of October, observes, "All the world is struck with the noble capture of the Havannah, which fell into our hands on the Prince of Wales's birthday, as a just punishment upon the Spaniards for their unjust quarrel with us, and for the supposed difficulties they have raised in the negotiation for peace. By what I hear from Paris, my old acquaintance Grimaldi is the cause of the delay in signing the preliminaries, insisting upon points neither France nor England would ever consent to grant, such as the liberty of fishing at Newfoundland; a point we should not dare to yield, as Mr. Pitt told them, though they were masters of the Tower of London. What effect the taking of the Havannah will have is uncertain; for the Spaniards have nothing to give us in return."-WRIGHT.

storm: I do not mean that there will not be a great majority to vote anything; but there are times when even majorities cannot do all they are ready to do. Lord Bute has certainly great luck, which is something in politics, whatever it is in logic: but whether peace or war, I would not give him much for the place he will have this day twelvemonth. Adieu! The watchman goes past one in the morning; and as I have nothing better than reflections and conjectures to send you, I may as well go to bed.

822. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

Strawberry Hill, Oct. 14, 1762.

You will not make your fortune in the Admiralty at least; your King's cousin is to cross over and figure in with George Grenville; the latter takes the Admiralty, Lord Halifax the seals-still, I believe, reserving Ireland for pocket-money; at least no new viceroy is named. Mr. Fox undertakes the House of Commons-and the peace-and the war-for if we have the first, we may be pretty sure of the second.'

You see Lord Bute totters; reduced to shift hands so often, it does not look like much stability. The campaign at Westminster will be warm. When Mr. Pitt can have such a mouthful as Lord Bute, Mr. Fox, and the peace, I do not think three thousand pounds a year will stop it. Well, I shall go into my old corner under the window, and laugh; I had rather sit by my fire here; but if there are to be bullfeasts, one would go and see them, when one has a convenient box for nothing, and is very indifferent about the cavalier combatants. Adieu!

1 In a letter to Mr. Pitt, of this day's date, Mr. Nuthall gives the ex-minister the following account of these changes :-" Mr. Fox kissed hands yesterday, as one of the cabinet; Lord Halifax, as secretary of state, and Mr. George Grenville, as first lord of the admiralty. Mr. Fox's present state of health, it was given out, would not permit him to take the seals. Charles Townshend was early yesterday morning sent for by Lord Bute, who opened to him this new system, and offered him the secretaryship of the plantations and board of trade, which he not only refused, but refused all connection and intercourse whatever with the new counsellor, and spoke out freely. He was afterwards three times in with the King, to whom he was more explicit, and said things that did not a little alarm." Chatham Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 181. -WRIGHT. Compare Mr. Fox's Letter to the Duke of Bedford, October 13th, 1762, in 'Bedford Correspondence,' iii. 133.-CUNNINGHAM.

823. TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Strawberry Hill, Oct. 20, 1762.

A NEW revolution has happened, which perhaps has not struck you as such, from what little has appeared in the papers. Mr. [George] Grenville, Secretary of State, and Lord Halifax, First Lord of the Admiralty, have changed places. "Well!" say you foreigners, "and do you call that a revolution? Sure, you English are not accustomed to great events, violent catastrophes, when you look on two ministers crossing over and figuring-in, as a revolution? Why, in Russia, a wife murders her husband, seizes the crown—' Stay, my good Sir; we do not strangle the Ten Commandments every time there is to be an alteration in the state; but, have a little patience, and you will find these removes not quite so simple as you imagine. Mr. Grenville, besides holding the Seals, was something else, was not he? Have you never heard of "Manager in the House of Commons?" or, what defines it better, had the management of the House of Commons. This, Lord Halifax, being in the Lords, cannot execute-if he could, Lord Bute would perform it himself. "Well," you cry, you cry, " and who is to do it ?" I will tell you presently-let us despatch Mr. Grenville first. Three explanations are given-the majority, of which number for once am I, say, he had qualms on the Peace, could not digest such good terms as have been offered to France. Another set, no friends of Mr. Grenville, suspect some underhand dealings with his brother and Mr. Pitt. This I, who have a very good opinion of Grenville, do not believe. At most, I will allow him to have been afraid of signing the treaty. The third opinion, held by some of Lord Bute's friends, at least, given out by them, though not by himself, who imputes only timidity to Mr. Grenville, whisper, that the latter wanted the real' power of the House of Commons, and did not notify this ambition, till he thought the nearness of the Parliament would oblige his demands to be accorded. I have many reasons for disbelieving this. In the first place, the service was forced upon him, not sought; in the next, considering what steps have been taken for sole power, he could not expect it. In the last, the designation of his successor proves this was not fact, as Lord Bute must still

1 Grenville proved a very ambitious man, and grew early though secretly an enemy

of Lord Bute, as appeared afterwards.-WALPOLE.

have thought Mr. Grenville a less formidable substitute than the person he has been obliged to embrace-in short, Mr. Fox is again Manager of the House of Commons, remaining Paymaster and waiving the Seals; that is, will defend the treaty, not sign it. This

wants no comment.

I see your impatience again-what, is the treaty then made? No-shall I tell you more? I mean my private opinion; it will not be made. Not for want of inclination here, nor in the ambassador at Paris-but I do not believe we can get it. Does that horrid and treacherous carnage, cannonading they call it, look like much sincerity on the French side? But the Spaniards will not accede. Have not I always told you, I was persuaded that the crown of Portugal reannexed had more charms in the proud eye of Spain than the Havannah in the eye of their interest? Mr. Stanley is indeed going directly after the Duke of Bedford-for what I know not. I do not expect much from it.

This is the state of the day. If you ask what is to follow, I answer, confusion; and the end of the war removed to the Lord knows when. When the Administration totters in four months,when the first breach is made within the walls, not from without, is such a citadel impregnable? But if new armies, unexpected armies, join the enemy! nay, I do not tell you the Duke of Newcastle has joined Mr. Pitt; on the contrary, the world says the latter has haughtily rejected all overtures. But, pray, did not the Patriots and the Jacobites concur in every measure against my father, whatever were their different ends? That an opposition, much more formidable than is yet known, will appear, is very probable; and that Mr. Fox, so far from bringing any strength, except great abilities, to Lord Bute's support, will add fuel to the flame is, I think, past doubt. Unpopularity heaped on unpopularity does not silence clamour. Even the silly Tories will not like to fight under Mr. Fox's banner.

Upon the whole, I look on Lord Bute's history as drawing fast to a conclusion. So far from being ready to meet the Parliament, I shall not be surprised if they are not able to meet it, but throw up the cards before they begin to play them. My hopes of Peace are vanished! Few disinterested persons would be content with so moderate a one as I should; yet I can conceive a Peace with which I should not be satisfied. Yet if the time comes when you hear me again lamenting a glorious war, do not think me fickle and inconsistent. Had that happy stroke of a pen been struck last year,