820. TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Strawberry Hill, Oct. 3, 1762.

I AM now only the peace in your debt, for here is the Havannah. Here it is, following despair and accompanied by glory, riches, and twelve ships-of-the-line; not all in person, for four are destroyed. The booty-that is an undignified term-I should say, the plunder, or the spoils, which is a more classic word for such heroes as we are, amounts to at least a million and a half. Lord Albemarle's share will be about 140,0007. I wish I knew how much that makes in talents, or great sesterces. What to me is better than all, we have lost but sixteen hundred men; but, alas! Most of the sick recovered! What an affecting object my Lady Albemarle ' would make in a triumph, surrounded by her three victorious sons; for she had three at stake! My friend Lady Hervey, too, is greatly happy; her son Augustus distinguished himself particularly, brought home the news, and on his way took a rich French ship going to Newfoundland with military stores. I do not surely mean to detract from him, who set all this spirit on float, but you see we can conquer, though Mr. Pitt is at his plough.

The express arrived while the Duc de Nivernois was at dinner with Lord Bute. The world says, that the joy of the company showed itself with too little politeness-I hope not; I would not exult to a single man, and a minister of peace; it should be in the face of Europe, if I assumed that dominion which the French used to arrogate; nor do I believe it happened; all the company are not so charmed with the event. They are not quite convinced that it will facilitate the pacification, nor am I clear it will. The city of London will not lower their hopes, and views, and expectations, on this acquisition. Well, if we can steer wisely between insolence from success and impatience for peace, we may secure our safety and tranquillity for many years. But they are not yet arrived, nor hear I anything that tells me the peace will certainly be made. France wants peace; I question if she wishes it. How his Catholic royalty

1 Lady Anne Lenox, youngest daughter of the first Duke of Richmond. George, third Earl of Albemarle; Augustus Keppel, afterwards admiral; and General William Keppel, her three eldest sons, all commanded at the taking of the Havannah. -WALPOLE.

2 Mary Lepelle, widow of John Lord Hervey, and mother of George William, Augustus, and Frederic, all successively earls of Bristol.-WALPOLE.

will take this, one cannot guess. My good friend, we are not at table with Monsieur de Nivernois, so we may smile at this consequence of the family-compact. Twelve ships-of-the-line and the Havannah-it becomes people who cannot keep their own, to divide the world between them!

Your nephew Foote has made a charming figure; the King and Queen went from Windsor to see Eton; he is captain of the Oppidants, and made a speech to them with great applause. It was in English, which was right; why should we talk Latin to our Kings rather than Russ or Iroquois ? Is this a season for being ashamed of our country? Dr. Barnard, the master, is the Pitt of masters, and has raised the school to the most flourishing state it ever knew.

Lady Mary Wortley has left twenty-one large volumes in prose and verse, in manuscript; nineteen are fallen to Lady Bute, and will not see the light in haste. The other two Lady Mary in her passage gave to somebody in Holland, and at her death expressed great anxiety to have them published. Her family are in terrors lest they should be, and have tried to get them: hitherto the man is inflexible. Though I do not doubt but they are an olio of lies and scandal, I should like to see them. She had parts, and had seen much. Truth is often at bottom of such compositions, and places itself here and there without the intention of the mother. I dare say in general, these works are like Madame del Pozzo's' Memoires. Lady Mary had more wit, and something more delicacy; their manners and morals were a good deal more alike.

There is a lad, a waiter at St. James's coffee-house, of thirteen years old, who says he does not wonder we beat the French, for he himself could thrash Monsieur de Nivernois. This duke is so thin and small, that when minister at Berlin, at a time that France was not in favour there, the King of Prussia said, if his eyes were a little older, he should want a glass to see the embassador. I do not admire this bon-mot. Voltaire is continuing his Universal History; he showed the Duke of Grafton a chapter, to which the title is, Les Anglois vainqueurs dans les Quatres Parties du Monde. There have been minutes in the course of our correspondence when you and I did not expect to see this chapter. It is bigger by a quarter than

1 Madame del Pozzo, an Italian lady, who for a short time had been mistress of the Regent of France, was celebrated for her wit, which was extremely coarse and indelicate, and was infamous for her debaucheries and abusive language. She wrote Memoires of her life, in which she had spoken so scandalously of Elizabeth Farnese Queen Dowager of Spain, that the latter employed persons to seize her and force them from her. Mr. Walpole knew her at Florence.-WALPOLE.

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.

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 me. 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 their guard. If our amity begins thus, how will it end?

upon

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 injunc tions 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.

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!

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.