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 science certaine', that the principal object of his Majesty's and his British Ministry's 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 Bothmar 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.

LETTER CCXI

BATH, October 26, 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 Newcastle House, where the letters, which came that morning, lay upon the table: and his 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 vanite', may perhaps be near as good as the other two. In that letter you venture 'vos petits raisonnemens' very properly, and then as properly make an excuse for doing so. Go on so, with diligence, and you will be, what 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 to-day? 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 Munchausen is gone to Stade to prepare; a bold and dangerous experiment in my mind, and which may probably end in a second volume to the "History of the Palatinate," 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 Duke's 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 them not 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 Rochfort, the day after we took the island of Aix, 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 Stade. 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; M——t 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 Soltikow, 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's shackles. Her death comes with regard to the King of Prussia, 'comme la moutarde apres diner'. 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, indefeasible, 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 draught of hemlock or nightshade; for I suppose they are not arrived to the politer and genteeler poisons of Acqua Tufana,—[Acqua Tufana, a Neapolitan slow poison, resembling clear water, and invented by a woman at Naples, of the name of Tufana.]—sugar-plums, etc.

Lord Halifax has accepted his old employment, with the honorary addition of the Cabinet Council. And so we heartily wish you a goodnight.

LETTER CCXII

BATH, November 4, 1757

MY DEAR FRIEND: The Sons of Britain, like those of Noah, must cover their parent's shame as well as they can; for to retrieve its honor 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 Cham; but spread your cloak over our disgrace, as far as it will go. M——t 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 martial one; neither will, in my opinion, discover the true secret; for a secret there most unquestionably is. Why we stayed six whole days in the island of Aix, mortal cannot imagine; which time the French employed, as it was obvious they would, in assembling their troops in the neighborhood of Rochfort, and making our attempt then really impracticable. The day after we had taken the island of Aix, your friend, Colonel Wolf, 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 im possible, 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 Stade. This is certain, at least that M——t was the man of confidence with that person. Whatever be the truth of the case, there is, to be sure, hitherto an 'hiatus valde deflendus'.

The meeting of the parliament will certainly be very numerous, were 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 honor, are of Sosia's mind, 'que le vrai Amphitrion est celui ou l'on dine'. 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