Dropmore, Sept. 5th, 1799.
MY DEAREST BROTHER,
Your letter, which I received yesterday, though a little more
satisfactory than your former account, still leaves room for so
much uneasiness, that Lady G. and I are extremely anxious to hear
again from you, and I trust in God the answer will be such as to
set us quite at our ease; but the complaints of which you speak are
of so ugly a nature, that one cannot feel satisfied while any trace
of them remains.
I have not yet my answer from Tom; but by an intermediate letter,
I guess that he will be very little disposed to undertake this
jaunt to Petersburg. Even if he should not, but should go to
Holland, I am not quite sure that I must not go, for as short a
time as I speak of, to assist him in Holland; not that personally
I have the vanity to think that I could do any part of the
business better, or as well as he, but my red boxes and my seals
would have a great effect in enabling me to expedite, and even in
some degree to _brusque_ a business which, if left to Dutch
arrangement only, or with nothing more than the usual aid of an
English Ambassador, would take not six months, as you say, but
six years, and not be done at last.
I fully understand the nature of your offer, and should not
certainly have suspected even, if you had not explained it, that
you were canvassing for the delectable amusement of leaving Stowe
and England, to figure at the Hague or Petersburg. But the best
negotiation you can carry on for us just now would be one with the
Militia for giving us twenty thousand more men. I hardly dare say,
or let myself think, what we could do, or rather what we could not
do, with such a reinforcement, supposing Holland to go on quick,
and our troops not to suffer much from sickness; for of their
suffering in battle there, I am not much afraid.
If any fresh parliamentary authority is necessary, we can now call
Parliament together in a fortnight. I will write to Dundas, as you
desire. If I had known of his coming to town to review his East
India regiment, I would have proposed precisely the Dropmore plan
you speak of; but I fear you could hardly have looked at it at that
moment, and I presume he is gone back to Walmer; I shall, however,
expect his answer.
Ever most affectionately yours,
G.