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.