MY DEAR FRIEND: I am sorry to find that you had a return of your fever;
but to say the truth, you in some measure deserved it, for not carrying
Dr. Middleton’s bark and prescription with you. I foresaw that you would
think yourself cured too soon, and gave you warning of it; but BYGONES
are BYGONES, as Chartres, when he was dying, said of his sins; let us
look forward. You did very prudently to return to Hamburg, to good bark,
and, I hope, a good physician. Make all sure there before you stir from
thence, notwithstanding the requests or commands of all the princesses in
Europe: I mean a month at least, taking the bark even to supererogation,
that is, some time longer than Dr. Middleton requires; for, I presume,
you are got over your childishness about tastes, and are sensible that
your health deserves more attention than your palate. When you shall be
thus re-established, I approve of your returning to Bremen; and indeed
you cannot well avoid it, both with regard to your promise, and to the
distinction with which you have been received by the Cassel family.
Now to the other part of your letter. Lord Holdernesse has been extremely
civil to you, in sending you, all under his own hand, such obliging
offers of his service. The hint is plain, that he will (in case you
desire it) procure you leave to come home for some time; so that the
single question is, whether you should desire it or not, NOW. It will be
two months before you can possibly undertake the journey, whether by sea
or by land, and either way it would be a troublesome and dangerous one
for a convalescent in the rigor of the month of November; you could drink
no mineral waters here in that season, nor are any mineral waters proper
in your case, being all of them heating, except Seltzer’s; then, what
would do you more harm than all medicines could do you good, would be the
pestilential vapors of the House of Commons, in long and crowded days, of
which there will probably be many this session; where your attendance, if
here, will necessarily be required. I compare St. Stephen’s Chapel, upon
those days, to ‘la Grotta del Cane’.
Whatever may be the fate of the war now, negotiations will certainly be
stirring all the winter, and of those, the northern ones, you are
sensible, are not the least important; in these, if at Hamburg, you will
probably have your share, and perhaps a meritorious one. Upon the whole,
therefore, I would advise you to write a very civil letter to Lord
Holdernesse; and to tell him that though you cannot hope to be of any use
to his Majesty’s affairs anywhere, yet, in the present unsettled state of
the North, it is possible that unforeseen accidents may throw in your way
to be of some little service, and that you would not willingly be out of
the way of those accidents; but that you shall be most extremely obliged
to his Lordship, if he will procure you his Majesty’s gracious permission
to return for a few months in the spring, when probably affairs will be
more settled one way or another. When things tend nearer to a settlement,
and that Germany, from the want of money or men, or both, breathes peace
more than war, I shall solicit Burrish’s commission for you, which is one
of the most agreeable ones in his Majesty’s gift; and I shall by no means
despair of success. Now I have given you my opinion upon this affair,
which does not make a difference of above three months, or four at most,
I would not be understood to mean to force your own, if it should happen
to be different from mine; but mine, I think, is more both for your
health and your interest. However, do as you please: may you in this, and
everything else, do for the best! So God bless you!