BATH, November 13, 1762.
MY DEAR FRIEND: I have received your letter, and believe that your
preliminaries are very near the mark; and, upon that supposition, I think
we have made a tolerable good bargain with Spain; at least full as good
as I expected, and almost as good as I wished, though I do not believe
that we have got ALL Florida; but if we have St. Augustin, I suppose
that, by the figure of ‘pars pro toto’, will be called all Florida. We
have by no means made so good a bargain with France; for, in truth, what
do we get by it, except Canada, with a very proper boundary of the river
Mississippi! and that is all. As for the restrictions upon the French
fishery in Newfoundland, they are very well ‘per la predica’, and for the
Commissary whom we shall employ: for he will have a good salary from
hence, to see that those restrictions are complied with; and the French
will double that salary, that he may allow them all to be broken through.
It is plain to me, that the French fishery will be exactly what it was
before the war.
The three Leeward islands, which the French yield to us, are not, all
together, worth half so much as that of St. Lucia, which we give up to
them. Senegal is not worth one quarter of Goree. The restrictions of the
French in the East Indies are as absurd and impracticable as those of
Newfoundland; and you will live to see the French trade to the East
Indies, just as they did before the war. But after all I have said, the
articles are as good as I expected with France, when I considered that no
one single person who carried on this negotiation on our parts was ever
concerned or consulted in any negotiation before. Upon the whole, then,
the acquisition of Canada has cost us fourscore millions sterling. I am
convinced we might have kept Guadaloupe, if our negotiators had known how
to have gone about it.
His most faithful Majesty of Portugal is the best off of anybody in this,
transaction, for he saves his kingdom by it, and has not laid out one
moidore in defense of it. Spain, thank God, in some measure, ‘paye les
pots cassis’; for, besides St. Augustin, logwood, etc., it has lost at
least four millions sterling, in money, ships, etc.
Harte is here, who tells me he has been at this place these three years,
excepting some few excursions to his sister; he looks ill, and laments
that he has frequent fits of the yellow jaundice. He complains of his not
having heard from you these four years; you should write to him. These
waters have done me a great deal of good, though I drink but two-thirds
of a pint in the whole day, which is less than the soberest of my
countrymen drink of claret at every meal.
I should naturally think, as you do, that this session will be a stormy
one, that is, if Mr. Pitt takes an active part; but if he is pleased, as
the Ministers say, there is no other AEolus to blow a storm. The Dukes of
Cumberland, Newcastle, and Devonshire, have no better troops to attack
with than the militia; but Pitt alone is ipse agmen. God bless you!