BLACKHEATH, October 4, 1764.
MY DEAR FRIEND: I have now your last letter, of the 16th past, lying
before me, and I gave your inclosed to Grevenkop, which has put him into
a violent bustle to execute your commissions, as well and as cheap as
possible. I refer him to his own letter. He tells you true as to Comtesse
Cosel’s diamonds, which certainly nobody will buy here, unsight unseen,
as they call it; so many minutiae concurring to increase or lessen the
value of a diamond. Your Cheshire cheese, your Burton ale and beer, I
charge myself with, and they shall be sent you as soon as possible. Upon
this occasion I will give you a piece of advice, which by experience I
know to be useful. In all commissions, whether from men or women, ‘point
de galanterie’, bring them in your account, and be paid to the uttermost
farthing; but if you would show them ‘une galanterie’, let your present
be of something that is not in your commission, otherwise you will be the
‘Commissionaire banal’ of all the women of Saxony. ‘A propos’, Who is
your Comtesse de Cosel? Is she daughter, or grand-daughter, of the famous
Madame de Cosel, in King Augustus’s time? Is she young or old, ugly or
handsome?
I do not wonder that people are wonderfully surprised at our tameness and
forbearance, with regard to France and Spain. Spain, indeed, has lately
agreed to our cutting log wood, according to the treaty, and sent strict
orders to their governor to allow it; but you will observe too, that
there is not one word of reparation for the losses we lately sustained
there. But France is not even so tractable; it will pay but half the
money due, upon a liquidated account, for the maintenance of their
prisoners. Our request, to have the Comte d’Estaing recalled and
censured, they have absolutely rejected, though, by the laws of war, he
might be hanged for having twice broke his parole. This does not do
France honor: however, I think we shall be quiet, and that at the only
time, perhaps this century, when we might, with safety, be otherwise: but
this is nothing new, nor the first time, by many, when national honor and
interest have been sacrificed to private. It has always been so: and one
may say, upon this occasion, what Horace says upon another, ‘Nam fuit
ante Helenam’.
I have seen ‘les Contes de Guillaume Vade’, and like most of them so
little, that I can hardly think them Voltaire’s, but rather the scraps
that have fallen from his table, and been worked up by inferior workmen,
under his name. I have not seen the other book you mention, the
‘Dictionnaire Portatif’. It is not yet come over.
I shall next week go to take my winter quarters in London, the weather
here being very cold and damp, and not proper for an old, shattered, and
cold carcass, like mine. In November I will go to the Bath, to careen
myself for the winter, and to shift the scene. Good-night.