LONDON, February 13, 1767.
MY DEAR FRIEND: It is so long since I have had a letter from you, that I
am alarmed about your health; and fear that the southern parts of France
have not done so well by you as they did by me in the year 1741, when
they snatched me from the jaws of death. Let me know, upon the receipt of
this letter, how you are, and where you are.
I have no news to send you from hence; for everything seems suspended,
both in the court and in the parliament, till Lord Chatham’s return from
the Bath, where he has been laid up this month, by a severe fit of the
gout; and, at present, he has the sole apparent power. In what little
business has hitherto been done in the House of Commons, Charles
Townshend has given himself more ministerial airs than Lord Chatham will,
I believe, approve of. However, since Lord Chatham has thought fit to
withdraw himself from that House, he cannot well do without Charles’
abilities to manage it as his deputy.
I do not send you an account of weddings, births, and burials, as I take
it for granted that you know them all from the English printed papers;
some of which, I presume, are sent after you. Your old acquaintance, Lord
Essex, is to be married this week to Harriet Bladen, who has L20,000
down, besides the reasonable expectation of as much at the death of her
father. My kinsman, Lord Strathmore, is to be married in a fortnight, to
Miss Bowes, the greatest heiress perhaps in Europe. In short, the
matrimonial frenzy seems to rage at present, and is epidemical. The men
marry for money, and I believe you guess what the women marry for. God
bless you, and send you health!