LONDON, January 29, 1768.
MY DEAR FRIEND: Two days ago I received your letter of the 8th. I wish
you had gone a month or six weeks sooner to Basle, that you might have
escaped the excessive cold of the most severe winter that I believe was
ever known. It congealed both my body and my mind, and scarcely left me
the power of thinking. A great many here, both in town and country, have
perished by the frost, and been lost in the snow.
You have heard, no doubt, of the changes at Court, by which you have got
a new provincial, Lord Weymouth; who has certainly good parts, and, as I
am informed, speaks very well in the House of Lords; but I believe he has
no application. Lord Chatham is at his house at Hayes; but sees no
mortal. Some say that he has a fit of the gout, which would probably do
him good; but many think that his worst complaint is in his head, which I
am afraid is too true. Were he well, I am sure he would realize the
promise he made me concerning you; but, however, in that uncertainty, I
am looking out for any chance borough; and if I can find one, I promise
you I will bid like a chapman for it, as I should be very sorry that you
were not in the next parliament. I do not see any probability of any
vacancy in a foreign commission in a better climate; Mr. Hamilton at
Naples, Sir Horace Mann at Florence, and George Pitt at Turin, do not
seem likely to make one. And as for changing your foreign department for
a domestic one, it would not be in my power to procure you one; and you
would become ‘d’eveque munier’, and gain nothing in point of climate, by
changing a bad one for another full as bad, if not worse; and a worse I
believe is not than ours. I have always had better health abroad than at
home; and if the tattered remnant of my wretched life were worth my care,
I would have been in the south of France long ago. I continue very lame
and weak, and despair of ever recovering any strength in my legs. I care
very little about it. At my age every man must have his share of physical
ills of one kind or another; and mine, thank God, are not very painful.
God bless you!