_Nov._ 29, 1781.
Your nephew is arrived, as he has told you himself; the sight of him,
for he called on me the next morning, was more than ordinarily welcome,
though your letter of the 10th, which I received the night before, had
dispelled many of my fears. I will now unfold them to you. A packet-boat
from Ostend was lost last week, and your nephew was named for one of the
passengers. As Mrs. Noel had expected him for a fortnight, I own my
apprehensions were strengthened; but I will say no more on a dissipated
panic. However, this incident and his half-wreck at Lerici will, I hope,
prevent him from the future from staying with you so late in the year;
and I see by your letter that you agree with me, of which I should be
sure though you had not said so.
I mentioned on Tuesday the captivity of Lord Cornwallis and his army,
the Columbus who was to bestow America on us again. A second army[1]
taken in a drag-net is an uncommon event, and happened but once to the
Romans, who sought adventures everywhere. We have not lowered our tone
on this new disgrace, though I think we shall talk no more of insisting
on _implicit submission_, which would rather be a gasconade than
firmness. In fact, there is one very unlucky circumstance already come
out, which must drive every American, to a man, from ever calling
himself our friend. By the tenth article of the capitulation, Lord
Cornwallis demanded that the loyal Americans in his army should not be
punished. This was flatly refused, and he has left them to be hanged. I
doubt no vote of Parliament will be able to blanch such a--such a--I
don't know what the word is for it; he must get his uncle the Archbishop
to christen it; there is no name for it in any Pagan vocabulary. I
suppose it will have a patent for being called Necessity. Well! there
ends another volume of the American war. It looks a little as if the
history of it would be all we should have for it, except forty
millions[2] of debt, and three other wars that have grown out of it, and
that do not seem so near to a conclusion. They say that Monsieur de
Maurepas, who is dying, being told that the Duc de Lauzun had brought
the news of Lord Cornwallis's surrender, said, from Racine's
"Mithridate" I think:--
Mes derniers regards out vu fuir les Romains.
How Lord Chatham will frown when they meet! for, since I began my
letter, the papers say that Maurepas is dead. The Duc de Nivernois, it
is said, is likely to succeed him as Minister; which is probable, as
they were brothers-in-law and friends, and the one would naturally
recommend the other. Perhaps, not for long, as the Queen's influence
gains ground.
[Footnote 1: The capitulation of Burgoyne at Saratoga has been mentioned
in a previous letter; and in October, 1781, Lord Cornwallis, whose army
was reduced to seven thousand men, was induced to surrender to
Washington, who, with eighteen thousand, had blockaded him at a village
called Yorktown; and it was the news of this disaster which at last
compelled the King to consent to relinquish the war.]
[Footnote 2: "_Forty millions._" Burke, in one of his speeches, asserted
the expense to have been £70,000,000, "besides one hundred thousand
men."]
The warmth in the House of Commons is prodigiously rekindled; but Lord
Cornwallis's fate has cost the Administration no ground _there_. The
names of most _éclat_ in the Opposition are two names to which those
walls have been much accustomed at the same period--CHARLES FOX and
WILLIAM PITT, second son of Lord Chatham.[1] Eloquence is the only one
of our brilliant qualities that does not seem to have degenerated
rapidly--but I shall leave debates to your nephew, now an ear-witness: I
could only re-echo newspapers. Is it not another odd coincidence of
events, that while the father Laurens is prisoner to Lord Cornwallis as
Constable of the Tower, the son Laurens signed the capitulation by which
Lord Cornwallis became prisoner? It is said too, I don't know if truly,
that this capitulation and that of Saratoga were signed on the same
anniversary. These are certainly the speculations of an idle man, and
the more trifling when one considers the moment. But alas! what would
_my_ most grave speculations avail? From the hour that fatal egg, the
Stamp Act, was laid, I disliked it and all the vipers hatched from it. I
now hear many curse it, who fed the vermin with poisonous weeds. Yet the
guilty and the innocent rue it equally hitherto! I would not answer for
what is to come! Seven years of miscarriages may sour the sweetest
tempers, and the most sweetened. Oh! where is the Dove with the
olive-branch? Long ago I told you that you and I might not live to see
an end of the American war. It is very near its end indeed now--its
consequences are far from a conclusion. In some respects, they are
commencing a new date, which will reach far beyond _us_. I desire not to
pry into that book of futurity. Could I finish my course in peace--but
one must take the chequered scenes of life as they come. What signifies
whether the elements are serene or turbulent, when a private old man
slips away? What has he and the world's concerns to do with one another?
He may sigh for his country, and babble about it; but he might as well
sit quiet and read or tell old stories; the past is as important to him
as the future.
[Footnote 1: Charles Fox and William Pitt were the second sons of the
first Lord Holland and the first Lord Chatham, Fox being by some years
the older. They were both men of great eloquence; but in this (as in
every other point) Pitt was the superior, even by the confession of Lord
Macaulay. As Prime Minister from 1783 to 1801, and afterwards in 1804-5,
Pitt proved himself the greatest statesman, the man more in advance of
his age than any of his predecessors or successors; while Fox's career
was for the most part one of an opposition so rancorous, and so
destitute of all patriotism, that he even exulted over the disasters of
Burgoyne and Cornwallis, and afterwards over the defeat of the Austrians
at Marengo in 1800, avowedly because the Austrians were our allies, and
it was a heavy blow to Pitt and his policy.]
_Dec. 3._
I had not sealed my letter, as it cannot set out till to-morrow; and
since I wrote it I have received yours, of the 20th of November, by your
courier.
I congratulate you on the success of your attempts, and admire the
heroic refusal of the General.[1] I shall certainly obey you, and not
mention it. Indeed, it would not easily be believed here, where as many
pence are irresistible....
[Footnote 1: General the Hon. James Murray was governor of Minorca,
which was besieged by the Spaniards, and was offered a vast bribe by the
Duc de Crillon, the commander of the besiegers, to give up Port St.
Philip.]
Don't trouble yourself about the third set of "Galuzzi." They are to be
had here now, and those for whom I intended them can buy them. I have
not made so much progress as I intended, and have not yet quite finished
the second volume. I detest Cosmo the Great. I am sorry, either that he
was so able a man, or so successful a man. When tyrants are great men
they should miscarry; if they are fools, they will miscarry of course.
Pray, is there any picture of Camilla Martelli, Cosmo's last wife? I had
never heard of her. The dolt, his son, I find used her ill, and then did
the same thing. Our friend, Bianca Capello, it seems, was a worthless
creature. I don't expect much entertainment but from the Life of
Ferdinand the Great. It is true I have dipped into the others,
particularly into the story of Cosmo the Third's wife, of whom I had
read much in French Mémoires; and into that of John Gaston, which was so
fresh when I was at Florence; but as the author, in spite of the Great
Duke's injunctions, has tried to palliate some of the worst imputations
on Cosmo and his son Ferdinand, so he has been mighty modest about the
Caprean amours of John Gaston and his eldest brother. Adieu! I have
been writing a volume here myself. Pray remember to answer me about
Camilla Martelli.
P.S.--Is there any china left in the Great Duke's collection, made by
Duke Francis the First himself? Perhaps it was lately sold with what was
called the refuse of the wardrobe, whence I hear some charming things
were purchased, particularly the Medallions of the Medici, by Benvenuto
Cellini. That sale and the "History" are enough to make the old
Electress[1] shudder in her coffin.
[Footnote 1: The Electress Palatine Dowager was sister of John Gaston,
the last Grand Duke of the House of Medici; after her husband's death
she returned to Florence and died there.]
_THE LANGUAGE PROPER FOR INSCRIPTIONS IN ENGLAND--FALL OF LORD NORTH'S
MINISTRY--BRYANT._