attacked his weak side, his judgment. It is threatened to be a most tedious trial: it is interrupted, at least for the present, by Draper's falling ill. Probably I should not have known so much as this, had I not thought you would be curious. I have long determined not to concern myself with courts-martial, which I do not understand; and it is unjust for so ignorant a person to pronounce on men whose honour is at stake: were a lawyer to be tried, his character is of no consequence; at worst, he could be made a Peer. Physicians, though they commit more deaths than soldiers, never are tried; and for Divines, it would be idle, for they expound their own laws as they please, and always in their own favour.

I began this letter, for this was-to-have-been important day, two days ago, but I am not able to finish it myself. I suppose I caught cold on my coming to town, for in three days I was seized with the gout, and have now from the top of my left shoulder to the ends of my fingers-but enough of that. I have told you before of the savage state we are fallen into: it is now come to such perfection, that one can neither stir out of one's house safely, nor stay in it with safety. I was sitting here very quietly under my calamity on Saturday night, when, at half an hour after ten, I heard a loud knock at the door. I concluded that Mr. Conway or Lady Ailesbury had called after the opera to see how I did; nobody came up; a louder knock. I rang to know who it was; but before the servants could come to me, the three windows of this room and the next wer broken about my ears by a volley of stones, and so were those of the hall and the library below, as a hint to me how glad I must be of my Lord Rodney's victory six or eight months ago. In short, he had dined at the London Tavern with a committee of the Common Council; for the Mayor and Aldermen had refused to banquet him. Thence he had paraded through the whole town to his own house at this end, with a rabble at his heels, breaking windows for not being illuminated, for which no soul was prepared, as no soul thought on him; but thus our conquerors triumph! My servants went out, and begged these Romans to give them time to light up candles, but to no purpose; and were near having their brains dashed out. I did not know that my windows were either French or Spaniards; but glaziers and tallow-chandlers always treat sashes as public enemies. As next day was Sunday, I expected to remain in a Temple of the Winds; but my glazier at least had the charity to repair the mischief that perhaps he had done.

Your sister-in-law, Mrs. Mann, was robbed about ten days ago in New Park, between three and four in the afternoon; the prudent matron gave the highwayman a purse with very little 'money, but slipped her watch into the bag of the coach. The cavalier, not being content, insisted on more. The poor girl being terrified, gave him not only her own pinchbeck watch, but her grandmother's concealed

*The widow of Mr. Galfridus Mann.

gold one; for which, no doubt, she will undergo many a supernumerary lecture on economy and discretion, and the Christian duty of cheating highwaymen. Adieu! for I am weary, and can dictate no more: but indeed I have nothing more to say.

P. S. I expect to hear of Mr. Duane every day; but God knows whether I shall be able to do any business with him yet, for the gout is come into five places at once: poor Mozzi should have younger labourers in his vineyard than Mr. Morrice and me.

LETTER CCCXC.

Berkeley Square, Monday Evening, Dec. 2, 1782.

THE day that I little expected to live to see, is arrived! Peace came this morning: thank God! That is the first thought: the effusion of human gore is stopped, nor are there to be more widows and orphans out of the common course of things.

What the terms are will be known before this goes away to-morrow they may be public already; but here am I, lying upon a couch and not out of pain, waiting with patience for what I shall learn from the few charitable that I am able to admit. Proud conditions nor even you in your representative dignity, can expect. Should mey be humiliating, they ought to answer who plunged us into a quadruple war, and managed it deplorably for seven years together!

As I have not breath to dictate much, I shall not waste myself on a single reflection: but in truth I am very low; and what are all the great and little affairs of the world to me, who am mouldering away not imperceptibly!

Just now I received yours of the 16th of November, chiefly on the affairs of Gibraltar; you will find how details in that place, like your preceding occupation for Minorca, will be absorbed in subsequent

events.

To Cavalier Mozzi I can say nothing at present. I have not seen Mr. Duane, nor am I at all capable of business yet. I am taken up and carried to bed by three servants: Chancellors and Judges are sometimes placed on their woolsacks in as lamentable a condition; but I was not bred to the law, nor habituated to earn money to the last dregs-and, when one is to have no fees, can it be expected that I should go to court? Well! well! I will do the best I can when I am able. Good night till to-morrow!

Friday night, the 6th.

I was much too ill on Tuesday to finish this, and, besides that, recollected that whatever was to be heard you would learn from Paris sooner than from London. I began to write upon the first buzz of the courier being arrived; but all he brought was the Provisional

Treaty with America, which too is not to take place until the general peace does.* This, however, we are told to expect soon-and there I must leave peace and war, kingdoms and states, and trust to your nephew for saying any thing else; for in truth I am not able. The scale of life and death has been vibrating; I believe it is turned

* On the 30th of November, Mr. Fitzherbert had succeeded in obtaining from the American Commissioners the signature of a Provisional Agreement with America; and, on the 5th of December, the King opened the session of Parliament, with a speech from the throne, of unusual length, and of which the following are the leading passages: "I have brought all my views and measures, as well in Europe as in North America, to an entire and cordial reconciliation with those colonies. Provisional articles are agreed upon, to take effect whenever terms of peace shall be finally settled with the Court of France. In thus admitting their separation from the Crown of these kingdoms, I have sacrificed every consideration of my own to the wisdom and opinion of my people. I make it my humble and earnest prayer to Almighty God, that Great Britain may not feel the evils which might result from so great a dismemberment of the empire. Having manifested to the whole world, by the most lasting examples, the signal spirit and bravery of my people, I conceived it a moment not unbecoming my dignity, and thought it a regard due to the lives and fortunes of such brave and gallant subjects, to show myself ready, on my part, to embrace fair and honourable terms of accommodation with all the powers of war. I have the satisfaction to acquaint you that negotiations to this effect are considerably advanced; and I have every reason to hope and believe, that I shall have it in my power, in a very short time, to acquaint you that they have ended in terms of pacification, which, I trust, you will see just cause to approve." There was not, in either House, any opposition to the Address. In the House of Lords, Lord Shelburne explained the offer of declaring America independent, not to be a present and irrevocable recognition of her independence, but a mere offer, which, if peace did not follow, was to be entirely at an end. Mr. Fox, in the other House, understood it to be a full acknowledgment of the independence of America; supposed the word "offer" to be a mere inaccuracy of expression,. and upon this ground only approved the measure. The day after the Address had been voted, Mr. Fox said in the House, that he had quite mistaken the purport of the King's Speech; that, as the offer of independence to America had been explained by Lord Shelburne in the House of Peers, he by no means approved of it, but retracted all he had said the preceding day in its praise. Mr. Burke made a similar declaration, and talked of moving an amendment to the Address, which Mr. Fox affirmed he would second. The following is the Bishop of Winchester's account of the part taken upon this occasion by Mr. Pitt: Mr. Burke exerted all his great powers of wit and eloquence to turn the King's Speech into ridicule; commenting upon many of its expressions in a vein of sarcastic humour, which kept the House for some time in constant laughter. He accused Lord Shelburne of 'duplicity and delusion:' but of Mr. Pitt's virtue, integrity, and honour,' he repeatedly spoke in terms of the highest commendation. Mr. Pitt reproved the levity of this veteran orator in a grave and dignified strain, which at once marked his readiness at reply, and his correct sense of propriety and decorum. He said he should be happy to share in the delights of that fertile imagination which had so long been the wonder and the pleasure of the House; but he could not indulge himself in admiring the beautiful motes which people the sunbeam,' when his mind was occupied with objects so serious and important. He could not believe, that the House would consent to call the Speech from the Throne a farrago of hypocrisies and absurdities,' which they had unanimously approved, and for which they had, without a single dissentient voice, agreed to present his Majesty with an address of thanks. I was present when Mr. Pitt delivered this speech, and nothing could exceed the applause with which it was received by the House." Life, vol. i. p. 91.—ED.

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to the former. I have had two very good nights, and the progress of the gout seems quite stopped; but I am exceedingly low and weak, and it will take me some time to recover: but I assure you, my dear sir, you may be easy. I have now a good opinion of myself, and I have spoken so plainly that you may believe me.

Adieu! You shall hear again soon, unless I see your nephew, whom I will desire to give you a more particular account.

LETTER CCCXCI.

Berkeley Square, Dec. 17, 1782.

ON not seeing nor hearing any thing of your nephew, I sent to his house, and learnt, to my mortification, that he neither is in town nor is expected. This forces me, though little able, to say a few words to you myself. I have been extremely ill, though not dangerously, but am much mended within these two days; yet my breast is still so weak, that I must not dictate more than is absolutely necessary.

I have received and sent to Lord Orford your letter, the drawing, and the draught: on account of the last, I suppose he will forget all three; but I shall not, nor shall let him. I must obey Cavalier Mozzi, though to his own prejudice, if he insists upon it; still I hope Mr. Duane will be able to prevent great injustice; but Lord knows when we shall begin. I, at present, am utterly incapable; and, last Friday night, not only poor Mr. Duane, but Sharpe, too, were within an inch of losing every paper they had in the world, and all those in their custody. A great fire broke out in Lincoln's Inn at eleven at night, and consumed twelve sets of chambers; but, beginning in a garret, most people saved their papers, as both Duane and Sharpe did; though the latter at first absolutely lost his senses, and ran about distracted, not knowing what he said or did. I conclude that I shall be recovered before he will have put his papers into order again. These are untoward accidents for poor Mozzi, but unavoidable.

I have been so entirely shut up and incapable of seeing any body that I neither know any politics, nor have breath to relate them if I did. The Peace seems at a stand; I know not why. We are pre

*On the 15th of December, Count de Vergennois bad complained in a letter to Dr. Franklin that the preliminaries between England and America had been concluded without any communication with the French Cabinet. "I am at a loss, sir," says the Count," to explain your conduct, and that of your colleagues, on this occasion. You have concluded your preliminary articles without any communica tion between us, although the instructions from Congress prescribe, that nothing shall be done without the participation of the King. You are about to hold out a certain hope of peace to America, without even informing yourself on the state of the negotiation on our part. You are wise and discreet, sir; you perfectly under stand what is due to propriety; you have all your life performed your duties. ! pray you to consider how you propose to fulfil those which are due to the King." To this remonstrance the Doctor replied: "Nothing has been agreed in the preli

pared for the attack on Jamaica, and Spanish bravadoes are sunk much below par. I must finish, for I have quite exhausted myself. Yours ever.

LETTER CCCXCII.

Jan. 7, 1783.

I KNOW not what to do about your complaint on your letters being produced against General Murray, though it is very well founded.* Your nephew is not, has not been in town. When he comes, I will speak to him. For myself, I never saw Murray, nor know who are his connexions. For Mr. Conway, as Commander-in-chief, it would be most improper for him to take the least part, the trial pending. I have not heard it named since I came to town, but that it would be finished last week; which, however, I believe it is not. As I have not been out of my house yet, but twice to take the air, and seen only the few that come to me, I can give you little account of the transactions or conversation of the world. for above three weeks I was too ill to see any body but my most intimate friends; and at present the town is deserted and will be till Saturday sevennight, the Birth-day. I do, as you see, write myself, yet my only motion is in my thumb and wrist. I can scarcely bend any other joint of my right hand, and believe never shall thence, writing being difficult and even painful, I very seldom attempt it, and generally employ a secretary.

The Peace is certainly not yet arrived. Armaments, and from them the Stocks, look inauspiciously; I know nothing more.

I told you Lord Mountstewart was leaving Turin. He came the day before yesterday; but my intelligence of Lord Northington's succeeding him was not equally authentic; at least, he is not yet named.

From Mr. Duane not a word yet; nor have I been well enough to do business had he come to me: at sixty-five one does not recover in a moment from an attack in ten places, and with so weak a breast as mine. All the accounts I receive of my nephew speak him frantic ; you shall judge from one. One of his footmen was carried before

minaries contrary to the interests of France; and no peace is to take place between us and England, till you have concluded yours. Your observation is, however, apparently just, that, in not consulting you before they were signed, we have been guilty of neglecting a point of bienséance: but, as this was not from want of respect for the King, whom we all love and honour, we hope it will be excused, and that the great work, which has hitherto been so happily conducted, is so nearly brought to perfection, and is so glorious to his reign, will not be ruined by a single indiscretion of ours; and certainly the whole edifice sinks to the ground immedi ately, if you refuse on that account to give us any further assistance. The English, I just now learn, flatter themselves they have already divided us. I hope this little misunderstanding, therefore, will be kept a secret." Works, vol. ix. p. 449.-ED. * Sir William Draper produced on the trial a letter of Sir Horace Mann, who had found fault with General Murray.