Chancery, where it would not be decided in a dozen years, or per haps not in twenty-that Cavalier Mozzi would lose the whole interest of all the money in the meantime, and perhaps spend the prin cipal in the pursuit; that it had always been his practice to advise adverse parties to split the difference; and therefore, of the 1900%, he would give my Lord half, and Mozzi half. I did not like this. At last I proposed my Lord should have 600l. and the Cavalier the remaining 1300l. I found Mr. Duane did not like this.-In short, we agreed at last that my Lord should have 6400l., and Cavalier Mozzi the rest; and this he would go and offer to Sharpe. Thus, after all, of 10,500l., the sum in dispute, I shall save Cavalier Mozzi but 4100%.! You will say, I had better have let Lucas go and propose to my Lord to cede the 19007. It is true; but, besides that Lucas accepted the request so unwillingly, and not in a way to satisfy my Lord, I could not satisfy myself without talking to Mr. Duane alone; and, when I did, I found him so clear in what I ought to do, that I could not, from inclination to serve Cavalier Mozzi, do what would be injustice to my Lord, whose cause I was chosen to defend. In short, I am very unhappy, and shall not wonder if at last Cavalier Mozzi suspects I have acted a double part; and have, notwithstanding all my professions, only meant to hurt him. Lucas, I am sure, still thinks just the contrary; at least, that I have been partial against my nephew: no; yet against Lucas I have, whom I did reproach with instigating my Lord to contest his mother's will, after he had said he would not. I do not care what my Lord or Lucas think; I have strictly followed Mr. Duane's opinion; and, as he could have no partiality, I chose to prefer his opinion to my own, as his could have no bias. Whatever Cavalier Mozzi shall think, it is mortification enough to me to be outwitted by Lucas; but I could not suffer my wish of defeating him to supersede what I am told is justice.

I have attempted to carry a collateral point, in which I suppose I shall not be much more successful. In Lucas's warmth of pleading for my Lord, I discovered that the 6000l. which my Lord is likely to recover from Mozzi (for observe, nothing is yet decided,) ought to go to my brother's creditors, and can only be received by my nephew as executor. I pinned Lucas down to this confession; and both the other lawyers agreed I was in the right. I then wanted to have the 60007. deposited in the hands of trustees or a banker: but that, it seems, is not law; my Lord indeed being answerable for the money to the creditors, but nobody has a right or power to sequester it from him. However, when the decision shall be made, I shall declare to Lucas that I shall give my brother's creditors notice that there is such a sum, which they may claim.

I have thus told you the substance, and you may inform poor Mozzi of it. I will write again when I know any farther. I have done the best I could, and perhaps more than any one else could have done; yet I claim no merit. All evidence, except what little

was in Sharpe's hands, was in Lucas's, and he has certainly made the most of it. Had I not been present, who bore witness against him in some particulars of his own knowledge, I conclude he would have gained more from Mr. Duane, who, as a lawyer, must be a little biassed by law arguments; yet I believe, though I explained much to him, that his love of peace, and the disagreeable consequences he foresaw from a legal suit, chiefly influenced his judg ment. I have not room or time to add a word more.

P.S.-Nov. 25, after dinner.

As I was going to seal my letter, I received one from Mr. Duane, which obliges me to add a postscript. He says, that Mr. Sharpe has convinced him by arguments, which I have not time to particularize, that Cavalier Mozzi ought to have more than we had allotted to him. [This shows that Sharpe has not quite sacrificed his client; indeed, I have always specified every instance in which I thought he acted justly.] Mr. Duane therefore advises to let Lucas make the proposal above-named to my Lord, and wait his answer. If it is not favourable, he says we may then offer 56001, or at least enlarge it. I certainly agree to wait, and willingly; but I send my letter notwithstanding: though you need not read the particulars to Cavalier Mozzi yet. It is hard to be a judge in a law affair, of which I am no judge. I have acted throughout from good-nature for Cavalier Mozzi, whom I thought ill-treated; and, to avoid scandal, I have done the best I could. I have made Lucas my enemy more than he was before, and I have not managed him; though I do not doubt but he will represent my conduct to my Lord in the worst light; and, though Mozzi may suspect me of favouring my nephew, I have probably added new alacrity to the wretches who wish my Lord to disinherit me, should I outlive him, but that is certainly what I do not expect to do; and, when I have scorned to court him or them, be assured I would not flatter him at the expense of another. In short, I have done right to the best of my judgment, and cannot help what is thought of me.

LETTER CCCCXI.

Berkeley Square, Dec. 2, 1783. We have not yet terminated poor Cavalier Mozzi's business. Lucas is highly dissatisfied at our offering my Lord what he calls but 60007., and I am as much displeased at offering so much; but Mr. Duane thinks the 54577., must be allowed, though Lucas, I believe, would find it very difficult to prove so in a court of law: and, as we fear we must agree to divide the remaining 18007. in question, we probably shall be reduced to fix the whole sum for my Lord at 6400%,

as I told you in my last. At present we wait for an answer from Cavalier Mozzi to Mr. Sharpe's last, and expect it in a week. Upon the whole, I shall have done sadly; and at best shall only have saved him from an eternal suit in Chancery.

Your nephew is in town, but confined by the gout. I called on him, but did not see him; yet you may be very easy, for he expects to be abroad in a day or two. I can make you as easy about another point, too; but, if you have not learnt it from him, do not take notice to him that you know it. Mrs. Noel has informed me that his daughter's treaty of marriage is broken off, and in a fortunate way. The peer, father of the lover, obliged him to declare off; and Mrs. Noel says that your niece is in good spirits. All this is just what one should have wished. Your nephew has sent me a good and most curious print from you of the old Pretender's marriage: I never saw one before. It is a great present to my collection of English portraits. The Farnesian books I have not yet received, and have forgotten the name of the gentleman to whom you entrusted them, and must search among your letters for it; or tell it me again.

The politicians of London, who at present are not the most numer ous corporation, are warm on a bill for a new regulation of the East Indies, brought in by Mr. Fox. Some even of his associates appre hended his being defeated, or meant to defeat him; but his marvellous abilities have hitherto triumphed conspicuously, and on two divisions in the House of Commons he had majorities of 109 and 114. On that field he will certainly be victorious: the forces will be more nearly balanced when the Lords fight the battle; but, though the Opposition will have more generals and more able, he is confident that his troops will overmatch theirs; and, in Parliamentary engagements, a superiority of numbers is not vanquished by the talents of the commanders, as often happens in more martial encounters. His compe titor, Mr. Pitt, appears by no means an adequate rival. Just like their fathers, Mr. Pitt has brilliant language, Mr. Fox solid sense; and such luminous powers of displaying it clearly, that mere eloquence is but a Bristol stone, when set by the diamond Reason.

Do not wonder that we do not entirely attend to things of earth: Fashion has ascended to a higher element. All our views are di rected to the air. Balloons occupy senators, philosophers, ladies, every body. France gave us the ton; and, as yet, we have not come up to our model. Their monarch is so struck with the heroism of two of his subjects who adventured their persons in two of these new floating batteries, that he has ordered statues of them, and contributed a vast sum towards their marble immortality. All this may be very important to me it looks somewhat foolish. Very early in my life I remember this town at gaze on a man who flew down a rope from the top of St. Martin's steeple; now, late in my day, people

* On the 1st of June, 1727 one Violante, an Italian, descended head foremost by a rope, with his legs and arms extended, from the top of the steeple of St. Martin's church, over the houses in St. Martin's Lane, to the farthest side of the Mews, a

are staring at a voyage to the moon. The former Icarus broke his neck at a subsequent flight: when a similar accident happens to modern knights-errant, adieu to air-balloons!

Apropos, I doubt these new kites have put young Astley's nose out of joint, who went to Paris lately under their Queen's protection, and expected to be Prime Minister, though he only ventured his neck by dancing a minuet on three horses at full gallop, and really in that attitude has as much grace as the Apollo Belvedere. When the arts are brought to such perfection in Europe, who would go, like Sir Joseph Banks, in Search of Islands in the Atlantic,* where the natives have in six thousand years not improved the science of carving fishing-hooks out of bones or flints! Well! I hope these new mechanic meteors will prove only play-things for the learned and the idle, and not be converted into new engines of destruction to the human race, as is so often the case of refinements or discoveries in science. wicked wit of man always studies to apply the result of talents to enslaving, destroying, or cheating his fellow-creatures. Could we reach the moon, we should think of reducing it to a province of some European kingdom.

The

P.S. 5th.

The Opposition in the House of Commons were so humbled by their two defeats, that, though Mr. Pitt had declared he would contest every clause (of the India bill) in the committee, (where in truth, if the bill is so bad as he says, he ought at least to have tried to amend it,) that he slunk from the contest, and all the blanks were filled up without obstruction, the opponents promising only to resist it in its last stage on Monday next; but really, having no hopes but in the House of Lords, where, however, I do not believe they expect to succeed. Mr. Pitt's reputation is much sunk; nor, though he is a much more correct logician than his father, has he the same firmness and perseverance. It is no wonder that he was dazzled by his own premature fame; yet his late checks may be of use to him, and teach him to appreciate his strength better, or to wait till it is confirmed. Had he listed under Mr. Fox, who loved and courted him, he would not only have discovered modesty, but have been more likely to succeed him, than by commencing his competitor. But what have I to do to look into futurity?

distance of about three hundred yards, in half a minute. The crowd was immense; and the young princesses, with several of the nobility, were in the Mews.-ED.

* Sir Joseph Banks, having previously made a voyage to Newfoundland and the Labrador coast, obtained an appointment in the ship which took out Captain Cook on his first voyage of discovery; and, in order to fulfil his own share in the enter prise in the most efficient manner possible, prevailed on Dr. Solander to accompany him, and engaged draftsmen and painters, to delineate such objects of interest as should not admit of transportation or preservation. This voyage occupied him three years.-ED.

27*

LETTER CCCCXII.

Berkeley Square, Dec. 15, 1763.

I WRITE you in great haste a few lines, which will surprise and perplex you, as I cannot enter into any explanation.

The town is full of rumour of a change of Administration. No such thing has happened; but enough has happened at least to countenance such a report. You will be cautious, therefore, till you hear farther, what you write. Mention no politics, but to the Ministers, as you ought to do.

Every thing goes as well as possible in Ireland. You are much too candid when you impute no bad designs to the person whose speech has been Italianized.

I have received the two books of Caprarola from Lord Algernon Percy I had quite forgotten to whom you had consigned them. It is not a way of speaking, but I do insist on your letting me know what they cost, that I may pay your nephew. You would deprive me of the pleasure of troubling you now and then with a little commission, if you do not let my reimburse you. I shall employ Sir W. Hamil ton in that way, if you forbid me applying to you; which you will do effectually, if you do not send me the prices of the Fatti Far

nesiani.

No answer is come yet to Sharpe from Cavalier Mozzi.

Tuesday, 16th. The Ministers were

An event has now happened that is decisive. beaten last night in the house of Lords by eight votes on the India Bill. An Administration beaten often implies a Court beaten; at present, the reverse is true. It is not proper to say more: but, as our newspapers seldom leave any thing unexplained, though commonly falsified or blundered, you will not remain long in the dark. Adieu.

LETTER CCCCXIII.

Friday, Dec. 19, 1783.

I HAVE Only a moment's time to tell you, that, at one this morning, his Majesty sent to Lord North and Mr. Fox for their seals of Se

* Dr. Hervey, Bishop of Derry and Earl of Bristol. He had sent to Rome a speech he had made in favour of the Roman Catholics: it was translated into Ita lian, printed, and dispersed.

The King had sent for Lord Temple, and ordered him to declare that his Majesty did not approve of the India Bill, but wished to have it thrown out by the House of Lords; yet he had never signified that disapprobation to the Duke of Portland and the Ministers. He went farther, and commanded the Lords of the Bed-chamber to vote against it.