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is concluded that the dog had fallen in, and that the Earl, in trying to extricate him, had lost his poize and tumbled in too. It is an odd exit for the Governor of a King, Ambassador, and Viceroy. Another Ambassador has had a sad fall too: Count Virry* is arrested at Susa, and ordered to present himself twice a day to the Governor. Madamet has leave to go where she pleases. Whither can she go? or how not stay with her husband? The Prince Masserano is set out, so ill, that I question if he will reach Calais.

LETTER CCLXXIV.

Arlington Street, Oct. 26, 1777.

It is past my usual period of writing to you; which would not have happened but for an uncommon, and indeed, considering the moment, an extraordinary dearth of matter. I could have done nothing but describe suspense, and every newspaper told you that. Still we know nothing certain of the state of affairs in America; the very existence where, of the Howes, is a mystery. The General is said to have beaten. Washington, Clinton to have repulsed three attacks, and Burgoyne to

ship's feet. Simon, first Earl Harcourt, was grandson of Lord Chancellor Harcourt, and son of the Hon. Simon Harcourt, who, in 1705, married Elizabeth, grand-daughter of John Evelyn. He died in 1720, and was buried at Stanton Harcourt; where a monument is erected to his memory, with the beautiful inscription by Pope, beginning

"To this sad shrine, who'er thou art! draw near!
Here lies the friend most lov'd, the son most dear;
Who ne'er knew joy, but friendship might divide,
Or gave his father grief, but when he dy'd."

-Lord Harcourt had been Governor of George III. when Prince of Wales. In 1761 he was nominated Ambassador Extraordinary to Mecklenburgh-Strelitz, to demand the Princess Charlotte in marriage; in September, was declared Master of the Horse to her Majesty; in 1768, Ambassador to the Court of France; and, in 1769, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; which high office he held till the January of this year.-ED. * Count Virry was son of one of the same title, who had been the Sardinian Minister in England, and was himself Ambassador in France. While in England, in 1760, he married Miss Speed, niece of Lady Cobham. [The poet Gray, in speaking of this marriage at the time, says, "The Count is about twenty-eight years old (ten years younger than herself,) but looks nearer forty. This is not the effect of debuchery; for he is a very sober man, good-natured and honest, but no conjuror.— ED.]

The Countess Virry, who was supposed to be the cause of her husband's disgrace, as very intriguing, and to have invited him to keep up a secret correspondence at Turin for making himself Prime Minister, which was discovered. Lord Shelburne, who was her friend, prevailed on the King to obtain their pardon of the King of Sardinia in 1783; about which time she died suddenly. She was one of the heroines of Mr. Gray's "Long Story," and had a great deal of wit.

The Spanish Ambassador had obtained leave to return home, on account of the ill state of his health. He died on his way thither, on the 1st of December. He was succeeded at the British Court by the Marquis de Almodovar.-ED.

be beaten. The second alone is credited. Impatience is very high, and uneasiness increases with every day. There is no sanguine face any where, but many alarmed ones. The pains taken, by circulating false reports, to keep up some confidence, only increase the dissatisfaction by disappointing. Some advantage gained may put off clamour for some months: but I think, the longer it is suspended, the more terrible it will be; and how the war should end but in ruin, I am not wise enough to conjecture. France suspends the blow, to make it more inevitable. She has suffered us to undo ourselves: will she allow us time to recover? We have begged her indulgence in the first: will she grant the second prayer?

The Duke of Gloucester is arrived. That is miraculous. He is almost well, and that is less surprising. Mr. James finds his face plumper than at Rome: he is certainly not leaner, nor yellow, though very pale; and his voice shows that his lungs are good. In short the remainder of his illness is in his right leg; which is still swelled, and very lame when he stands too much, as he is too apt to do. The Duchess has more symptoms of what she has suffered than his Royal Highness; and as she is much fallen away, and even shrunk, her face looks much older, which must necessarily happen till her skin fills up again. Princess Sophia is a fine child, though less pretty than she was. Prince a pretty boy. If there is any thing more to tell you, it is yet to

come.

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You have heard of the inundation at Petersburgh.* That ill wind produced luck to somebody. As the Empress had not distressed objects enough amongst her own people to gratify her humanity, she turned the torrent of her bounty towards that unhappy relict the Duchess of Kingston, and ordered her Admiralty to take particular care of the marvellous yacht that bore Messalina and her fortune.† Pray mind that I bestow the latter Empress's name on the Duchess, only because she married a second husband in the life-time of the first. Amongst other benevolences, the Czarina lent her grace a courier to despatch to Eng

* A violent hurricane, which began on the morning of September the 14th, raised the waters, in the space of four hours, to the height of fourteen feet above the ordinary level of the Neva. The city and adjoining flat country were rapidly overflowed; by which many hundreds of the inhabitants were drowned, and thousands ruined. The finest trees in the palace gardens were torn up by the roots; the bridges destroyed; ships thrown into gardens, fields, and woods; and country-houses swept away or destroyed.-ED.

Elizabeth Chudleigh, Countess of Bristol, married, during the Earl's life-time, to the Duke of Kingston, had in the preceding year, been tried in Westminster Hall for bigamy, and found guilty. After the trial she left England, and went to reside at St. Petersburgh. The following is an extract from a letter written by her Chaplain, the Rev. Mr. Forster, to a friend in England :-" At our arrival, the Vice-Admiral came on board to compliment the Duchess, and to offer to place her yacht in the basin where the men-of-war lie. As soon as the Empress was informed of the arrival of the Duchess, she sent her an invitation. She was presented by the Count de Czernechoff. Her Majesty paid her the highest mark of distinction, by placing her on her right. The famous General Romanzoff was present, and also the Grand-Duke, Indeed, so many honours were never paid in this Court to any person whatsoever."ED.

land-I suppose to acquaint Lord Bristol that he is not a widower. That courier brought a letter from a friend to Dr. Hunter, with the following anecdote. Her Imperial Majesty proposed to her brother of China to lay waste a large district that separates their two empires, lest it should, as it has been on the point of doing, produce war between them; the two empires being at the two extremeties of the world, not being distance enough to keep the peace. The ill-bred Tartar sent no answer to so humane a project. On the contrary, he dispersed a letter to the Russian people, in which he tells them that a woman-he might have said the Minerva of the French litterati-had proposed to him to extirpate all the inhabitants of a certain region belonging to him, but that he knew better what to do with his own country: however, he could but wonder that the people of all the Russias should still submit to be governed by a creature that had assassinated her husband.-Oh! if she had pulled the Ottoman by the nose in the midst of Constantinople, as she intended to do, this savage would have been more civilized. I doubt the same rude Monarch is still on the throne, who would not suffer Prince Czernichew to enter his territories, when sent to notify her Majesty's hereditary succession to her husband; but bade him be told, he would not receive an ambassador from a murderess. Is it not shocking that the law of nations, and the law of politeness, should not yet have abrogated the laws of justice and good-sense in a nation reckoned so civilized as the Chinese? What an age do we live in, if there is still a country where the Crown does not take away all defects! Good night!

LETTER CCLXXV.

Arlington Street, Nov. 7, 1777. You will have seen in the papers, before you can receive this, such accounts of a total defeat of Washington, that you might wonder at my silence if I did not say a word: that word must be, that I very much doubt the fact; and, if it was known at New York so long ago as the supposed Gazette thence says, it would be wonderful, indeed, that General Howe should keep it a profound secret from the Government here, whom he might suppose a little interested to hear some good news or other after a long dearth.

The first breath of this report was said to come from France yesterday sevennight. On Sunday morning early it was asserted as a fact by a New York Gazette arrived at Liverpool. On Tuesday I came to town, intending to write to you; but, finding no confirmation come, I thought it prudent not to assert what I knew no better. From Tuesday to Friday night is a long interval on such an occasion; and, though some still say that they believe Washington beaten, they do not use, I observe, much stronger terms than received a check. One has heard

VOL. II.-5

of towns burnt to the ground, that have turned out to be a chimney on fire. In the mean time I tell you all I know, and I am not apt to believe more of things at such a distance

Of what there is no doubt is, the check Burgoyne has received, and the distress of his army, that the last accounts left in danger of being starved. There have been accounts of his recovering the blow, but I cannot find one person who believes that. In one word, it is a very serious moment; and, without greater views, the misery of so many who have relations and friends both in Howe's and Burgoyne's armies is terrible. It is known that the latter had twenty-six officers wounded; and, as their names are not come, ten times the number may be suffering the worst anxiety. The distance of the war augments its horrors almost as much as its expense, and makes it grow every day more irksome.

I have no private news to send you of any sort. The town is still empty. I come now and then to see the Duke and Duchess. He does not recover of his lameness, and in general I find people think he looks worse than it appears to me. She looks infinitely better than at her arrival, but she has a perfect constitution.

I see no prospect of an end to this American war, but from our inability to carry it on: and what can that produce but a war from France-I don't say with France; for where can we attack them if we lose America; and where are we to be attacked but in our own islands and the East Indies-which are not quite near enough to assist each other? There is no looking towards such a prospect.

If Burgoyne's army is destroyed, little force left in Canada, only seven thousand men in New York, Howe's army not increased by his tedious voyage, and three battles with Washington, if true-where are we to stamp and conjure up new armies? And what will less armies achieve, which such large ones have not compassed in three campaigns? We have lost Boston, have got New York, and perhaps Philadelphia. If the Americans have fought, they will fight. If they have not, can you make them? And can you conquer them without beating them? Can you maintain the country when you have conquered it? Will a destroyed country maintain an army? And can this country maintain or recruit it, when you can already get no recruits but from Germany? We are like Lord Holland paying the debts of his sons; he ruined himself, and left them beggars.*

*This does not accord with the following passage in Walpole's letter to Sir Horace, of the 3rd of August, 1774: "Lady Holland is dead-just three weeks after her lord. She has cleared all the debts of her two elder sons: the eldest has a large fortune, and Charles a decent beginning of another; though it may not last a night if he chooses to make it a codicil to all he has lost, and scorns to be indebted to any thing but his own parts for his elevation."-ED.

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LETTER CCLXXVI.

Arlington Street, Dec. 4, 1777.

THIS letter will not be preceded by nine postilions blowing horns; but should steal into Florence as modestly as a Roman general, who at most hoped to obtain the honour of an ovation. The second part of my despatch will only beg you not to despair of the republic.

After living a whole month upon a New York Cazette, and tired of asking if, No news yet? Sir William Howe's aid-de-camp arrived on the first: he confirmed the account of two, not three, engagements between the General and Dictator Washington. In the first, Howe certainly had the advantage; and in the second, so far, that Washington, having attacked him in his post, was repelled, and is retired into the Jerseys, the King having been restored to the sovereignty of Philadelphia. You are to believe that though Howe lost eleven hundred men, particularly Hessians, Washington suffered more: but even the gazette does not enjoin you to suppose that the latter is totally defeated. On the contrary, for fear so small an army should effect too great things, you are authorized to figure the provincial army in the Jerseys as still consisting of eleven thousand men; and there are a few reasons to think that it may now be as large as the Congress or the provinces, no longer checked, may please. Sir William delays the pursuit, as the passage of the Delaware is not yet clear. The lord his brother is besieging a tough fort, and has already lost a sixty-four gun ship and a frigate.

General Clinton has marched to relieve or find Burgoyne, but was forced to be content with taking two forts, and showing uncommon valour. The next paragraph will tell you why his expedition was unnecessary.

On Tuesday night came news from Carleton at Quebec, which indeed had come from France earlier, announcing the total annihilation (as to America) of Burgoyne's army. Carleton declares he has no authentic information; but from all the intelligence he can get, and which he believes, Burgoyne, after despatching Colonel Fraser with one thousand men to seek provisions, which whole body with their commander was cut off, fought desperately to extricate himself; but, numbers increasing and pouring upon him, he had been forced to lay down his arms, and the whole remaining army, which some say still consisted of five thousand, but probably were reduced much lower, surrendered themselves prisoners, and are to be transported to England, on parole of not serving more in America-no bad circumstance for us, if they were but here? Burgoyne is said to be wounded in three places; his vanquisher Arnold is supposed to be dead of his wounds.*

You may imagine this occasions some consternation; but none at *The following is Gibbon's account, written on the same day, to Mr. Holroyd. from the House of Commons:-"Dreadful news, indeed! An English army of

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