This confinement has cost you no news but the loss of Dominica ;* and you saw as much of that in the newspaper, at least as I could tell you. I have this moment received yours of the 27th of last month, in which you again petition for good news, that you may silence the impertinent buzzes in your part of the world; but in truth I don't know how you will stop their throats, but by the quantity and richness of the captures made from the French. The King's Speech, I doubt, must have great recourse to the same anodyne. Nothing of consequence has been done anywhere, by fleets or armies; and the notion is, that our own returned commanders are likely to be warmer with one another, than they have been with the enemy; but, indeed, I believe reports of what is to come still less than what is past, neither of which have I for some time seen come to any thing;-then it is 'not difficult to foresee the consequence. I am surprised at the Hibernian family you mention being arrived at Florence so soon: you are very welcome to show them as many civilities as you please, and set them down to my account; but do not receive every thing they say of me as coming from the heart. They know your partiality to me, and they mean to pass their time every where as agreeably as they can. For the other lady,t and her daughter Chance, be doubly upon your guard against the mother. There is nothing so black of which she is not capable. Her gallantries are the whitest specks about her. I have heard nothing of your nephew's arrival; but shall be very impatient when he does come to see him as soon as I can see any body. I shall long to hear his account of you, and good accounts of you; at least, I shall not hear that you are little more than a mummy, as I am. Adieu! LETTER CCXCIV. Arlington Street, Nov. 27, 1778. In my present situation, lying on a couch in my bed-chamber, with not a single limb free but my left hand, I certainly did not expect any singular pleasure to-day; and yet I had the great and unexpected one of seeing your nephew, who, though another, is a true Sir Horace. He had called here a few days ago, when I was able to see scarcely anybody; and, not being expected, he was not admitted. I was heartily chagrined, and did not know whither to send to The island of Dominica was taken, on the 7th of September, by the Marquis de Bouille, Governor-General of Martinico.-ED. Elizabeth Drax, Countess-Dowager of Berkeley, afterwards married to Robert Nugent, Esq., since created Earl of Clare. During her latter marriage she had two daughters, the younger of whom Mr. Mugent disavowed for his. The elder was married to the second Earl Temple. him. He was so kind as to come again to-day, when you may be sure he was not refused. As I can only dictate, I must retrench a thousand things I would say; but one word will paint my contentment with him. He loves you as much as he would have loved his father, if he had known him as well. Indeed, it is the same thing; as I told him, there were two you's or two he's. Your nephew says he would not but visit you every year for the world, which you may be sure I did not discourage; though I must naturally wish just the reverse, i. e. that you should visit him, at least for once. He tells me you are very plump and portly, and in most admirable health. Poor young man! he had a little gout in one foot, and I presented but a sad perspective to him. But I begged him not to bring the gout into his stomach, by being persuaded to keep it out by strong wines. Though I have been so often afflicted by severe fits for these twenty years, I never had it but one-half hour in my head, and never once in my stomach. In this fit, though I kept my bed within three days. of a month, perspired immoderately and almost constantly, yet I drank nothing but cold water the whole time; and every morning, as soon as I wake, have my face and neck washed with cold water. No fit ever came so rapidly and regularly, nor went off more kindlythanks to the bootikins, and to cold water and air; which two last, I am persuaded by long experience, will never hurt me, though very likely my system would kill a Hercules, who all his life kept a fiery furnace in his stomach. For your nephew, he seems to have acquired the only thing he wanted, and which was very excusable to want at his age,-prudence. And he feels it still more on your account than his own. I beg the nation's, but not your pardon, for indulging myself in giving the precedence to your nephew.-Now for the other. Our Parliament opened yesterday. The Speech did not display very promising prospects, but the debates and events in neither House were remarkable: prodigious bickerings were expected between generals, admirals, commissioners, and ministers; but some of the points in contestation were alone touched, and nothing probed, though probably only deferred. It is said and believed, that Sir Harry Clinton had embarked a body of troops for our West Indian islands, but has disembarked them again; so, the merchants concerned in those islands are in the highest alarms. Spain, I doubt, grows less and less to be depended upon; and the French party in Holland have carried some strong questions against our seizure of their ships, though we have offered reasonable indemnification. In short, I have neither good news nor good prognostics to send you. All these things are public; and secrets I should not utter even to you at this distance, if I knew any. if able to write, or sooner, Your nephew will help me You shall hear again as soon as I am there is any thing material to send you. out; though in the hurry of a fresh arrival, and with his attendance on Parliament, you cannot justly expect him to be very punctual at first, till he is got en train: however, I am sure his heart will not let him be remiss.* Adieu! LETTER CCXCV. Arlington Street, Dec. 18, 1778. Having so many lonely vacant hours (if pain leaves vacancy,) I should seem unpardonable in having left such a chasm in our correspondence, when I know you are extremely impatient for news. Solitary hours, to be sure, I have had innumerable, even in my best intervals; for fashion has pushed the day so far into the night, that I have been forced to conform my sick regularity a little to the watches of the town, and dine later than I choose, or dine in public; for nobody will make me a morning's visit before two in the afternoon, nor leave me to go home to dress for dinner before four. They come not again till eight or nine at night when they would keep me out of bed till twelve, if I would let them. But I have had more grievous reasons for not writing; though free from pain for this week, I have not yet at all recovered the use of my right hand. But I have had a more serious and more dangerous complaint, and the consequence of my gout; such a weakness in my breast, that an inflammation on it was apprehended, and I was absolutely forbidden to see company, or even speak, which I must do to dictate. This codicil to my gout, I confess, was owing to this my second childhood; in short, my spirits ran away with me, and I talked without ceasing. Even a child is cunning enough to make excuses mine was, that I could have gone about the town for three days without speaking three words, for I might not have met with three persons to whom I wished to speak; but in my own room, where I see nobody but those I choose to see, and many friends whom I had not seen for six months, one must have the continent tongue of Lord Abercornt to be silent. Well! I am recovered of that danger, and am recovering of all the rest; and you shall hear no more of me, who am not politics, which are what you want to know. Of them I know not what to write. The Parliament is unshaken, though it has had rough concussions. The rash proclamation in America alarmed much, and I fear will have bitter consequences: but all is swallowed up by the new court-martial on Admiral Keppel; as rash an act in its kind, and the deed, it is said, of that black man, Sir Hugh Palliser alone. Its consequences may be many, various, * Sir Horace Mann the younger was member for Maidstone.-Ed. The court-martial was ordered for the 7th of January. On receiving the notice, Admiral Keppel repaired to the House of Commons, where Mr. Temple and fatal; but I neither love to foresee, nor to spread misfortunes of my country, when my letter must pass through the ordeal of as many hostile post-houses as formerly galant ladies passed over burning plough-shares.-Let us talk rather of galant ladies-but no, I hate scandal; and, besides, our greatest dames are no longer galant, but errant street-walkers, and I have never promised to send you the register of Doctors' Commons: our news-writers are the proper secretaries of that tribunal, and can scarcely outstrip the truth. What I have long apprehended is on the point of conclusion, the sale of the pictures at Houghton: the mad master has sent his final demand of forty-five thousand pounds for them to the Empress of Russia, at the same time that he has been what he calls improving the outside of the house; basta! Thus end all my visions about Houghton, which I never will see, though I must go thither at last; nor, if I can help it, think of more. Your old acquaintance, Mr. Worseley,* is dead, and in a shocking way to us moderns, though à la Romaine: he had such dreadful internal complaints, that he determined to starve himself, and for the four last days tasted exactly nothing. My newly recovered voice will not permit me to dictate: your nephew and the newspaper can tell you as much more as I could. If I have any judgment, which I doubt, the tragedy is coming rather to the fifth act than to the conclusion. Hitherto the drama has been carried on by relation, or-behind the scenes; now the dénoument may be on the stage. Adieu! I am quite tired. Luttrell moved an address to the King, praying him to order a court-martial on Sir Hugh Palliser. Upon this, Sir Hugh rose, and with much acrimony attacked the Admiral's conduct; who, in answer, professed his readiness to meet inquiry. "Thank God," he said, "I am not the accuser, but the accused. I was called to serve my country at a very critical period; I have performed my duty to the best of my abilities, and whatever the issue may be, I have one consolation, that I have acted strictly to the best of my judgment." He was greeted with the loudest applause, and retired from the House, accompanied by a large body of the members. In consequence of Admiral Keppel's bad state of health, a bill was brought in to allow the court-martial to be held on shore. It passed the Commons without opposition, but was opposed in the Lords by Lord Thurlow, on the plea that the Admiral's bad state of health had not been proved. Upon which, the Marquis of Rockingham observed, "that he had seen him the other evening leave the House of Commons, with a glory of conscious innocence around his head: no person could have quitted it with more seeming celerity, strength, dignity, and manly vigour; yet he dined with him the same evening, and such was the strange precariousness and vicissitude of his spirits, though only an hour elapsed since he saw him leave the House of Commons, that he took half an hour to get up from the ground-floor to the dining-room, being in the interim afflicted with the severest pains from cramp in both his legs." See the very able and interesting "Life of Viscount Keppel," by the Hon. and Rev. Thomas Keppel, vol. ii. p. 83.—ED. * James Worseley, Master of the Board of Works. VOL II.-8 LETTER CCXCVI. Strawberry Hill, Jan. 5, 1779. OLD women-our only remaining prophets, except the Opposition and a little common sense,-prognosticate great woes for the coming year, from the omens of its first day. A tempest at the instant of the new year made terrible havoc of tiles, chimneys, and trees; and at night great part of Greenwich Hospital was burnt. I doubt casualties will not be the sole completion of the augury. There is actually great apprehension for Jamaica, or, at least, some of the West Indian Islands. I believe there are no eggs laid for achievements on our side, but some for discontent. The trial of Admiral Keppel is most unpopular, especially with his own profession. Lord Hawke and eleven other Admirals have presented to the King a remonstrance against the precedent, on the lateness of the complaint, on the impropriety of it as subjecting Commanders-in-chief to the uncertainty of opinion, and on the precipitation of the Admiralty in ordering the trial. A draught of the Remonstrance was shown to Mr. Keppel himself; he tore it, and desired it might not be presented. This did him great honour, but did not prevent the delivery.* I should think the Parliament would meet again in cloudy weather,, though they may vote it is fair. I came hither on New Year's Day to try change of weather, as I mend very slowly, or not at all. In truth, I expect but little melioration. My natural weakness, with so many attacks, so much. gout in my constitution, and sixty one-no elastic age, make me conclude that I shall not pass much of my remaining time out of my own houses. It is a doom I shall not struggle with: I have no idea of forcing a helpless skeleton upon other people, nor can see myself but what I am. It seems strange to me that so many decrepit cardinals should have accepted the tiara, when they were as likely to be buried as crowned. I shall carry this letter to town with me to-morrow, and add any news, if I hear any, before Friday. I might, from the little I had to say, have waited till the Parliament met next week; but it seems as if I had not written to you for some time. Your nephew, I conclude, is out of town, for I have seen him but the once I told But I am still more impatient to hear from you again, as your last left you with remains of fever. I know you are not rash, and know how to manage yourself in fevers; but you have not good Dr. Cocchi to watch you, and I have no opinion of Italian Galens. I think, too, that there was low-spirited accent in your style, but trust *The conduct of the Admiralty in appointing the court-martial gave the highest disgust to all ranks in the navy. Twelve British Admirals, at the head of whom was Keppel's old commander, the veteran Hawke, drew up a memorial, which was presented to the King by the Duke of Bolton.-ED. |