a distance, will be anxious for every post. Good news you shall have instantly: I hope I shall have nothing sinister to send you. I may not be at hand immediately to tell you everything: I have female relations whose husbands may be in action, whose spirits I must keep up, and who are in different counties; but I shall never be long from home. Every man must do the utmost he can in his sphere when his country is concerned, and private duties must be attended to too. I have lived long enough to possess calmness enough for my use. It has long been my maxim, that most things are excusable in the passions of youth; but that an old man is bound to think of nothing but what is right, and to be serviceable to others. Virtues, if one has any, shine brightest when put to the trial; but ostentation may taint even them. My father is ever before my eyes-not to attempt to imitate him, for I have none of his matchless wisdom, or unsullied virtues, or heroic firmness; but sixty-two years have taught me to gaze on him with ten thousand times the reverence that I speak it with deep shame-I felt for him at twenty-two, when he stood before me! I must check this theme, it would carry me too far; and it is at midnight I am writing, and my letter must go to London at eight in the morning. Adieu! Adieu! my dear sir may I send you victories while we are at war; but, being no military man, I may be allowed to wish I could send you peace!

LETTER CCCXII.

Strawberry Hill, Sep. 5, 1779.

IF I tell you nothing but truth, my letter will be wondrously short. Since my last, there have been no events but what, in modern phrase, are called movements. The combined fleets appeared before Plymouth, and disappeared. Sir Charles Hardy was driven westward. The Ardent, mistaking enemies for friends, fell among them; but Captain Boteler was thrown so little off his guard, that it took four ships to master him, and his own sunk as soon as he and his men were received on board the victors. Monsieur D'Orvilliers, admiring his gallantry, applauded it. He modestly replied, "You will find every captain in our fleet behave in the same manner."* Un tel déportement donne à penser. At last we heard of Sir Charles Hardy off Plymouth, and yesterday at Portsmouth. Where the combined are, I know not precisely; but, that such extended lines should not have caught the eye of each other, is very surprising to us inexpert in winds and tides. On those I never allow myself to conjecture or reason; and thus I have told

* "Captain Boteler had orders to join Sir Charles Hardy's fleet, supposed to be cruizing in Channel soundings. He had received no intimation that the enemy had put to sea, when he suddenly fell in with a fleet which made him the private signal. So little idea had he of its being the enemy, that he was occupied in reefing his topsails, when a frigate poured her broadside into him. At once engaged with four of the enemy's frigates, and a powerful force coming up to their support, he was compelled to strike, and for this—he was dismissed the service !"-Life of Keppel, vol. ii. p. 257.-Ed.

you all the little I know, disrobed of the reports and lies of each new day. Opinions, were I informed enough to frame them, would be stale ere they could reach you. I write rather to extract the small truth there is in newspapers and interested relations, than to swell your imagination. My letter must pass through so many inquisitions, that it is necessary it should be able to stand the test.

There is not a word of private news. All the world are politicians, or soldiers; or, rather, both. I hope they will improve more in the latter profession than they have done in the former. Even this little quiet village is grown a camp. Servants are learning to fire all day long, and, I suppose, soon will demand their wages le pistolet à la main. I could draw other reflections; but a man who in a month will enter on his grand climacteric, and should busy himself with visions of what may happen when he is in his grave, would resemble Hogarth's debtor, who, in prison, is writing a scheme for paying the debts of the nation.

I forgot to tell you, that, the moment I received your letter to your nephew, I sent it to his house in town, -where he was not; and the servant believed he was to set out the next morning, but would send it to him. I have not been able to learn since whether he is gone or not; for your sake I own I wish he may be.

LETTER CCCXIII.

Sep. 16, 1779.

I HAVE received your letter by Colonel Floyd, and shall be surprised indeed if Cæsar does not find his own purple a little rumpled, as well as his brother's mantle. But how astonished was I at finding that you did not mention the dreadful eruption of Vesuvius. Surely you had not heard of it! What are kings and their popguns to that wrath of Nature! How Sesostris, at the head of an army of nations, would have fallen prostrate to earth before a column of blazing embers eleven thousand feet high! I am impatient to hear more, as you are of the little conflict of us pigmies. Three days after my last set out, we received accounts of D'Estaing's success against Byron and Barrington, and of the capture of Grenada. I do not love to send first reports, which are rarely authentic. The subse

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* An eruption of Mount Vesuvius had taken place in August, which, for its extraordinary and terrible appearance, is considered the most remarkable of any recorded concerning this or any other volcano. An account of it was published in October by Sir William Hamilton, in a letter to Mr., afterwards Sir Joseph, Banks :-"In an instant," says Sir William, a fountain of liquid transparent fire began to rise, and, gradually increasing, arrived at so amazing a height as to strike every one who beheld it with the most awful astonishment. I shall scarcely be credited when I assure you, sir, that the height of this stupendous column of fire could not be less than three times that of Vesuvius itself, which, as you know, rises perpendicularly 3700 feet above the level of the sea !— 'Se tu se' or, lettore, à creder lento

Ciò ch' io dirò, non sarà maraviglia,

Che io, che 'l vidi, appena il mi consento." "-ED.

VOL. III.-NEW SERIES.

N

quent narrative of the engagement* is more favourable. It allows the victory to the enemy, but makes their loss of men much the more considerable. Of ships we lost but one, taken after the fight as going into port to refit. Sir Charles Hardy and D'Orvilliers have not met; the latter is at Brest, the former at Portsmouth. I never penetrated an inch into what is to be; and into some distant parts of our history, I mean the Eastern, I have never liked to look. I believe it an infamous scene; you know I have always thought it so; and the Marattas are a nation of banditti very proper to scourge the heroes of Europe, who go so far to plunder and put themselves into their way. Nature gave to mankind a beautiful world, and larger than it could occupy,-for, as to the eruption of Goths and Vandals occasioned by excess of population, I very much doubt it; and mankind prefers deforming the ready Paradise, to improving and enjoying it. Ambition and mischief, which one should not think were natural appetites, seem almost as much so as the impulse to propagation ; and those pious rogues, the clergy, preach against what Nature forces us to practise, (or she could not carry on her system,) and not twice in a century say a syllable against the Lust of Destruction! Oh! one is lost in moralizing, as one is in astronomy! In the ordinance and preservation of the great universal system

* The unsatisfactory engagement which took place on the 6th of July between Admirals Byron and Barrington, and Count D'Estaing; in which the latter, though considerably superior in force, eluded every effort which was made by the British commanders to bring on a close and decisive battle.-ED.