331.
To his Stepmother.
Bentinck Street, December 16th, 1777.
Dear Madam,
DESPAIRS OF COERCING AMERICA.
I flatter myself that my long silence must have given you great satisfaction. You recollect that while I was under the tyranny of the Gout, I showed myself tolerably exact in sending you intelligence of my situation and improvement. From my silence therefore, you must have concluded that I am, now, as indeed I am, restored to public health, and once more engaged in the busy as well as idle dissipations of this great town. I jumped at once from a sick chair into the warmest debates, which I ever remember in my short parliamentary life. They have constantly been fed by our miserable news from America, and the Session after the holydays will be taken up by Committees on the state of the Nation, Enquiries into the conduct of Ministers and Generals, &c., which will at least serve to increase the public ferment. What will be the resolutions of our Governors I know not, but I shall scarcely give my consent to exhaust still further the finest country in the World in the prosecution of a war from whence no reasonable man entertains any hopes of success. It is better to be humbled than ruined.
Half my acquaintance, Lady Dy, Lady Payne, the Solicitor General,[380] &c., are running down to Bath for the holydays. Had I no other inducement I should certainly escape from the crowd, and employ that short interval of quiet in resuming my long neglected History. Those literary occupations however I would gladly sacrifice to the pleasure of seeing you, but I apprehend I shall be engaged to prefer the Sussex to the Bath journey by some reasons which I will fairly submit to your judgement.
1. Holroyd, as you must have learned from his sister, is in a very indifferent state of health. His eyes are affected, his spirits are low, he has been disappointed of other company and he entreats me in a very moving way not to abandon him on this occasion.
2. I wish to pass some time with him on my own account, and to consult him with regard to Buriton, which is, I fear, very indifferently treated by my tenant Winton.
3. I expect, without knowing the day, a French lady of quality, Madame de Genlis,[381] to whom I have very great obligations. Whenever she informs me of her arrival in London, I must instantly fly (on the wings of mere friendship) to receive and attend her: now it would be somewhat vexatious to travel an hundred and ten miles, and to be called away the next day. Determine for me, my dear friend, you have every tye upon me of promise, of gratitude and of inclination. If you are not perfectly satisfied with my positive engagement to pass the Easter recess with you, depend upon it I will break through every difficulty that detains me at present. I have a thousand things to hear and say, and I know that you will enjoy, what I could not perhaps say to others without incurring the censure of vanity. If the Goulds are at Bath, I beg to be remembered to them. I see your friend Mr. Melmoth[382] has published a translation of another piece of Tully: on a subject which you understand at least as well as either of them. It will be worth your reading, for the treatise is valuable and he is an elegant as well as faithful translator.
I am, Dear Madam,
Ever yours,
E. G.