342.
To J. B. Holroyd, Esq.
Almack's, Saturday night, [March 21st, 1778].
*As business thickens, and you may expect me to write sometimes, I shall lay down one rule; totally to avoid political argument, conjecture, lamentation, declamation, &c., which would fill pages, not to say volumes; and to confine myself to short, authentic pieces of intelligence, for which I may be able to afford moments and lines. Hear then—The French ambassador[394] went off yesterday morning, not without some slight expressions of ill humour from John Bull. Lord Stormont[395] is probably arrived to-day. No immediate declaration expected on our side. A Report (but vague) of an action in the bay, between La Motte Piquet and Digby; the former has five ships and three frigates, with three large store ships under convoy; the latter has eleven ships of the line. If the Frenchman should sail to the mouth of the Delawar, he may possibly be followed and shut up. When Franklin was received at Versailles,[396] Deane went in the same character to Vienna, and Arthur Lee to Madrid. Notwithstanding the reports of an action in Silesia, they subside;[397] and I have seen a letter from Eliot at Berlin of the tenth instant, without any mention of actual hostilities, and even speaking of the impending War as not absolutely inevitable. Last Tuesday the first payment of the loan £600,000 was certainly made; and as it would otherwise be forfeited, it is a security for the remainder. I have not yet got the intelligence you want, about former prices of stock in Critical times. These are surely such. Dixi. Vale. Send me some good news from Bucks; In spite of the War, I must sell. We want you in town. Frazer is impatient: but if you come without Mylady, every door will be shut.