386.
To Colonel J. B. Holroyd.
Brookes's,[450] Saturday Night, February (12th), 1780.
I rejoyce in the successful progress, and am convinced that for the present at least the catastrophe will be happy. Your last was safely conveyed to Lord Charles Spencer in the few hours that he happed to be in town. Though I hate to go out in the morning I will be at the Admiralty with Lord Mulgrave, Lord Lisburn and Penton to-morrow at ten o'clock.
VICTORY OVER THE SPANISH FLEET.
Burke[451] opened his ingenious partial scheme of public economy yesterday, but I cannot give you a speech of three hours in three lines, and you will hear and see enough about it. What is of much more consequence than this Parliamentary prattle (I talk to you now as a free mason) is the business of which we have received to-day the certain though not official information. Rodney encountered the Spanish Fleet off Cape St. Mary's;[452] the Commodore (90 guns) blew up, three line of battle-ships taken, two more likewise taken, but so much shattered and dismasted, that they were separated and forced by an unlucky gale of wind into the Port of Cadiz. The letters from thence express despondency and fears (which for us are hopes) of several other ships. Patriots very dull, the Duke of Grafton who is now standing by the fire, looks blacker than usual. I dined with Wedderburne (at Lord Carlisle's), who was to see one of your Agents to-night; he is earnest and sanguine—God send a good deliverance to the Colonel and Secretary.