556.
To Lord Sheffield.
[Oct. 17, '90.]
SERVITUDE TO LAWYERS.
You call me incorrigible: but I never was less disposed than at present to plead guilty. Have you forgot the general picture of mind, body and estate which I sent you since my recovery? in the tranquil life of Lausanne a long interval might elapse without affording any features to alter or any colours to vary. On the most interesting topic, poor Buriton, it is mine to hear rather than to write, and most ardently indeed do I now desire to hear of the conclusion of that incomprehensible business. Is it possible, are we under such servitude to the lawyers that an obsolete act without force or meaning should have hung us up for a year in Chancery? If I do not learn before the end of the year that the money is paid and placed, I shall be as miserable as pecuniary events can make me; when it is done I am easy and happy for life. In the midst of your arduous affairs I do not suspect any failure of zeal, but I now call upon you to redouble your speed, and to strain every nerve till we have reached the goal. Till the present business I never imagined that it was difficult to find people who would take your money. It is lucky that Sainsbury has consented to leave £8000 on Buriton: with regard to the remainder I leave it absolutely to your judgement, but since you distrust with reason private bond security, I see no other way than throwing it into the funds; a short delay might be allowed in expectation of their sinking, but the rise and fall are so uncertain, that it might be the 'rusticus expectat dum defluat amnis.' In the mean while Buriton rent must be paid, and as the two quarters due at Lady day had been neglected, the whole year till last Michaelmas must be rigorously exacted. I do not believe (though I would not give a gentleman the lye) that you ever asked me the question about Mrs. G.'s jointure: it will be an handsome, an easy compliment to give her a right to the three hundred which I pay her in fact.
Let us now make a tour to Newhaven. Upon the whole I am very well satisfied. You remark that about February, 1788, the old Saint decimated her nephew: but have you forgot that her atheistical nephew had neglected to accept her invitation and would not even write her a civil letter? surely he has no right to complain. I am ignorant of the character and behaviour of the Laws, but in the general principle of preferring friends to relations, I think her perfectly right.—You were not surely impatient for an answer to your proposal: it demands the coolest deliberation, and there cannot be the smallest occasion for dispatch. I will however impart such ideas as have arisen.
1. I agree with Batt in thinking it an unwise measure for yourself. Is this a time to diminish your income when you must enlarge or at least support your expence, when you know that for seven years to come you will not enjoy the benefit of a single winter fallow? If you have timber it will be sufficiently wanted for your annual supplies.
2. The balance of my fortune and my wishes depends on a contingency which I have neither power nor inclination to hasten. As soon as the Belvidere subsides, I am rich beyond all my plans of expence at Lausanne. Every winter such an event is probable, and it is highly probable that it will happen in three or four winters. It is indeed possible that a fine thread may be drawn to a great length without breaking, and if I turned a landed estate into an annuity, I should never be at a loss to employ the superfluity. If my heir, the creature of my choice does not think he has enough, the dog has too much.