Thank you, my dear Sir, for the Herculaneum and Caserta that you are sending me. I wish the watch may arrive safe, to show you that I am not insensible to all your attentions for me, but endeavour, at a great distance, to imitate you in the execution of commissions.
I would keep this letter back for a post, that I might have but one trouble of sending you Quebec too; but when one has taken so many places, it is not worth while to wait for one more.
Lord George Sackville, the hero of all conversation, if one can be so for not being a hero, is arrived. He immediately applied for a Court-Martial, but was told it was impossible now, as the officers necessary are in Germany. This was in writing from Lord Holdernesse—but Lord Ligonier in words was more squab—"If he wanted a Court-Martial, he might go seek it in Germany." All that could be taken from him, is, his regiment, above two thousand pounds a year: commander in Germany at ten pounds a day, between three and four thousand pounds: lieutenant-general of the ordnance, one thousand five hundred pounds: a fort, three hundred pounds. He remains with a patent place in Ireland of one thousand two hundred pounds, and about two thousand pounds a year of his own and wife's. With his parts and ambition it cannot end here; he calls himself ruined, but when the Parliament meets, he will probably attempt some sort of revenge.
They attribute, I don't know with what grounds, a sensible kind of plan to the French; that De la Clue was to have pushed for Ireland, Thurot for Scotland, and the Brest fleet for England—but before they lay such great plans, they should take care of proper persons to execute them.[1]
[Footnote 1: De la Clue and the French were this year making unusual efforts to establish a naval superiority over us, which they never had done, and never will do. As is mentioned in this letter, one powerful fleet was placed under De la Clue, another under Conflans, and a strong squadron under Commodore Thurot. De la Clue, however, for many weeks kept close in Toulon, resisting every endeavour of Boscawen to tempt him out, till the English admiral was compelled to retire to Gibraltar for the repair of some of his ships. De la Clue, not knowing which way he had gone, thought he could steal through the Straits to join Conflans, according to his original orders. But Boscawen caught him off Cape Lagos, and gave him a decisive defeat, capturing five sail of the line, and among them the flagship L'Océan (80). Before the end of the year Hawke almost destroyed the fleet of Conflans, capturing five and driving the rest on shore; while Thurot, who at first had a gleam of success, making one or two descents on the northern coast of Ireland, and even capturing Carrickfergus, had, in the end, worse fortune than either of his superior officers, being overtaken at the mouth of Belfast Lough by Captain Elliott with a squadron of nearly equal force, when the whole of the French squadron was taken and he himself was killed (the Editor's "History of the British Navy," c. 12).]
I cannot help smiling at the great objects of our letters. We never converse on a less topic than a kingdom. We are a kind of citizens of the world, and battles and revolutions are the common incidents of our neighbourhood. But that is and must be the case of distant correspondences: Kings and Empresses that we never saw, are the only persons we can be acquainted with in common. We can have no more familiarity than the Daily Advertiser would have if it wrote to the Florentine Gazette. Adieu! My compliments to any monarch that lives within five hundred miles of you.
A YEAR OF TRIUMPHS.
TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.
STRAWBERRY HILL, Oct. 21, 1759.
Your pictures shall be sent as soon as any of us go to London, but I think that will not be till the Parliament meets. Can we easily leave the remains of such a year as this? It is still all gold.[1] I have not dined or gone to bed by a fire till the day before yesterday. Instead of the glorious and ever-memorable year 1759, as the newspapers call it, I call it this ever-warm and victorious year. We have not had more conquest than fine weather: one would think we had plundered East and West Indies of sunshine. Our bells are worn threadbare with ringing for victories. I believe it will require ten votes of the House of Commons before people will believe it is the Duke of Newcastle that has done this, and not Mr. Pitt. One thing is very fatiguing—all the world is made knights or generals. Adieu! I don't know a word of news less than the conquest of America. Adieu! yours ever.