How do you contrive to exist on your mountain in this rude season? Sure you must be become a snowball! As I was not in England in forty-one, I had no notion of such cold. The streets are abandoned; nothing appears in them: the Thames is almost as solid. Then think what a campaign must be in such a season! Our army was under arms for fourteen hours on the twenty-third, expecting the French; and several of the men were frozen when they should have dismounted. What milksops the Marlboroughs and Turennes, the Blakes and the Van Tromps appear now, who whipped into winter quarters and into port, the moment their noses looked blue. Sir Cloudesley Shovel said that an admiral would deserve to be broke, who kept great ships out after the end of September, and to be shot if after October. There is Hawke in the bay weathering this winter, after conquering in a storm. For my part, I scarce venture to make a campaign in the Opera-house; for if I once begin to freeze, I shall be frozen through in a moment. I am amazed, with such weather, such ravages, and distress, that there is anything left in Germany, but money; for thither, half the treasure of Europe goes: England, France, Russia, and all the Empress can squeeze from Italy and Hungary, all is sent thither, and yet the wretched people have not subsistence. A pound of bread sells at Dresden for eleven-pence. We are going to send many more troops thither; and it is so much the fashion to raise regiments, that I wish there were such a neutral kind of beings in England as abbés,[1] that one might have an excuse for not growing military mad, when one has turned the heroic corner of one's age. I am ashamed of being a young rake, when my seniors are covering their grey toupees with helmets and feathers, and accoutering their pot-bellies with cuirasses and martial masquerade habits. Yet rake I am, and abominably so, for a person that begins to wrinkle reverendly. I have sat up twice this week till between two and three with the Duchess of Grafton, at loo, who, by the way, has got a pam-child this morning, and on Saturday night I supped with Prince Edward at my Lady Rochford's, and we stayed till half an hour past three. My favour with that Highness continues, or rather increases. He makes everybody make suppers for him to meet me, for I still hold out against going to court. In short, if he were twenty years older, or I could make myself twenty years younger, I might carry him to Campden House, and be as impertinent as ever my Lady Churchill was; but, as I dread being ridiculous, I shall give my Lord Bute no uneasiness. My Lady Maynard, who divides the favour of this tiny court with me, supped with us. Did you know she sings French ballads very prettily? Lord Rochford played on the guitar, and the Prince sung; there were my two nieces, and Lord Waldegrave, Lord Huntingdon, and Mr. Morrison the groom, and the evening was pleasant; but I had a much more agreeable supper last night at Mrs. Clive's, with Miss West, my niece Cholmondeley, and Murphy, the writing actor, who is very good company, and two or three more. Mrs. Cholmondeley is very lively; you know how entertaining the Clive is, and Miss West is an absolute original.
[Footnote 1: French chroniclers remark that the title Abbé had long since ceased in France to denote the possession of any ecclesiastical preferment, but had become a courteous denomination of unemployed ecclesiastics; and they compare it to the use of the term "Esquire" in England.]
There is nothing new, but a very dull pamphlet written by Lord Bath, and his chaplain Douglas, called a "Letter to Two Great Men." It is a plan for the peace, and much adopted by the City, and much admired by all who are too humble to judge for themselves.
I was much diverted the other morning with another volume on birds by Edwards, who has published four or five. The poor man, who is grown very old and devout, begs God to take from him the love of natural philosophy; and having observed some heterodox proceedings among bantam cocks, he proposes that all schools of girls and boys should be promiscuous, lest, if separated, they should learn wayward passions. But what struck me most were his dedications, the last was to God; this is to Lord Bute, as if he was determined to make his fortune in one world or the other.
Pray read Fontaine's fable of the lion grown old; don't it put you in mind of anything? No! not when his shaggy majesty has borne the insults of the tiger and the horse, &c., and the ass comes last, kicks out his only remaining fang, and asks for a blue bridle? Apropos, I will tell you the turn Charles Townshend gave to this fable. "My lord," said he, "has quite mistaken the thing; he soars too high at first: people often miscarry by not preceding by degrees; he went and at once asked for my Lord Carlisle's garter—if he would have been contented to ask first for my Lady Carlisle's garter, I don't know but he would have obtained it!" Adieu!
CAPTURE OF CARRICKFERGUS.
TO SIR HORACE MANN.
ARLINGTON STREET, Feb. 28, 1760.
The next time you see Marshal Botta, and are to act King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, you must abate about a hundredth thousandth part of the dignity of your crown. You are no more monarch of all Ireland, than King O'Neil, or King Macdermoch is. Louis XV. is sovereign of France, Navarre, and Carrickfergus. You will be mistaken if you think the peace is made, and that we cede this Hibernian town, in order to recover Minorca, or to keep Quebec and Louisbourg. To be sure, it is natural you should think so: how should so victorious and heroic a nation cease to enjoy any of its possessions, but to save Christian blood? Oh! I know you will suppose there has been another insurrection, and that it is King John of Bedford, and not King George of Brunswick, that has lost this town. Why, I own you are a great politician, and see things in a moment—and no wonder, considering how long you have been employed in negotiations; but for once all your sagacity is mistaken. Indeed, considering the total destruction of the maritime force of France, and that the great mechanics and mathematicians of this age have not invented a flying bridge to fling over the sea and land from the coast of France to the north of Ireland, it was not easy to conceive how the French should conquer Carrickfergus—and yet they have. But how I run on! not reflecting that by this time the old Pretender must have hobbled through Florence on his way to Ireland, to take possession of this scrap of his recovered domains; but I may as well tell you at once, for to be sure you and the loyal body of English in Tuscany will slip over all this exordium to come to the account of so extraordinary a revolution. Well, here it is. Last week Monsieur Thurot—oh! now you are au fait!—Monsieur Thurot, as I was saying, landed last week in the isle of Islay, the capital province belonging to a great Scotch King, who is so good as generally to pass the winter with his friends here in London. Monsieur Thurot had three ships, the crews of which burnt two ships belonging to King George, and a house belonging to his friend the King of Argyll—pray don't mistake; by his friend, I mean King George's, not Thurot's friend. When they had finished this campaign, they sailed to Carrickfergus, a poorish town, situate in the heart of the Protestant cantons. They immediately made a moderate demand of about twenty articles of provisions, promising to pay for them; for you know it is the way of modern invasions to make them cost as much as possible to oneself, and as little to those one invades. If this was not complied with, they threatened to burn the town, and then march to Belfast, which is much richer. We were sensible of this civil proceeding, and not to be behindhand, agreed to it; but somehow or other this capitulation was broken; on which a detachment (the whole invasion consists of one thousand men) attack the place. We shut the gates, but after the battle of Quebec, it is impossible that so great a people should attend to such trifles as locks and bolts, accordingly there were none—and as if there were no gates neither, the two armies fired through them—if this is a blunder, remember I am describing an Irish war. I forgot to give you the numbers of the Irish army. It consisted of four companies—indeed they consisted but of seventy-two men, under Lieut.-colonel Jennings, a wonderful brave man—too brave, in short, to be very judicious. Unluckily our ammunition was soon spent, for it is not above a year that there have been any apprehensions for Ireland, and as all that part of the country are most protestantly loyal, it was not thought necessary to arm people who would fight till they die for their religion. When the artillery was silenced, the garrison thought the best way of saving the town was by flinging it at the heads of the besiegers; according they poured volleys of brickbats at the French, whose commander, Monsieur Flobert, was mortally knocked down, and his troops began to give way. However, General Jennings thought it most prudent to retreat to the castle, and the French again advanced. Four or five raw recruits still bravely kept the gates, when the garrison, finding no more gunpowder in the castle than they had had in the town, and not near so good a brick-kiln, sent to desire to surrender. General Thurot accordingly made them prisoners of war, and plundered the town.