(811) The secretaries of state and lord treasurer carry their papers in a green velvet bag.
(812) Stosch used to pretend to send over an exact journal of the life of the Pretender and his sons, though he had been sent out of Rome at the Pretender's request, and must have had very bad, or no intelligence, of what passed in that family.
(813) The admiral had recently said, in the House of Commons, that "there was not, on this side Hell, a nation so burthened with taxes as England."-E.
322 Letter 106 To Sir Horace Mann. Arlington Street, May 12, 1743.
It is a fortnight since I got any of your letters, but I will expect two at once. I don't tell you by way of news, because you will have had expresses, but I must talk of the great Austrian victory!(814) We have not heard the exact particulars yet, nor whether it was Kevenhuller or lobkowitz who beat the Bavarians; but their general, Minucci, is prisoner. At first, they said Seckendorffe was too; I am glad he is not: poor man, he has suffered enough by the house of Austria! But my joy is beyond the common, for I flatter myself this victory will save us one: we talk of nothing, but its producing a peace, and then one's friends will return.
The Duchess of Kendal(815) is dead-eighty-five years old: she was a year older than her late King. Her riches were immense; but I believe my Lord Chesterfield will get nothing by her death-but his wife: (816) she lived in the house with the duchess, where he had played away all his credit.
Hough,(817) the good old Bishop of Worcester, is dead too. I have been looking at the "Fathers in God" that have been flocking over the way this Morning to Mr. Pelham, who is just come to his new house. This is absolutely the ministerial street Carteret has a house here too; and Lord Bath seems to have lost his chance by quitting this street. Old Marlborough has made a good story of the latter; she says, that when he found he could not get the privy seal, he begged that at least they would offer it to him, and upon his honour he would not accept it, but would plead his vow of never taking a place; in which she says they humoured him. The truth is, Lord Carteret did hint an offer to him, upon which he went with a nolo episcopari to the King-he bounced, and said, "Why I never offered it to you:" upon which he recommended my Lord Carlisle, with equal Success.
Just before the King went, he asked my Lord Carteret, " Well, when am I to get rid of those fellows in the Treasury?" They are on so low a foot, that somebody said Sandys had hired a stand of hackney-coaches, to look like a levee.
Lord Conway has begged me to send you a commission, which you will oblige me much by executing. It is to send him three Pistoia barrels for guns: two of them, of two feet and a half in the barrel in length; the smallest of the inclosed buttons to be the size of the bore, hole, or calibre, of the two guns. The third barrel to be three feet and an inch in length; the largest of these buttons to be the bore of it; these feet are English measure. You will be so good to let me know the price of them.
There has happened a comical circumstance at Leicester House: one of the Prince's coachmen, who used to drive the Maids of Honour, was so sick of them, that he has left his son three hundred pounds, upon condition that he never carries a Maid of Honour!