424 Letter 263 To Dr. Ducarel. June, 1758.
I am very much obliged to you for the remarks and hints you sent me on my Catalogue. They will be of use to me; and any observations of my friends I shall be very thankful for, and disposed to employ, to make my book, what it is extremely far from being, more perfect. I was very glad to hear, Sir, that the present Lord Archbishop of Canterbury has continued you in an employment for which nobody is so fit, and in which nobody would be so useful. I wish all manner of success to, as well as continuance of, your labours; and am, etc. etc.
425 Letter 264 To Sir Horace Mann. Arlington Street, Sunday morning, June 11, 1758.
This will not depart till to-morrow, by which time probably there will be more news, but I am obliged to go into the country to-day, and would not let so much history set out, without my saying a word of it, as I know you trust to no gazette but mine. Last Thursday se'nnight our great expedition departed from Portsmouth—and soon separated; lord Anson with the great ships to lie before Brest, and Commodore Howe,(895) our naval hero, with the transports and a million of small fry on the secret enterprise. At one o'clock on Thursday night, alias Friday morning a cutter brought advice that on Sunday night the transports had made land in Concalle Bay, near St. Maloes, had disembarked with no opposition or loss, except of a boatswain and two sailors, killed from a little fort, to which Howe was near enough to advise them not to resist. However, some peasants in it fired and then ran away. Some prisoners have assured our troops that there is no force within twenty leagues. This may be apocryphal, a word which, as I am left at liberty, I always interpret false. It is plain, however, that we were not expected at St. Maloes at least. We are in violent impatience to hear the consequences—especially whether we have taken the town, in which there is but one battalion, many old houses of wood, and the water easily to be cut off.
If you grow wise and ask me with a political face, whether St. Maloes is an object worth risking fourteen thousand of our best troops, an expense of fifty thousand pounds, and half of the purplest blood of England, I shall toss up my head with an air of heroism and contempt, and only tell you—There! there is the Duke Of Marlborough in the heart of France; (for in the heroic dictionary the heart and the coast signify the same thing;) what would you have? Did Harry V. or Edward III mind whether it was a rich town or a fishing town, provided they did but take a town in France? We are as great as ever we were in the most barbarous ages, and you are asking mercantile Questions with all the littleness of soul that attends the improvements in modern politics! Well! my dear child, I smile, but I tremble-. and though it is pleasanter to tremble when one invades, than when one is invaded, I don't like to be at the eve even of an Agincourt. There are so many of my friends upon heroic ground, that I discern all their danger through all their laurels. Captain Smith, aide-de-camp to Lord George Sackville, dated his letter to the Duke of Dorset, "from his Majesty's dominions in France." Seriously, what a change is here! His Majesty, since this time twelvemonth, had not only recovered his dominions in Germany, but is on the acquiring foot in France. What heads, what no heads must they have in France! Where are their Cardinals, their Saxes, their Belleisles? Where are their fleets, their hosts, their arts, their subsidies? Subsidies, indeed! Where are ours? we pay none, or almost none, and are ten times greater than when we hired half Europe. In short, the difference of our situation is miraculous; and if we can but keep from divisions at home, and the King of Prussia does not prosper too fast for us, we may put France and ourselves into situations to prevent them from being formidable to us for a long season. Should the Prussian reduce too suddenly the Empress-Queen to beg and give him a secure peace, considering how deep a stake he still plays for, one could not well blame his accepting it—and then we should still be to struggle with France.
But while I am politicising, I forget to tell you half the purport of my letter—part indeed you will have heard; Prince Ferdinand's passage of Rhine, the most material circumstance of which, in my opinion, is the discovery of the amazing weakness of the French in their army, discipline, councils, and conduct. Yesterday, as If to amuse us agreeably till we hear again from St. Maloes, an express arrived of great conquests and captures which three of our ships have made on the river Gambia, to the destruction of the French trade and settlements there. I don't tell you the particulars, because I don't know them, and because you see them in the gazette. In one week we strike a medal with Georgius, Germanicus, Gallicus, Africanus.
Mr. M'Kinsy, brother of Lord Bute, has kissed hands for Turin; you remember him at Florence. He is very well-bred, and you will find him an agreeable neighbour enough.
I have seen the vases at Holland-house, and am perfectly content with them: the forms are charming. I assure you Mr. Fox and Lady Caroline do not like them less than I do. Good night! am not I a very humane conqueror to condescend to write so long a letter?
(895) Richard, after the death of his elder brother, Viscount Howe.
426 Letter 265 To The Hon. H. S. Conway. June 16, 1758, 2 o'clock noon.