449 Letter 284 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.(950) Arlington Street, Sept. 19, 1758.
I have all my life laughed at ministers in my letters; but at least with the decency of obliging them to break open the seal. You have more noble frankness, and send your satires to the post with not so much as a wafer, as my Lord Bath did sometimes in my father's administration. I scarce laughed more at the inside of your letter than at the cover—not a single button to the waistband of its beseeches, but all its nakedness fairly laid open! what was worse, all Lady Mary Coke's nakedness was laid open at the same time. Is this your way of treating a dainty widow! What will Mr. Pitt think of all this? will he begin to believe that you have some spirit, when, with no fear of Dr. Shebbeare's example(951) before your eyes, you speak your Mind so freely, without any modification? As Mr. Pitt may be cooled a little to his senses, perhaps he may now find out, that a grain of prudence is no bad ingredient in a mass of courage; in short, he and the mob are at last undeceived, and have found, by sad experience that all the cannon of France has not been brought into Hyde Park. An account, which you will see in the Gazette, (though a little better disguised than your letters,) is come that after our troops had been set on shore, and left there, till my Lord Howe went somewhere else, and cried Hoop! having nothing else to do for four days to amuse themselves, nor knowing whether there was a town within a hundred miles, went staring about the country to see whether there were any Frenchmen left in France; which Mr. Pitt, in very fine words, had assured them there was not, and which my Lord Howe, in very fine silence, had confirmed. However, somehow or other, (Mr. Deputy Hodges says they were not French, but Papists sent from Vienna to assist the King of France,) twelve battalions fell upon our rear-guard, and, which General Blighe says is "very Common," (I suppose he means that rashness and folly should run itself' into a scrape,)—were all cut to pieces or taken. The town says, Prince Edward (Duke of York) ran hard to save himself; I don't mean too fast, but scarcely fast enough; and the General says, that Lord Frederick Cavendish, your friend, is safe; the thing he seems to have thought of most, except a little vain parade of his own self-denial on his nephew. I shall not be at all surprised if, to show he was not in the wrong, Mr. Pitt should get ready another expedition by the depth of winter, and send it in search of the cannons and colours of these twelve battalions. Pray Heaven your letter don't put it in his head to give you the command! It is not true, that he made the King ride upon one of the cannons to the Tower.
I was really touched with my Lady Howe's advertisement,(952) though I own at first it made me laugh; for seeing an address to the voters for Nottingham signed "Charlotte Howe," I concluded (they are so manly a family) that Mrs. Howe,(953) who rides a fox-chase, and dines at the table d'h`ote at Grantham, intended to stand for member of Parliament.
Sir John Armitage died on board a ship before the landing; Lady Hardwickc's nephew, Mr. Cocks, scarce recovered of his Cherbourg wound, is killed.' He had seven thousand pounds a year, and was volunteer. I don't believe his uncle and aunt advised his venturing so much money.
My Lady Burlington is very ill, and the distemper shows itself oddly; she breaks out all over in-curses and blasphemies. Her maids are afraid of catching them, and will hardly venture into her room.
On reading over your letter again, I begin to think that the connexion between Mr. Pitt and my dainty widow is stronger than I imagined. One of them must have caught of the other that noble contempt which makes a thing's being impossible not signify. It sounds very well in sensible mouths; but how terrible to be the chambermaid or the army of such people! I really am in a panic, and having some mortal impossibilities about me which a dainty widow might not allow to signify, I will balance a little between her and my Lady Carlisle, who, I believe, knows that impossibilities do signify. These were some of my reflections on reading your letter again; another was, that I am now convinced you sent your letter open to the post on purpose; you knew It was so good a letter that every body ought to see it-and yet you would pass for a modest man!
I am glad I am not in favour enough to be consulted by my Lord Duchess(954) on the Gothic farm; she would have given me so many fine and unintelligible reasons why it should not be as it should be, that I should have lost a little of my patience. You don't tell me if the goose-board in hornbean is quite finished; and have you forgot that I actually was in t'other goose-board, the conjuring room?
I wish you joy on your preferment in the militia, though I do not think it quite so safe an employment as it used to be. If George Townshend's disinterested virtue should grow impatient for a regiment, he will persuade Mr. Pitt that the militia arc the only troops in the world for taking Rochfort. Such a scheme would answer all his purposes - would advance his own interest, contradict the Duke's opinion, who holds militia cheap, and by the ridiculousness of the attempt would furnish very good subjects to his talent of buffoonery in black-lead.
The King of Prussia you may believe is in Petersburg, but he happens to be in Dresden. Good night! Mine and Sir Harry Hemlock's services to my Lady Ailesbury.
(950) Now first printed.