(1038) An expression of Mr. Montagu's.
493 Letter 318 To Sir Horace Mann. Arlington Street, June 8, 1759.
This is merely a letter about your commission, and I hope it will get to you with wondrous haste. I have not lost a minute in trying to execute what you desire, but it is impossible to perform all that is required. A watch, perfect by Ellicot or Gray, with all the accompaniments, cannot possibly be had for near seventy-five pounds. Though the directions do not expressly limit me to seventy-five, yet I know Italians enough to be sure that when they name seventy-five, they would not bear a codicil of fifty-five more. Ellicot (and Gray is rather dearer) would have for watch and chain a hundred and thirty-four guineas; the seals will cost sixteen more. Two hundred and sixty-eight sequins are more than I dare lay out. But I will tell you what I have done: Deard, one of the first jewellers and toymen Here, has undertaken to make a watch and chain, enamelled according to a pattern I have chosen of the newest kind, for a hundred guineas; with two seals for sixteen more; and he has engaged that, if this is not approved, he will keep it himself; but to this I must have an immediate answer. He will put his own name to it, as a warrant to the goodness of the work; and then, except the nine of Ellicot or Gray, your friend will have as good a watch as he can desire. I take for granted, at farthest, that I can have an answer by the 15th of July; and then there will be time, I trust, to convey it to you; I suppose by sea, for unless a fortunate messenger should be going `a point nomm`e, you may imagine that a traveller would not arrive there in any time. My dear Sir, you know how happy I am to do any thing you desire; and I shall pique myself on your credit in this, but your friend has expected what, altogether, it is almost impossible to perform—what can be done, shall be.
There is not a syllable of news—if there was, I should not confine myself solely to the commission. Some of our captains in the East Indies have behaved very ill; if there is an invasion, which I don't believe there will, I am glad they were not here. Adieu!
494 Letter 319 To The Earl Of Strafford. Strawberry Hill, June 12, 1759.
My dear lord, After so kind a note as you left for me at your going Out Of town, you cannot wonder that I was determined to thank you the moment I knew you settled in Yorkshire. At least I am not ungrateful, if I deserve your goodness by no other title. I was willing to stay till I could amuse you, but I have not a battle big enough even to send in a letter. A war that reaches from Muscovy to Alsace, and from Madras to California, don't produce an article half so long as Mr. Johnson's riding three horses at Once. The King of Prussia's campaign is still. in its papillotes; Prince Ferdinand is laid up like the rest of the pensioners on Ireland; Guadaloupe has taken a sleeping- draught, and our heroes in America seem to be planting suckers of laurels that will not make any future these three years. All the war that is in fashion lies between those two ridiculous things, an invasion and the militia. - Prince Edward is going to sea, to inquire after the invasion from France: and the old potbellied country colonels are preparing to march and make it drunk when it comes. I don't know, as it is an event in Mr. Pitt's administration, whether the Jacobite corporations, who are converted by his eloquence which they never heard, do not propose to bestow their freedom on the first corps of French that shall land.
Adieu, my lord and my lady! I hope you are all beauty and verdure. We are drowned with obtaining ours.
495 Letter 320 To Sir Horace Mann. Arlington Street, June 22, 1759.
Well! they tell us in good earnest that we are to be invaded; Mr. Pitt is as positive of it as of his own invasions. As the French affect an air of grandeur in all they do, "Mr. Pitt sent ten thousands, but they send fifty thousands." You will be inquisitive after our force—I can't tell you the particulars; I am only in town for to-day, but I hear of mighty preparations. Of one thing I am sure; they missed the moment when eight thousand men might have carried off England and set it down in the gardens of Versailles. In the last war, when we could not rake together four thousand men, and were all divided, not a flat-bottomed boat lifted up its leg against us! There is great spirit in Motion; my Lord Orford is gone with his Norfolk militia to Portsmouth; every body is raising regiments or themselves—my Lord Shaftsbury,(1039) . one of the new colonels of militia, is to be a brigadier-general. I shall not march my Twickenham militia for some private reasons; my farmer has got an ague, my printer has run away, my footboy is always drunk, and my gardener is a Scotchman, and I believe would give intelligence to the enemy. France has notified the Dutch that she intends to -surprise us; and this makes us still more angry. In the mean time, we have got Guadaloupe to play with. I did not send you any particulars, for this time the Gazette piqued itself upon telling its own story from beginning to end; I never knew it so full of chat. It is very comfortable, that if we lose our own island, we shall at least have all America to settle in. Quebec is to be conquered by the 15th of July, and two more expeditions, I don't know whither, are to be crowned with all imaginable success, I don't know when; so you see our affairs, upon the whole, are in a very prosperous train. Your friend, Colonel Clavering, is the real hero of Guadaloupe; he is come home, covered "with more laurels than a boar's head: indeed he has done exceedingly well. A much older friend of yours is just dead, my Lady Murray;(1040) she caught her death by too strict attendance on her sister, Lady Binning, who has been ill. They were a family of love, and break their hearts for her. She had a thousand good qualities; but no mortal was ever so surprised as I when I was first told that she was the nymph Arthur Gray would have ravished. She had taken care to guard against any more such danger by more wrinkles than ever twisted round a human face. Adieu! If you have a mind to be fashionable, you must raise a regiment of Florentine militia.
(1039) Anthony Ashley Cooper, fourth Earl of Shaftsbury. he died in 1771.-D.