You guessed right about the King of Spain; he is dead, and the Queen Dowager may once more have an opportunity of embroiling the little of Europe that remains unembroiled.
Thank you, my dear Sir, for the Herculaneum and Caserta that you are sending me. I wish the watch may arrive safe, to show you that I am not insensible to all your attentions for me, but endeavour, at a great distance, to imitate you in the execution of commissions.
I would keep this letter back for a post, that I might have but one trouble of sending you Quebec too; but when one has taken so many places, it is not worth while to wait for one more.
Lord George Sackville, the hero of all conversation, if one can be so for not being a hero, is arrived. He immediately applied for a court-martial, but was told it was impossible now, as the officers necessary are in Germany. This was in writing from Lord Holderness—but Lord Ligonier in words was more squab—"If he wanted a court-martial, he might go seek it in Germany." All that could be taken from him is his regiment, above two thousand pounds a-year: commander in Germany at ten pounds a-day, between three and four thousand pounds: lieutenant-general of the ordnance, one thousand five hundred pounds: a fort, three hundred pounds. He remains with a patent place in Ireland, of one thousand two hundred pounds, and about two thousand pounds a-year of his own and wife's. With his parts and ambition, it cannot end here; he calls himself ruined, but when the Parliament meets, he will probably attempt some sort of revenge.
They attribute, I don't know with what grounds, a sensible kind of plan to the French; that De la Clue was to have pushed for Ireland, Thurot for Scotland, and the Brest fleet for England— but before they lay such great plans, they should take care of proper persons to execute them.
I cannot help shifting at the great objects of our letters. We never converse on a less topic than a kingdom. We are a kind of citizens of the world, and battles and revolutions are the common incidents of our neighbourhood. But that is and must be the case of distant correspondences: Kings and Empresses that we never saw are the only persons we can be acquainted with in common. We can have no more familiarity than the Daily Advertiser would have if it wrote to the Florentine Gazette. Adieu! My compliments to any monarch that lives within five hundred miles of you.
(1065) Second daughter of Frederick Prince of Wales.
(1066) The American general.
510 Letter 333 To The Earl Of Strafford. Arlington Street, Sept. 13, 1759.
My dear lord, You are very good to say you would accept of my letters, though I should have no particular news to tell you; but at present it would be treating heroes and conquerors with great superciliousness, if I made use of your indulgence and said nothing of them. We have taken more places and ships in a week than would have set up such pedant nations as Greece and Rome to all futurity. If we did but call Sir William Johnson "Gulielmus Johnsonus Niagaricus," and Amherst "Galfridus Amhersta Ticonderogicus," we should be quoted a thousand years hence as the patterns of valour, virtue, and disinterestedness; for posterity always ascribes all manner of modesty and self-denial to those that take the most pains to perpetuate their own glory. Then Admiral Boscawen has, in a very Roman style, made free with the coast of Portugal, and used it to make a bonfire of the French fleet. When Mr. Pitt was told of this infraction of a neutral territory, he replied, "It is very true, but they are burned." In short, we want but a little more insolence and a worse cause to make us a very classic nation.