LETTER CCCIII.

Strawberry Hill, April 17, 1779. I AM grieved to hear of your having the rheumatism so acutely in your head. Though it is not dangerous, like the gout, its duration is more fluctuating, and not consistent in a fit. I trust it will be gone long before I hear again; but the suspense will be very uneasy to me, and one of the evils of such great distance.

I was glad to hear your nephew had himself given you an account of his parenthesis of opposition, as you can speak more freely to him than if you had learnt it only from me. Very uncertain it is when I shall see him again, which I have done but thrice; nor could I expect more from so much younger a man. We live in very dif ferent worlds, or rather I live almost out of it, and he quite in it, and yet not where I do. At this time of year, too, I am here half the week. I hope he will give you no more uneasiness; but you must have patience if he does. Nephews and nieces are not very tractable. My own uncle did not find me so; and I do not wonder at others. One must wrap one's self up in one's self. People have difficulty enough of conducting their own children-mercy on us, were we to answer for collaterals!

There have been no Parliamentary clouds, because during the holidays there has been no Parliament: but the political horizon does not clear up. I bade you a little expect the conquest of Martinico; but that prospect seems pretty much vanished. If the letters yesterday from France speak truth, our trust in Spain is dispelled likewise: it is said she has declared for the Americans too, and it has been whispered here for these two days:-there is no occasion to comment on that addition to our load!-nor shall I tell you other ugly symptoms. A Spanish war is as much as you can digest at once. If I alarm you on bad grounds, it will make amends for my having vainly promised you Martinico-though I never warrant but what is actually passed.

Though Sir Hugh Palliser's trial has been begun this week, the public does not honour it with the same attention as Keppel's. It does not brighten for the Vice-Admiral.

For the last week all conversation has been engrossed by a shocking murder, committed on the person of a poor woman connected with a most material personage now on the great stage. You will have seen some mention of it in the papers; I mean the assassination of Miss Ray, Lord Sandwich's mistress, by a clergyman, who had been an officer, and was desperately in love with her, though she is between thirty and forty, and has had nine children. She was allowed

* Sir Hugh Palliser's trial commenced at Portsmouth, on board the Sandwich, on the 12th of April.-ED.

† For several interesting letters in reference to the tragical fate of this unfortunate lady, see the Selwyn Correspondence, vol. iv. p. 59.-ED.

to be most engaging; and so was the wretched lover, who had fixed his hopes of happiness on marrying her, and had been refused, after some encouragement; I know not how much. On his trial yesterday he behaved very unlike a madman, and wishes not to live. He is to suffer on Monday, and I shall rejoice when it is over; for it is shocking to reflect that there is a human being at this moment in so deplorable a situation. It would be foolish to repeat, that we are a nation of lunatics; yet, with so many outward and visible signs can one avoid thinking so? Alas! we are likely to undergo sharp purgations, that may bring us to our senses again! The loss of blood has not yet cured us. For the loss of money, it has had but the same effect on the nation as on our youthful gamesters-it has made us more extravagant.

I shall reserve the rest of my paper till Tuesday—perhaps I may be able to contradict the Spanish article.

Tuesday.

No; I do not affirm nor deny: however, nothing is yet public, and I imagine there is still some negotiation going on, as the Spanish Ambassador receives frequent couriers, and writes much.

The poor assassin was executed yesterday. The same day Charles Fox moved for the removal of Lord Sandwich, but was beaten by a large majority ;† for in Parliament the Ministers can still gain victories. Adieu!

LETTER CCCIV.

Strawberry Hill, April 24, 1779.

I BEGIN my letter here, because I am alone and have leisure, of which I cannot be sure in town; and, should I have any sudden news to send, I might not have time to add the trifles I may wish to add.

I met your nephew the other night at the Duchess of Montrose's,

* In a letter to George Selwyn, who had an unaccountable passion for witnessing criminal executions, but who happened to be absent at Paris when the poor wretch suffered, the Countess of Ossory wrote thus on the following day: "Mr. Hackman's behaviour was glorious yesterday. Jack Ketch deserves to be hanged, for when the poor man dropped the handkerchief, it fell under the cart, and he ran to pick it up, so by that means kept the poor wretch some moments in that horrid state." Selwyn had also the pleasure of receiving another letter, on the same subject and day, from Dr. Warner: "Mr. Hackman," writes the reverend gentleman, has been tried, condemned, and executed, and is now a fine corpse at Surgeons Hall, where I saw him yesterday, a genteel, well-made young fellow of four and twenty." Correspondence, vol. iv. p. 95.-ED.

†The numbers on the division were 221 against 118.-ED.

Lady Lucy Manners, daughter of the Duke of Rutland. Lady Lucy Mann, Sir Horace's wife, was related to her.

and was happy to hear he had received a more recent and better account of you than what you gave me of the rheumatism in your head. I will send you by him bootikins for both hands and feet. I sometimes have rheumatic pains in the shoulder in the evening, and a bootikin on my hand immediately removes it. I should hope it would be as efficacious for the head, should it return thither, contrary to my earnest wishes.

The decision of Spain is not publicly known yet. In France they expect it in their favour.* Some here still think if will be a neutrality. Did one judge any longer by the Stocks, the augury would be good. They cannot reasonably have risen, as they have done, on the diminutive success in Georgia, which has not even encouraged the victors to hope to advance, without what they are far from receiving, a reinforcement. Nor are we more prosperous against D'Estaing; nor is the capture of eight or nine Domingomen very beneficial to stockholders: but so much industry is used of late in bolstering up the Stocks, that they are no longer the weather-glass of fortune, but part of the mask employed to disguise the nation's own face to itself.

There has been a motion in each House this week for the removal of Lord Sandwich; but both Houses think him as white as snow.† Palliser, probably, will be equally blanched. The Howes, on the other hand, will come immaculate out of the furnace: I believe, if the Duchess of Kingston was to return, she might be voted into her old post of Maid of Honour. Lord Lyttelton, who thinks he has talents for Secretary of State, and that want of principles is no impediment (it was not to his being Justice in Eyre,) has again turned against the Court on obtaining the Seals. The grass would grow in our Temple of Virtue, if it was the sole vestibule to our Temple of Honours. Governor Johnstone, having had such clumsy success as Ambassador of peace to America, has made his bargain, and is turned into a commodore of a cruising squadron.§ It is judicious * The looked-for accommodation did not take place.

The motion in the House of Lords, which was made by the Earl of Bristol, was rejected by 78 against 39.-ED.

Thomas, second Lord Lyttelton, who was married, in June 1772, the daughter of Broome Watts, of Chipping Norton, Esq., and relic of Joseph Peach, governor of Calcutta. His remarkable death, which took place in the following November, will be hereafter noticed. The following striking character is drawn of him, by the Rev. Montagu Pennington, in his Life of Mrs. Carter: "With great abilities, generally very ill applied; with a strong sense of religion, which he never suffered to influence his conduct, his days were mostly passed in splendid misery, and in the painful change of the most extravagant gaiety and the deepest despair. The delight, when be pleased, of the first and most select societies, he chose to pass his time, for the most part, with the most profligate and abandoned of both sexes. Solitude was to him the most insupportable torment; and, to banish reflection, he flew to company whom he despised and ridiculed."-ED.

The Governor was sent out as commander-in-chief to the Lisbon station, with the rank of established Commodore. On his passage thither, two of his squadron, the Tartar and the Rattlesnake, captured the Santa Margaretta, a Spanish frigate. His own ship, the Romney, had no share in the action,-En.

enough, I think, to convert such men as go upon the highway of fortune into privateers; but what a figure do we make in Europe! Unable to raise the sums we want for the war, the members of that Parliament that is told so, are yet occupied in preying on the distresses of the Government! What comments must Dr. Franklin make on every newspaper to the French Ministers!

27th.

I find nothing new in town. Rumours of peace continual. I doubt it is easier for both sides to be sick of the war, than to know how to agree. I doubt, too, that we want peace more than we desire it; and as we must buy it dear, we shall not be so ready to pay the price. It will not be very sincere to the Americans, if we do conclude; and the intentional insincerity often promotes peace, and at least makes the sufferers shut their eyes to their own loss. We have betrayed such propensity to duplicity, that the other side will aggravate the bargain; for, as cunning is no new invention, it is equally in the power of both parties to employ it.* Mankind will not remember that honesty cannot be detected.

I should not send away this scrap, and with so little intelligence, if I were not glad to tell you that I am easier about your disorder. I will not write again soon without more substantial news.

LETTER CCCV.

Strawberry Hill, May 9, 1779.

An invasion announced by the common post from Paris, attempted, repulsed, given up, and known here: all this has happened in eight days, and in miniature; but it was a large object, and a long and anxious interval to me, for the object was Jersey, Mr. Conway's government, and he went post to defend it. He has no idea of danger, and has the strongest one of doing his duty to a scruple; but I will now be methodical, for you want information, not a rhapsody on my

sensations.

On the 1st of May, yesterday sevennight, there were forty letters

* "We have no kind of faith in your Government," wrote Dr. Franklin at this time to Mr. Hartley; "it appears to be as insidious and deceitful as it is unjust and cruel: its character is that of the spider in Thomson,

'Cunning and fierce, Mixture abhorred!'

Besides, we cannot see the necessity of our relinquishing our alliance with France in order to a treaty, any more than your relinquishing yours with Holland.”—ED.

in town that proclaimed an intended attack on Jersey, of fifteen hundred men commanded by a Prince of Nassau, who was to be declared King of the island. A secret expedition advertised with so slender a force, exceeded by the troops on the isle, to say nothing of the ridicule of such a Roi d'Yvetot, did not make much impression: however, Mr. Conway spread his wings, with my approbation; and on, confirmation arriving on Monday, set out that night.* It seems the islanders, besides provoking France by their privateers and numerous captures, had imprudently advertised a sale, in August next, of prizes, to the amount of a vast sum, which would have been a kingdom indeed to a little necessitous Prince. He collected a small army of vagabonds, like his predecessor Romulus; but who had so little taste for the adventure when its destination was known, that he was forced to select fifty men from his more regular regiment to defend his person against the companions of his armament. It happened that Admiral Arbuthnot, who was going to convoy four thousand recruits to America, had been detained, though probably the French thought him sailed; and, hearing of the invasion, immediately sailed to Jersey, without staying for orders. The attack, however, had been made on the 1st of the month: the French had attempted to land, but Lord Seaforth's new-raised regimen of seven hundred Highlanders, assisted by some militia and some artillery, made a brave stand and repelled the intruders; and, and as every Nassaut does not conquer a British island merely by his presence, the visionary Monarch sailed back to France on the 2nd, and King George and Viceroy Conway remain Sovereign of Jersey-whom God long preserve!

We herd of the repulse on Thursday; but it was not till late in the night of Friday that an account came of the retreat, and I did not learn it till Saturday morning; in which interval there seemed to be twice eight-and-forty hours, and yet I had concluded that the French would be retired before Mr. Conway could reach his dominions. We had reports of the Brest fleet being sailed, and this little episode does. look like a feint. Negotiation is said to be at an end or a pause. Arbuthnot's activity, though greatly commendable, is a detrimental delay; and we have reason enough to expect other damage. I did hint to you that we had more thorns than one in our pillow: it is now too publicly known to be disguised any longer, that Ireland has much the air of Americanizing. Our oppressive partiality to two or three manufacturing towns in England has revolted the Irish, and they have entered into combinations against purchasing English goods, in terms more offensive than the first associations of the Colonies.‡

* Gibbon, in a letter of the 7th to Mr. Holroyd, says, "You have heard of the Jersey invasion: every body praises Arbuthnot's decided spirit. Conway went last night to throw himself into the island."-ED.

The Prince of Nassau, who commanded the attack upon Jersey, claimed relationship to the great house of Nassau.-ED.

"When the people of Ireland," says Hardy, in his Memoirs of Lord Charlemont, "found the session closed in England, and nothing substantial accomplished, they