chooses to buy. It has nominated a new Speaker, Mr. Cornwall.* Sir Fletcher, who never haggles with shame, published his own disgrace, and declared he had been laid aside without notice. Courts do not always punish their own profligates so justly.

There is no new public event at home or from abroad. The Spanish negotiation does not seem to advance at all. Prince Frederic, the Bishop, is going to Germany; and then the Prince of Wales is to have something of a family.

Our old acquaintance Lord Pomfret, whose madness has lain dormant for some time, is broken out again; I mean, his madness is. He went down to Euston last week, and challenged the Duke of Grafton for an affront offered to him, he said, when the Duke was Ministeryou know what an age ago that was. The Duke declared his innocence, and advised him to consider on it. He did for two days; then said he was now cool, yet insisted on satisfaction. The Duke gave both letters to a magistrate, and then swore the peace against him; the only rational thing to be done. The Earl some years ago had many of these flippancies, and used to call out gentlemen in the playhouse, who he pretended had made faces at him. As madmen are generally cunning and malicious, it was generally such as looked unlikely to resent, whom he picked out. Once he unluckily selected General Moyston, and drawing his curtains early in the morning, bade him rise and follow him into Hyde Park, for having laughed at him at court. Moyston denied having even seen him there. "Oh, then, it is very well," said my lord. "No, by God, is not it," replied the general; "you have disturbed me when I had been in bed but three hours, and now you shall give me satisfaction:" but the Earl begged to be excused. There was a Mr. Palmes Robinson, who used to say publicly that he had often got Lord Pomfret as far as Hyde Park Corner, but never could get him any farther.

Mr. Windham I have seen. He is wonderfully recovered, and looks robust again. He said ten thousand fine things in your praise. Oh! thought I but said nothing. Mr. Morrice I have not yet seen: he is confined in the country by the gout and I hear looks dreadfully.

I have seen lately in the Abbé Richard's Voyage d'Italie, written in 1762, that in the Palais Pitti were preserved two large volumes of the travels of Cosimo III., with views of the houses he had been at; and he names England amongst them, where he certainly was.†

Could you find out if there is such a thing, and get a sight of it?

* Mr. Cornwall was proposed by Lord George Germain, and Sir Fletcher Norton by Mr. Dunning. On a division the numbers were, for the former 203, for the latter 134. Mr. Wilberforce, who had been returned at the general election for Hull, gave his first vote in Parliament against the re-election of Sir Fletcher to the Chair of the House. In his Conversational Memoranda there is this entry :-" When they were all talking of Sir Fletcher's health requiring his retirement, Rigby came into the House, and said with his ordinary bluntness, Don't tell me about health, he has flown in the King's face, and we won't have him." ED.

A translation of the travels of Cosmo the third, Grand-Duke of Tuscany, was published in a quarto volume in 1820.-ED.

VOL. II.-15

I should be very curious to know what English seats are there. Old English mansions are great objects with me-but do not give yourself much trouble about this request.

3rd.

You perceive that I am not likely to have great Parliamentary news to tell you. This week they are only being sworn in. The first debate in the Commons was to be next Monday, but probably will not, for last night Lord North was very ill of a fever. They can no more go on without their treasurer, than without their pensions. Sir Horace the second, I take for granted, will tell you of the common debates. I do not mean to relax myself, but seldom know much of their details, which I think of little consequence; and rather reserve myself for confirming or contradicting reports of considerable events.

LETTER CCCXXXIX.

Berkeley Square, Nov. 20, 1780. As I apprised you that the new Parliament did not promise to be very active, you will account for my having told you none of its proceedings. It has been more confined to personalities than divisions. The latter have proved much in favour of the Court: but then some of the chiefs of the Opposition have in a manner seceded, not from their party, but from action; and less from change than from disagreement. Lord Pomfret,after a week's imprisonment in the Tower, made his submission, has been reprimanded, and released on giving his honour (a madman's honour!) not to repeat his offence. The grand jury have found the bill of high treason against his fellow-prisoner Lord George Gordon, who, however, will not be tried till after Christmas. I do not know why.-So much for Parliament.

The newspapers have told you as much as I know of Arnold's treachery, which has already cost the life of a much better man, Major Andrée-precipitated probably by Lord Cornwallis's cruelty. You hear on the continent, but too much of our barbarity; the only way in which we have yet shown our power! Rodney found Rhode Island so strongly fortified that he returned to the West Indies; and yet we still presume on recovering America!

Do you wonder that, witness to so much delusion and disgrace, it should grow irksome to me to be the annalist of our follies and march to ruin? I cannot, like our newspapers, falsify every event, and coin

* This unfortunate gentleman, having been employed by Sir Henry Clinton to carry on a negotiation with the noted American general Arnold, about to betray the trust reposed in him by his countrymen, was, in the performance of his hazardous duty, taken prisoner by the Americans, and, owing to his disguise and the nature of his mission, was tried by a court-martial and executed as a spy. A monument, by order of the king, was erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey.-ED.

prophecies out of bad omens. My friendship for you makes me persist in our correspondence; but tenderness for my country makes me abhor detailing its errors, and regard to truth will not allow me to assert what I do not believe. I wait for events, that I may send you something; and yet my accounts are dry and brief, because I confine myself to avowed facts, without comments or credulity. My society is grown very narrow, and it is natural at sixty-three not to concern myself in the private history of those that might be my grandchildren. Even their sallies become less splendid as opulence is vanished; and, though national follies forerun and contribute to the decline of a great country, they stop with it, not from repentance, but impotence. 'Tis insolent power that tramples on laws and morals. Poverty is only vicious by imitation, or refractory from oppression. Robbery, indeed, continues at high-water mark, though the army and navy have drawn off such hosts of outlaws and vagrants. That they have successors, proves the increase of want.

22nd. Some of

There was an odd interlude in the House of Commons. the Opposition proposed to thank the late Speaker, Sir Fletcher. Lord North had promised not to gainsay it. Neither side could admire such a worthless fellow: those he has left, less than those that have adopted him; and yet the vote of thanks passed by a majority of 40:-and so one may be thanked for being a rogue on all sides! * If thanks grow cheaper, they will at least be more striking when bestowed on the worthy; for every one will say, "Such a one does deserve praise."

It looks a little as if we should quarrel downright with the Dutch. I do not wonder that we mind so little an enemy more or less; for, numerous as our foes are, they certainly are very awkward. We hurt ourselves a thousand times more than they do. We have done nothing that signifies a straw; but they have done less.

LETTER CCCXL.

Berkeley Square, Dec. 12th, 1780.

YOUR Florence, no doubt, is much occupied by the death of the Empress-Queen. It turns all eyes on the Emperor, and sets thou

The motion was proposed by Mr. Thomas Townshend, and supported generally by the Opposition, but warmly resisted on the Court side, although the Ministers themselves took no direct part. It was, however, carried on a division, by a majority of 136 to 96.-ED.

Maria-Theresa, Empress of Germany, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, and hereditary Archduchess of Austria. This great Princess, mother of the GrandDuke of Tuscany, died at Vienna on the 29th of November, in her sixty-third year. -ED.

sands of tongues to work, the owners of every one of which will expect to pass for a prophet, if Cæsar within these two years takes one step which is at all like twenty, any one of which it is probable he may take. I was with you just forty years ago, when the departed Empress came to the crown.* What a tide of events that era occasioned! You and I shall not see much of what this may produce! and therefore I will not guess at a history that is in its cradle for me, and that I shall not be acquainted with when it is come to years of discretion. I wish our own wars were come to that pass!

The new Parliament, which is now gone to keep its Christmas, has been but little ruffled; nay, as if there were no new matter, they are to tap again, after the holidays, the whole story of Keppel and Palliser. Indeed, at this instant, the town expect news of an engagement between Darby and D'Estaing; though I think there are more reasons for not thinking it probable: however, I have still less skill in naval matters than even in others.

Our old acquaintance, Lord Pomfret, has taken his chastisement very patiently, which looks less mad than he was thought.t

This is the sum of my present knowledge: and thus a most turbulent year has the appearance of concluding drowsily enough; and, for fleets and armies, their exploits on both sides, would lie in a nutshell. An historian may be sorry, but a man of feeling must rejoice that such scourges as armaments may do such little mischief to the human race. Fame cannot be acquired but by the groans of hospitals full of sufferers! The last act of the Empress-Queen, the stemming the torrent of blood between her son and the King of Prussia, is in my eyes the brightest in her annals.

LETTER CCCXLI,

Berkeley Square, Dec. 21, 1780.

I AM Sorry that my letters of late years contain so many eras; this dates a new one, of an additional war with Holland. The Mani

:

* In a letter dated Florence, July 9, 1740, Walpole thus wrote to his friend Conway: "I am happy here to a degree. I'll tell you my situation; I am lodged with Mr. Mann, the best of creatures. I have a terreno all to myself, with an open gallery, on the Arno, where I am now writing to you. Over against me is the famous Gallery and on either hand two fair bridges. Is not this charming and cool! The air is so serene, and so secure, that one sleeps with all the windows and doors thrown open to the river, and only covered with a light gause to keep away the knats. The people are good humoured here, and easy; and, what makes me pleased with them, they are pleased with me. One loves to find people care for one, when they can have no view in it."-Collective Edition, vol. i. p. 50.-ED.

Lord Pomfret was reprimanded at the bar of the House of Lords by the Lord Chancellor. On being taken from it and admitted to his seat, he engaged upon his honour not to pursue further any measure of violence against the person of the Duke of Grafton.-ED.

4

festo of our Court appeared in the Gazette Extraordinary this morning. I am no prophecying politician, you know; and if I were, as I am too old to be a sanguine one, I should not disperse my Sibylline leaves about Europe.

Another fact, that must speak for itself, is that Admiral Darby has brought his fleet home, as D'Estaing has led the French and Spanish squadrons and the trade to Brest. Pray desire the Emperor to leave Ostend open, or I shall not be able to write to you at all. It is not very pleasant at present; for, with so many intervening enemies and interlopers, one can converse with no more frankness than in a Congress of Ambassadors. I write as much as I can for your satisfaction, but no Continental post-office will ever learn from me a tittle they did not know before. You may suffer by it, but I am sure approve me. Do not imagine there is either tædium or air in this. I do know nothing before it has happened: it is merely my own comment that I suppress, as I love my country too well to treat foreigners with any thing I am sorry for.

Having thus said my say, I have nothing of the least consequence to add. The town is, and will be empty till the Parliament meets; and then people will return, because it is the fashion to go to Newmarket: for, in countries that are or have been great, the chief phi-. losophers are such as have no philosophy, and who consign over to the inferior classes the sense of public calamities. In fact, the world is grown more intrepid than in ancient days. Our progenitors braved enemies; we moderns defy elements, and do not, like the effeminate Greeks and Romans, go into winter quarters at the back of the almanack; and thence winds, waves, and climates gain the most considerable victories. There has been a hurricane at St. Kitt's, that, according to the etiquette of destruction, deserves a triumphal arch, -perhaps opima spolia, for nothing has yet been heard of Admiral Rowley* Oh! but I cannot sport, when humanity aches in every nerve! and when the seals of a new book are opened, like those in the Revelations! I detest war, nor can perceive that any body has cause to exult in it. Adieu!

* During this dreadful hurricane, the squadron under the command of Admiral Rowley returned to Jamaica, mostly dismasted, and all disabled. The Sterling Castle was lost on the coast of Hispaniola, and only fifty of the crew saved; and the Thunderer, under the conduct of Commodore the Honourable Boyle Walsingham, son of the Earl of Shannon, was so completely swallowed up by this conflict of the elements, that no memorial or particulars of her catastrophe ever came to light.-ED.

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