round him precipitated the sale, as money is more purloinable than a palace of pictures.

By the will it seems her ladyship claims no power over her landed estates in England, though I have heard that she pretended to have a right to dispose of part: but all that is nothing to me.

I have no public news to add but what I scarce know yet, the trial of Lord George Gordon. It was yesterday, and they say he was acquitted at five this morning;* but this I have learnt only from my servants, for I have been writing to notify my Lady Orford's death to my relations that they may mourn, and bespeaking mourning, and doing such necessary things; and have seen no body yet, and, in fact, did not care a straw about my Lord George any more than, when any living creature is trying for his life, I feel at the moment, and wish him to escape.

LETTER CCCXLVI.

Strawberry Hill, Sunday night, Feb. 11, 1781. On Friday evening I received the probate of Lady O.'s will, and your two letters, in one which you mention the doubts of the Florentine lawyers on the validity of the disposition. I was very sorry to hear of these doubts, and shall consider well-nay, consult the most conscientious persons I can,-before I acquaint my lord with them. I do not like questioning of wills where the intention of the testator is evident; nor are there many cases in which I should approve of it, except on strong suspicions of foul practices, or notorious incapacity of the deceased. Though I could have no esteem for Lady Orford, I shall be extremely averse from being even an indirect instrument of disputing her will; and, should I be advised in duty to inform my lord of the cavil, I shall, I think, desire you to convey the notice to him through some other channel. Nothing but my becoming persuaded that I ought to acquaint him with the doubts on the validity, shall make me contribute to his knowing them. I shall consult General Conway, who is conscience itself; and Lord Camden, who, though a lawyer, has left off business, and who, I trust, is too old to think merely as a lawyer, unless as one who has presided in a court of equity. Lord Orford may act by me as he pleases, or, poor man! as his creatures please. I will neither pay court to him, for he has used me with extravagant ingratitude; nor ever do but what is strictly right about him, as I have always done, with a degree of delicacy that worldly prudence would condemn,

* Lord George Gordon was tried at the bar of the Court of King's Bench before Lord Chief Justice Mansfield, and Justices Waller, Ashurst, and Buller. His counsel were Mr. Kenyon and Mr. Erskine. At a quarter after five in the morning the jury returned a verdict of Not Guilty. Hannah More says, in a letter to her sister, "Public thanksgivings were returned last Sunday in several churches for his acquittal. I know some who actually heard it in Audley Chapel."-ED.

and which certainly has been very prejudicial to my family. But I cannot lament what I did from principle and tenderness; nor can I vindicate myself to the world so fully as I might, while he has such a measure of sense as would be wounded if I talked too openly of his madness. It is plain that he, who, with no semblance of a quarrel to me, can treat me in so injurious a manner, after such tried services and repeated obligations, must have had the most abominable lies told him of me. I will indubitably take the first occasion that shall present itself of making my whole conduct towards him known, and that of his creatures. I care not a rush about his fortune, but I will not part with my character, which I prefer to all he has; and had much rather lose the former, were it likely to come to me, than the latter.

I know no news-in fact I have been entirely taken up with this affair. The accession of fortune to my lord makes not the slightest change in my resolutions, it rather strengthens them; for I should despise myself if his additional wealth could make me stoop to flatter a madman.

P.S. Poor Lady Dick* is dead, and Mrs. Pitt; the latter in a madhouse.

LETTER CCCXLVII.

Strawberry Hill, Feb. 26, 1781.

I SHALL not weary you again with saying any more about my nephew. I have done with him! An affair is going to take place that is not unconnected with him, and that gives me some satisfaction. Lord Walpole's eldest son, who at present stands in the light of heirapparent to both branches of the family, and whom Lord O. is at least bound to my late uncle to make his heir in succession, is going to marry one of my numerous nieces, Lady Mary Churchill's younger daughter. It is a match of love; she is a very fine girl, but without a shilling. Lord Walpole dislikes the match much, entirely on that last defect: but the son is a most honourable young man; and the father, who is good-natured, has at last given his consent. Thus, if Lord O.'s mad. ness and the villany of his counsellors (and, I must add, his own want of principle) does not reverse what he promised, all the descendants of my father, the author of the greatness of the whole family, will not be deprived of his fortune. My sister Malpas's posterity, to whom it ought first to descend after my brother and me, will be defrauded; but, plundered as Houghton is, the possessors will still look up to the memory of its illustrious founder. But how weak are these visions about ancestors and descendants! and how extraordinarily weak am I to harbour them, when I see that a madman, a housemaid, and an at

*Wife of Sir John Dick, formerly consul at Leghorn.

The marriage of the Honourable Horatio Walpole with Sophia, the daughter of Lady Mary Churchill, took place in July.-ED.

Iz

torney can baffle all the views Sir Robert himself had entertained! Could he foresee that his grandson would sell his collection of pictures; or that his grand-daughter would marry the King's brother?-Yet, if one excluded visions and attended only to the philosophy of reflection, -if one always recollected how transitory are all the glories in the imagination,-how insipid, how listless would life be! Are fame or science more real? Would we know what is passed, on the truth of what history can we depend? Would we step without the palpable world, what do we learn but by guess, or by that most barren of all responses, calculation? Is any thing more lean than the knowledge we attain by computing the distance or magnitude of a planet! If we could know more of a world than its size, would not its size be the least part of our contemplation? All I mean is, that it matters not with what visions, provided they are harmless, we amuse ourselves; and that, so far from combating, I often love to entertain them. When one has outlived one's passions and pursuits, one should become inactive or morose if one's second childhood had not its rattles and fables like the first.

I am the more willing to play with local and domestic baby-houses, as the greater scene is still more comfortless; though what is one's country but one's family on a larger scale? What was the glory of immortal Rome, but the family pride of some thousand families? All sublunary objects are but great and little by comparison. You and I have lived long enough to see Houghton and England emerge, the one from a country gentleman's house to a palace, the other from an island to an empire; and to behold both stripped of their acquisitions, and lamentable in their ruins. I will push the comparison between large and petty objects no farther, though both have compounded the present colour of my mind. I came hither yesterday, but left nothing new in town. The follies of a great capital are only new in the persons of their favourites. The fanatic Lord George Gordon was the reigning hero a fortnight ago: the French dancers, Vestris and his son, have dethroned him, and are the reigning bubbles in the air at this moment. On Thursday was sevennight there was an opera for the sufferers by the late dreadful calamities at Barbadoes and Jamaica; the theatre was not half full. Last Thursday was the benefit of Vestris and son; the house could not receive or contain the multitudes that presented themselves. Their oblations amounted to fourteen hundred pounds.

You talk of Dutch prizes: a late storm has paid them in a moment, and thrown into their arms, at least driven and wrecked on their coast, one of our newly arrived Indiamen, worth two hundred thousand pounds. We consoled ourselves with the revolt of a large body of Washington's troops; but, when Sir Henry Clinton invited them to his standard, they impolitely bound his messengers hand and foot, and sent them to the Congress.* We are apt to sing Io Pœan

In the January of this year, on the occasion above referred to, though smarting under their supposed wrongs, and surrounded by the dangers to which they had VOL. II.-16

too soon, and only show how much we want good news, by accepting every thing as such; though the second report generally proves sinister.

LETTER CCCXLVIII.

March 13, 1781.

off

I HAVE just received your three lines of Feb. 28 by your courier, and hurry to reply, less he should call for my answer before it is finished. I have indeed nothing to tell you that might not go through all the inquisitions and post-offices in Europe; for I can only send you my own vague conjectures or opinions. The guns are going for the conquest of Eustatia by Rodney, which is just arrived.* It may be a good circumstance towards disposing the Dutch to peace; and perhaps to balance what your despatch brings, which is probably an attempt or design on Minorca. We imagine, too, that the grand fleet sailed yesterday at last, which is to relieve Gibraltar, and annihilate the combined squadrons.

Last week the stocks rose six per cent. in two days. It was given out that the Emperor and Empress had offered their mediation, and that all parties had accepted it, and that Sir Joseph Yorke was to depart on wings of winds to Vienna to conclude the peace. Much of this cargo of propitious news is fallen off, as well as the stocks. Sir Joseph is not gone; and at most it is said that their Imperial Majesties have made a defensive alliance, and that Russia had civilly told the Dutch that she could do no more for them, but advised them to make peace. Now, would you know my own belief? It is, that, whatever advances are made to us, we shall profit of none, but persist in the American war; at least in such a submission as may leave us power to violate any treaty and begin again. Our foolhardiness. is past all credibility; the nation is besotted, and not a great view is left above or below. If I filled my paper, I should but dilate on those two points. For my part, I do assure you, I cast all politics out of my thoughts. I see no glimmering of hope that we should be a great nation again; nor do we deserve to be. I wish for peace at any rate;

rendered themselves liable, the Insurgents not only rejected the favourable offers held out to them by Sir Henry Clinton, but, to show their irreconcilable enmity to the mother country, delivered up the unhappy men who had acted as his agents. -ED.

* In February, the British fleet and army, under the commands of Sir George Rodney and General Vaughan, appearing suddenly before and surrounding the island of St. Eustatia, the Dutch governor, ignorant of the rupture between England and Holland, surrendered it; only recommending the town and inhabitants to British clemency. The wealth found in the place excited the astonishment of the conquerors. The value of the commodities was estimated at more than three millions sterling, and two hundred and fifty vessels of all descriptions were taken in the bay, besides six frigates.-ED.

and I cease to love my country, because I am disinterested, just as they do who sell it, because they are the reverse. I cannot love what deserves no esteem.

Private news we have none, but the silly topics of dancers and crowds. Nothing at all passes in the House of Lords, and not much in the other, but jobs. Their Highnesses of Cumberland have turned short from the King, and court the Prince of Wales,* and the Opposition, and the Ton, and the mob. My friendst sit still, and sensibly let the hurricane lower which way it will. It will soon, I suppose, produce confusion and new quarrels; but you know me too well to imagine that I will embark, even in speculation, on chapters to come. When I doubt almost all I hear in the present moment, I shall not roam into guesses on future events, which I probably shall not know whether they happen or not. Adieu! I must seal my letter to have it ready. It is not very informing, but at least it tells you that every thing is in suspense.

LETTER CCCXLIX.

Berkeley Square, March 30, 1781.

I WROTE a letter to you for your messenger the moment he arrived, but he was detained here so long that it must have reached you antiquated. He found us exulting for the capture of St. Eustatia: the scene is a little changed since, both in the West and East. America is once more not quite ready to be conquered, though every now and then we fancy it is. Tarleton is defeated, Lord Cornwallis is checked, and Arnold not sure of having betrayed his friends to much purpose. If we are less certain of recovering what we have thrown away, we are in full as much danger of losing what we acquired, not more creditably, at the other end of the world. Hyder Ally, an Indian potentate, thinking he has as much right to the diamonds of his own country as the Rumbolds and Sykes's, who were originally waiters in a tavern, has given us a blow, and has not done.‡

* His Royal Highness had, on the 1st of January, been declared of age, and appeared at Court in his new character.-ED.

The Duke and Duchess of Gloucester.

Intelligence had recently reached England, that Hyder Ali Khan, one of the greatest princes as well as the greatest warrior that India ever produced, had, in the preceding July, with an army of one hundred thousand men, burst at once, like a prodigious tempest, into the Carnatic. This terrible invasion is described by Mr. Burke in the following wonderful passage of his speech on the debts of the Nabob of Arcot: "When at length Hyder Ali found that he had to do with men who either would sign no convention, or whom no treaty and no signature could bind, he decreed to make the country possessed by these incorrigible and predestinated criminals a memorable example to mankind. He resolved, in the gloomy recesses of a mind capacious of such things, to leave the whole Carnatic an everlasting monument of vengeance, and to put perpetual desolation as a barrier between him and