a participation of the booty. One sailor shines brighter than all their constellation: one of the first to mount the scaling-ladder, he jumped on the platform with a sabre in each hand; but, finding there a Spaniard swordless, the Briton, with the air of a Paladin, tossed one of his weapons to him, and said, "Now we are on equal terms!" Having no more public events to tell you, I am sorry I must leap to a private story, in which there is far from being either bravery or gallantry, but which is savage enough to have been transmitted from the barbarians on the Musquito shore, whether Indian or Spanish; for the latter, who had previously taken a fort from us, had acted a little in the style of their original exploits in America. Well! but my story comes only 'cross the Irish Channel. Lord C., a recent peer of that kingdom and married to a great heiress there, a very amiable woman, had, however, a more favourite mistress. The nymph, like my lord, was no mirror of constancy, but preferred a younger, handsomer swain. The peer, frantic with jealousy, discovered an assignation, and, hiring four bravoes, broke in upon the lovers; when presenting a pistol to the head of his rival, he bade him make instant option of being shot, or reduced to the inability of giving any man jealousy. The poor young man was so ungallant as to prefer a chance for life on any terms. The brutal lord ordered his four ruffians to seize the criminal, and with his own hand performed the bloody operation. The victim died the next day, the murderer escaped, but one of his accomplices is taken. Dec. 21st. We seem to have made a little eruption back into the year 1759, for victories have arrived, for two days together. D'Estaing is defeated, and wounded in two places, at the siege of the Savannah in Georgia, and has lost fifteen hundred men; so says the Extraordinary Gazette: but I must own there seems to be a great hiatus in the authority; for it comes from nobody concerned in the action, not even to those that sent it to us. Indeed there is nothing contradictory that we have not believed about D'Estaing within these forty-eight hours: he himself, with four other ships and sixteen transports was sworn to be at the bottom of the sea, by one that saw them there, or might have seen them there, as he was close by when they set out. Then he was landed in France; and then he was repulsed in Georgia; and then his whole fleet revives, and re-assembles, and blocks up the port of the Savannah: and now he himself is indubitably at Paris, as letters thence last night positively affirm. However, the *Count D'Estaing totally abandoned the coast of America early in November, and proceeded with the greater part of his fleet directly to France; the rest having returned to the West Indies. Such was the issue of his American campaign. The Count's character is thus drawn by Mr. Cooper, in a letter to Dr. Franklin :-" I have the greatest respect for him. His great talents as a commander; his intrepidity, vigilance, secresy, assiduity, quick decision, prudence, and unabated affection to the common cause, united with a surprising command of himself in delicate cir Park and Tower guns firmly believe the Gazette's account, and huzza'd yesterday morning. I hope they were in the right, excepting on the entire existence of D'Estaing's squadron. Well! you may hold up your head a little vis à vis de Monsieur de Barbantan. If new triumphs do not pour in too fast, I hope to be able to write the next myself. At present I am party per pale, gout and health; but unluckily the former is on the dexter side, and makes it void. LETTER CCCXX. Berkeley Square, Jan. 4, 1780. I AM going to write a short letter in quantity, but a very serious one in matter. A stroke has been struck that seems pregnant with another war-a war with Holland. Advice had been received of large supplies of naval stores being ready to sail for Brest, furnished by the warm friends of France, the Amsterdammers; stores essential to the re-equipment of the French navy, and as repugnant to the treaties subsisting between us and the States. These merchantmen proposed to take advantage of a convoy going to the Levant and other places, the States not countenancing that manœuvre. It was determined not to wink at such an outrage, but to hazard complaints or resentment, when such a blow could be given to the farther enterprises of our capital enemies. Captain Fielding with five men-ofwar of the line, was ordered to seize the whole counterband trade; and has executed what he could. He has brought into Plymouth eight merchantmen and three men-of-war, with their Admiral. The latter refused to allow a search; some shot were exchanged, but in air, on both sides, and then the Dutchmen struck. Fielding desired him to re-hoist his flag, but he refused, and said he must accompany his convoy; thus creating himself a prisoner. I have related this event as vaguely-that is, as cautiously-as I could first, because I know no particulars from authority, for it was but yesterday at noon that the notice arrived; and secondly, because I have heard various accounts; and lastly, because I have been so steeled against sudden belief by lies from all quarters for these five years, that I do not trust my eyes, ears, or reason, and still less those instruments of any body else. cumstances, and on the most trying occasions, I can never sufficiently commend." D'Estaing commenced his career by serving in the East Indies under the unfortunate M. Lally, when he was taken prisoner by the English, and sent home on his parole. Having engaged in hostilities again before he had been regularly exchanged, he was taken again, and imprisoned at Portsmouth. On obtaining his freedom he vowed eternal hatred to the English which he endeavoured to wreak during the American war. At the capture of the Island of Grenada he distinguished himself. Becoming a victim in the proscriptions of 1793, he suffered under the guillotine, as a counter-revolutionist, in the following year.-ED. VOL. II.-12 There are two uncomely features in the countenance of this business. The first is disappointment. Though the captured stores are counterband, they consist only of hemp and iron, not of masts and timber, as we expected, and which are what the French want. Whether the magazines of those materials have escaped, or have not sailed, we— that is, I do not know; but, when all the Ratisbons in Europe are to discuss our enterprise, it is not pleasant to have trespassed on punc. tilios,-if we, and not the Dutch, were the aggressors, and not to have been crowned with success. Thus we have involved ourselves fruitlessly in the second inconvenience, of having, perhaps, tapped a new war, without previous indemnification. You diplomatics must canvass all this; and I hope it will be left to such quiet disputants, and not be referred to red coats and trowsers. I have given you your cue, till you receive better instructions. I am sorry to open the fortieth year of our correspondence by opening another of Janus's temples; better, however, in Holland than in Ireland, where we have got a strong friendly army instead of a rebellion. The weakness of my hand should not serve me for an excuse, had I more to tell you. This right hand is the only limb not recovered; yet, dreading another relapse, I have not yet ventured to take the air. Perhaps age, and weariness of such frequent returns, rebate my spirit. Illness, that must be repeated, takes off the edge from the enjoyment of health; and, though I seem to have patience, it is rather a state of discomfort. No matter what, I am wearing out; yet take great care of myself, more from a dread of decrepitude than from desire of life, in which I can have few joys. I have no affected indifference; for nothing, not even indifference if affected, is becoming in the decline of life. Adieu, my good friend of above forty years! Sure Orestes and Pylades, if they were inseparable, could not pretend to compare with us, who have not set eyes on one another for nine-and-thirty years! LETTER CCCXXI. Berkeley Square, Jan. 13, 1780. In consequence of my last, it is right to make you easy, and tell you that I think we shall not have a Dutch war; at least nobody seems to expect it. What excuses we have made, I do not know; but I imagine the Hollanders are glad to gain by both sides, and glad not to be forced to quarrel with either. What might have been expected much sooner, appears at last,-a good deal of discontent; but chiefly where it was not much expected. The country gentlemen, after encouraging the Court to war with America now, not very decently, are angry at the expense. As they have long seen the profusion, it would have been happy had they murmered sooner. Very serious associations are forming in many counties; and orders, under the title of petitions, coming to Parliament for correcting abuses.* They talk of the waste of money; are silent on the thousands of lives that have been sacrificed-but when are human lives counted by any side? The French who may measure with us in folly, and have exceeded us in ridiculous boasts, have been extravagant in their reception of D'Estaing, who has shown nothing but madness and incapacity. How the northern monarchs, who have at least exhibited talents for war and politics, must despise the last campaign of England and France? I am once more got abroad, but more pleased to be able to do so, than charmed with any thing I have to do. Having outlived the glory and felicity of my country, I carry that reflection with me wherever I go. Last night at Strawberry Hill, I took up, to divert my thoughts, a volume of letters to Swift from Bolingbroke, Bathirst, and Gay; and what was there but lamentations on the ruin of England, in that æra of its prosperity and peace, from wretches who thought their own want of power a proof that their country was undone! Oh, my father! twenty years of peace, and credit, and happiness, and liberty, were punishments to rascals who weighed every thing in the scales of self? It was to the honour of Pope, that, though leaged with such a crew, and though an idolater of their archfiend Bolingbroke and in awe of the malignant Swift, he never gave into their venomous railings;t railings against a man, who in twenty years, never attempted a stretch of power, did nothing but the common business of administration, and by that temperance and steady virtue, and unalterable good-humour and superior wisdom, baffled all the efforts of faction, and annihilated the falsely boasted abilities of Bolingbroke, which now appear as moderate as his character was in every light detestable. But alas! that retrospect doubled my chagrin instead of diverting it. I soon forgot an impotent cabal of mock-patriots; but the scene they vainly sought to disturb rushed on my mind, and, like Hamlet on the sight of Yorick's skull, I recollect the prosperity of Denmark when my father ruled, and compared it with the present moment! I look about for a Sir Robert Walpole ; but where is he to be found? *The business of the Associations for the redress of grievances was commenced during the Christmas recess; and the adoption of this mode of procuring a reform in the executive departments of the State not only becoming general, but the minds of the people being warmed by these meetings, the views of many, and those persons of no mean weight and consequence, were extended still further; and they gradually began to consider that nothing less than a reform in the constitution of Parliament itself, by shortening its duration, and obtaining a more equal representation of the people, could effectually prevent a return of similar evils. The great county of York led the way, and set the example to the rest of the kingdom.-ED. The amiable character of Sir Robert Walpole in private life is thus admirably touched by Pope, in his Epilogue to the Satires "Seen him I have, but in his happier hour Of social pleasure, ill exchanged for power; This is not a letter, but a codicil to my last. You will soon probably have news enough-yet appearances are not always pregnancies. When there are more follies in a nation than principles and system, they counteract one another, and sometimes, as has just happened in Ireland, are composed pulveris exigui jactu. I sum up my wishes in that for peace: but we are not satisfied with persecuting America, though the mischief has recoiled on ourselves; nor France with wounding us, though with little other cause for exultation, and with signal mischief to her own trade, and with heavy loss of seamen; not to mention how her armies are shrunk to raise her marine, a sacrifice she will one day rue, when the disciplined hosts of Goths and Huns begin to cast an eye southward. But I seem to choose to read futurity, because I am not likely to see it: indeed I am most rational when I say to myself, What is all this to me? My thread is almost spun; almost all my business here is to bear pain with patience, and to be thankful for intervals of ease. Though Emperors and Kings may torment mankind, they will not disturb my bed-chamber; and so I bid them and you good night! P.S. I have made use of a term in this letter, which I retract, having bestowed a title on the captains and subalterns which was due only to the colonel, and not enough for his dignity. Bolingbroke was more than a rascal-he was a villain. Bathurst, I believe, was not a dishonest man, more than he was prejudiced by party against one of the honestest and best of men.* * Gay was a simple poor soul, intoxicated by the friendship of men of genius, and who thought they must be good, who condescended to admire him. Swift was a wildbeast, who baited and worried all mankind almost, because his intolerable arrogance, vanity, pride, and ambition were disappointed; he abused Lady Suffolk,† who tried and wished to raise him, only be Seen him, uncumbered by the venal tribe, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's portrait of this eminent statesman in his character as a private man, gives also a most pleasing idea of him: "Such were the lively eyes and rosy hue Added new graces to the truths he spoke."-ED. * Allen, first Earl Bathurst, took an active part in the debates in the House of Lords, in 1742, for an address for the removal of Sir Robert Walpole.-En. Henrietta Hobart, sister of John, first Earl of Buckinghamshire, and mistress of George the Second. [And to whom Pope addressed the elegant lines beginning "I know the thing that's most uncommon; (Envy, be silent and attend!) I know a reasonable woman, Handsome and witty, yet a friend."-ED.] |