shows how injudicious our perseverance has been, we are almost at the last gasp there, and tremble for Lord Cornwallis. I should not say so much as this but by your own courier; for I have too much fierté to allow to enemies even what they know. We have no particular news at present, and I will not make my letter longer than is necessary; as it is past midnight, and this must go to town early tomorrow-morning.

I have almost got through the first volume of the Medici. In spite of the beauty of the Italian language, the style appears very meagre. One must call it simplicity, if one would commend it. The sincerity is considerable enough to make the Medici shudder in their pompous tombs in St. Lorenso. What a severe tyrant was their great Cosmo! Abbé, indeed! But how facile is address when it stops at nothing! Or is it art to stab and poison? Then assassins are great politicians. The work, to be sure, does unfold a horrid scene of popes and princes; but I don't know how-I don't know what I expected: all that scene of villainous ambition is but cold at this distance of time; one is shocked, never interested. At least, the historian wanted ability to move the passions; or, perhaps, it was impossible to excite any thing but horror, when he does not seem amidst all his materials to have discovered one good character.

The only person for whom I have conceived an esteem is for the Sovereign himself who commanded the work. He must mean to be a good prince, when he enjoins the truth to be so amply told of his predecessors. He must be aware of the reflections that will be made hereafter, if he is not.

The Duchess of Gloucester has ordered me to thank you particularly for a very obliging letter that she has received from you: she does not say on what occasion. They are at Weymouth, and greatly happy at having lately inoculated Prince William as successfully as they could possibly wish. Adieu! dear sir, or sirs.

LETTER CCCLXIII.

Berkeley Square, Nov. 26, 1781. YOUR letter of the 10th, which I have received to-night, has been very cordial to me, as Mrs. Noel and I have been very uneasy at not seeing your nephew, who used to have the two qualities of punctuality and flying; but I see he cannot execute the latter when his wings are wetted. I left Twickenham this morning; but, though the Duchess of Montrose and Mrs. Noel are to come to town on Wednesday, I

*The appearance of Galluzzi's History of the House of Medici, which was undertaken at the express desire of the Great Duke Leopold, gave rise to strong remonstrances, on the part of the Courts of Spain, Naples, Parma, and especially of the Holy See, whose atrocities he had fearlessly exposed.-ED.

shall send a line to the latter, to let her know the accidents your nephew experienced at setting out.

I am delighted that Mrs. Damer and you are delighted with each other. I know it mutually, for Lady Ailesbury received a letter this evening from Lady William Campbell, who told her so. Thank you a million of times for your kindness to them. If you have time to know Mrs. Damer, what will you not think of her? But I must turn to a subject that will not be so pleasing to you.

An account came yesterday that could not but be expected, that Washington and the French have made Lord Cornwallis and his whole army prisoners. I do not know what others think, but to me it seems fortunate that they were not all cut to pieces. It is not heroic perhaps, but I am glad, that this disaster arriving before our fleet reached the Chesapeak, it turned back to New York without attacking the French fleet, who are above three to two, thirty-seven to twenty-three. This is all I know yet; and yet this comes at an untoward moment; for the Parliament meets to-morrow, and it puts the Speech and speeches a little into disorder.*

I cannot put on the face of the day, and act grief. Whatever puts an end to the American war will save the lives of thousands-millions of money too. If glory compensates such sacrifices, I never

ever.

* Official intelligence of the surrender of the British army at Yorktown to the American forces under General Washington had reached town on the preceding day. The state of the public mind at this moment is thus described in a letter from Sir Samuel Romily to a friend: "Every body has been in great anxiety for the army under Lord Cornwallis. His situation was very critical: an army, vastly superior in numbers to his own, surrounded him on every side; and no person seemed to doubt that, unless Clinton arrived in time to relieve him before his provisions were consumed, he would be obliged so surrender up himself and his army prisoners, and the disgrace at Saratoga, would be renewed in the Chesapeak. It was thought, however, that Clinton might reach the Chesapeak before it was too late; and much, was then expected from the valour of two such British armies against forces so unnaturally allied together, and so unaccustomed to act in conjunction, as those of America and France. At any rate, it was supposed, that the event must be quite decisive of the war; and the public was eager and burning with impatience to hear whether America was to return to her dependence or be dissevered from us for In this uncertainty, the day on which the Parliament was to meet drew near. The King's speech was prepared, had been read at the Council, and was to have been delivered to Parliament the very next day, when news arrived that Cornwallis and all his soldiers were prisoners. This report, which came with such authority as not to admit of any doubt, filled many persons with the deepest consternation; they saw blasted all our hopes of ever attaining what, in the course of so many years, we had pursued at the cost of so much blood and treasure; others, instead of turning their views back, looked forward to the evils we had escaped, and thought we had more reason to rejoice at an event which had delivered us from a war so destructive to the nation; an event which, by happening thus early (for they considered it as inevitable at some time or other,) had spared us many millions of debt, and the loss of many gallant armies, which the Ministers would certainly have sacrificed in the pursuit of a favourite, but unattainable object. But none (at least none that I have heard of) saw this calamity with the terrors with which it has since been heightened; for none imagined that, after another so awful lesson, there could be any talk of continuing our inauspicious war on America." Life, vol. i. p. 182.-ED.

heard that disgraces and disappointments were palliatives; but I will not descant, nor is it right to vaunt of having been in the right when one's country's shame is the solution of one's prophecy, nor would one join in the triumph of her enemies. Details you will hear from France sooner than I can send them; but I will write again the moment I know any thing material. I am sorry your nephew is not arrived; who, by being in Parliament and in the world, would be sooner and better informed than I, who stir little out of my own house, and have no political connexions, nor scarce a wish but to die in peace.

LETTER CCCLXIV.

Nov. 29, 1781.

YOUR nephew is arrived, as he has told you himself; the sight of him, for he called on me the next morning, was more than ordinarily welcome, though your letter of the 10th, which I received the night before, had dispelled many of my fears. I will now unfold them to you. A packet-boat from Ostend was lost last week, and your nephew was named for one of the passengers. As Mrs. Noel had expected him for a fortnight, I own my apprehensions were strengthened; but I will say no more on a dissipated panic. However, this incident and his half-wreck at Lerici will, I hope, prevent him for the future from staying with you so late in the year; and I see by your letter that you agree with me, of which I should be sure though you had not said so.

I mentioned on Tuesday the captivity of Lord Cornwallis and his army, the Columbus who was to bestow America on us again. A second army taken in a drag-net is an uncommon event,* and happened but once to the Romans, who sought adventures every where. We have not lowered our tone on this new disgrace, though I think we shall talk no more of insisting on implicit submission, which would rather be a gasconade than firmness. In fact, there is one very unlucky circumstance already come out, which must drive every American, to a man, from ever calling himself our friend. By the tenth article of the capitulation, Lord Cornwallis demanded that the loyal

* Dr. Franklin, in a letter written on the 26th of November to Mr. Adams, makes the same reflection: "It is a rare circumstance," he says, "and scarce to be met with in history, that in one war two armies should be taken prisoners completely, not a man in either escaping. It is another singular circumstance, that in an expedition so complex, formed of armies of different nations and of land and sea forces, should with such perfect concord be assembled from different places by land and water, form their junction punctually, without the least retard by cross accidents of wind or weather, or interruption from the enemy; and that the army which was their object should in the mean time have the goodness to quit a situation from whence it might have escaped, and place itself in another whence any escape was impossible."-ED.

Americans in his army should not be punished. This was flatly refused, and he has left them to be hanged.* I doubt no vote of Parliament will be able to blanch such a-such a-I don't know what the word is for it. He must get his uncle the Archbishop to christen it. There is no name for it in any Pagan vocabulary. I suppose it will have a patent for being called Necessity. Well! there ends another volume of the American war. It looks a little as if the history of it would be all we should have for it, except forty millions of debt, and three other wars that have grown out of it, and that do not seem so near to a conclusion. They say that Monsieur de Maurepas, who is dying, being told that the Duc de Lauzun had brought the news of Lord Cornwallis's surrender, said, from Racine's Mithridate I think, "Mes derniers regards ont vu fuir les Romains."+

How Lord Chatham will frown when they meet! for, since I began my letter, the papers say that Maurepas is dead. The Duc de Nivernois, it is said, is likely to succeed him as Minister; which is probable, as they were brothers-in-law and friends, and the one would naturally recommend the other. Perhaps, not for long; as the Queen's influence gains ground.

The warmth in the House of Commons is prodigiously rekindled;§

*Lord Cornwallis strove earnestly to obtain some favourable conditions on behalf of the inhabitants of York-town and other Americans who were under the protection, as they had shared the fortune, of the British army; but they were refused, on the grounds of their being civil matters, which did not come within the authority of the military commanders. He, however, to extricate those Americans who would have been exposed to imminent danger, made it a condition, that the sloop which was to convey his despatches to New York should pass without search or examination, he being only answerable that the number of persons she conveyed should be accounted for as prisoners of war upon exchange.-ED.

66

Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, who happened to dine with Lord George Sackville, then one of the Secretaries of State, on the day upon which the intelligence of the surrender of Lord Cornwallis's army reached Government, relates the following anecdote:-"The party, nine in number, sat down to table; Lord George appeared serious though he manifested no discomposure. After his three daughters had withdrawn, his lordship acquainted us, that information had just arrived from Paris of the old Count de Maurepas lying at the point of death. It would grieve me,' said I, to finish my career, however far advanced in years, were I Minister of France, before I had witnessed the termination of this great contest between England and America.' He has survived to see that event,' replied Lord George, with some agitation. Utterly unsuspecting what had happened beyond the Atlantic, My meaning,' said I, is, that if I were the Count de Maurepas, I should wish to live long enough to behold the final issue of the war in Virginia.' He has survived to witness it completely answered Lord George; the army has surrendered, and you may peruse the particulars of the capitulation in that paper;' taking at the same time, one from his pocket, which he delivered into my hand, not without visible emotion." Hist. Mem. vol. ii. p. 437.-Ed.

6

Count de Maurepas died at Versailles, in the month of November, and in the eighty-first year of his age; holding, at that very advanced period of life, in a season of great national exertion and of a perilous and hard-fought foreign war, the arduous office of Prime Minister of France.-ED.

The King had opened the session on the 27th. "So much had the expected debates," writes Sir Samuel Romilly, in the letter quoted in a recent note, “roused the attention of men, that the lobby of the House of Commons was full long before

VOL. II.-18

but Lord Cornwallis's fate has cost the Administration no ground there. The names of most éclat in the Opposition are two names to which those walls have been much accustomed at the same periodCHARLES FOX* and WILLIAM PITT, second son of Lord Chatham.t Eloquence is the only one of our brilliant qualities that does not seem

the Speaker arrived; nor was it without difficulty he could make his way into the House. The moment he had entered, the people crowded after him; it was impossible to shut the doors, and the gallery was in a moment filled with a promiscuous crowd. I, among the rest, had the good fortune to get a seat. As you have already seen the King's speech, you have observed that, after boasting of successes in the East Indies, announcing the disaster in Virginia, and declaring his resolution to prosecute the war with vigour, he goes on to involve the future conduct of the war in darkness and uncertainty. Let me recall his words to you, for they are very material: I should not answer the trust committed to the sovereign of a free people, &c., if I consented to sacrifice, either to my own desire of peace, or to their temporary ease and relief, those essential rights and permanent interests, upon the maintainance and preservation of which the future strength and security of this country must ever principally depend;' and afterwards, The late misfortune calls loudly for your firm concurrence and assistance, to frustrate the designs of our enemies, equally prejudicial to the real interests of America and to those of Great Britain. In both Houses, all the speakers on the side of Opposition understood these words to intimate that the war in America was still to be carried on; and the Address, which echoed them back to the Throne, they understood as pledging the House to give their sanction to that measure." Life, vol. i. p. 184.ED.

* Mr. Fox had, on the first day of the Session, after a long and impassioned speech, moved, by way of amendment to the proposed Address, to pledge the House to apply themselves with united hearts to propose and digest such counsels as might in this crisis excite the efforts, point the arms, and, by a total change of system, command the confidence of the nation. It was rejected, on a division by 218 to 129.-ED.

Upon the report of the Address on the King's speech, WILLIAM PITT, the son of Chatham, addressed the House of Commons for the fourth time; arguing strongly and powerfully against persevering in the American war, and inveighing with great severity against the incapacity of Ministers, who, by their fatal system, had led the country, step by step, to the most calamitous and disgraceful situationa situation which threatened the final dissolution of the empire, if not prevented by timely, wise, and vigorous efforts. "The applause in the House," says the Bishop of Winchester," was so great when Mr. Pitt sat down, that it was some time before Mr. Dundas, the Lord Advocate, who rose immediately, could be heard. He began by saying, that'the lustre of abilities and splendour of eloquence displayed by the honourable gentleman who spoke last, having proved that an astonishing extent and force of understanding had descended in an hereditary line, from a parent uncommonly gifted, to a son equally endowed with all the fire, and strength, and grace of oratory, it did not at all surprise him, that an involuntary emotion of applause should burst out on the conclusion of the speech the House had just heard, and that each gentleman should be anxious to communicate to his neighbour his approbation of it.' Mr. Fox afterwards noticed the universal admiration the speech had excited; and Mr. Courtenay said, that Mr. Pitt's splendid diction, manly elocution, brilliant periods, and pointed logic, conveyed in a torrent of rapid and impressive eloquence, brought strongly to his recollection that great and able statesman, whose memory every grateful and generous Briton revered." Life, vol. i. p. 44. Sir Samuel Romilly, in alluding to this speech, says, "Applause was echoed from one side of the House to the other; and Mr. Fox, in an exaggerated strain of panegyric, said he would no longer lament the loss of Lord Chatham, for he was again living in his son, with all his virtues and all his talents." "He studies," adds Sir Samuel," for the bar, and to whatever he applies himself, whether to law or politics, he is likely soon to take precedence of all our orators; he possesses