LETTER CCLXVI.

Strawberry Hill, April 3, 1777.

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I HAVE nothing very new to tell you on public affairs, especially as I can know nothing more than see in the papers. It is my opinion that the King's affairs are in a very bad position in America. I do not say that his armies may not gain advantages again; though I believe there has been as much design as cowardice in the behaviour of the provincials, who seem to have been apprized that protraction of the war would be more certainly advantageous to them than heroism. Washington, the dictator, has shown himself both a Fabius and a Camillus. His march through our lines is allowed to have been a prodigy of generalship.* In one word, I look upon great part of America as lost to this country! It is not less deplorable, that, between art and contention, such an inveteracy has been sown between the two countries as will probably outlast even the war! Supposing this unnatural enmity should not soon involve us in other wars, which would be extraordinary indeed,

* In December, when the cause of the Americans seemed hopeless, the English commander, having extended his cantonments to a prodigious length, Washington took advantage of that circumstance, crossed the Delaware in the night, surprised the left wing of the British army, and, attacking a body of Hessians nearly a thousand strong, surprised them so completely that they surrendered and were captured. Soon afterwards he gained an advantage, also in the dead of the night, over the British at Prince-town.-ED.

what a difference, in a future war with France and Spain, to have the Colonies in the opposite scale, instead of being in ours! What politicians are those who have preferred the empty name of sovereignty to that of alliance, and forced subsidies to the golden ocean of commerce!

Alas! the trade of America is not all we shall lose! The ocean of commerce wafted us wealth at the return of regular tides: but we had acquired an empire too, in whose plains the beggars we sent out as labourers could reap sacks of gold in three or four harvests; and who with their sickles and reaping-hooks have robbed and cut the throats of those who sowed the grain. These rapacious foragers have fallen together by the ears; and our Indian affairs, I suppose, will soon be in as desperate a state as our American. Lord Pigot has been treacherously and violently imprisoned, and the Company here has voted his restoration.* I know no

thing of the merits of the cause on either side: I dare to say, both are very blameable. I look only to the consequences, which I do not doubt will precipitate the loss of our acquisitions there; the title to which I never admired, and the possession of which I always regarded

* Lord Pigot had been appointed Governor of Madras, with instructions to restore the Rajah of Tanjore, under certain conditions. In attempting to carry them into execution, he was seized, by the direction of certain members of his own council, and conveyed to a place called the Mount; where he was confined in the strictest manner. Impaired by age and an Indian climate, the constitution of Lord Pigot sank under the irritation to which he had been exposed and the restraint to which he was subjected; and he died shortly after, the prisoner of those over whom he had been appointed to preside.-ED.

as a transitory vision. If we could keep it, we should certainly plunder it, till the expense of maintaining would overbalance the returns; and, though it has rendered a little more than the holy city of Jerusalem, I look on such distant conquests as more destructive than beneficial; and, whether we are martyrs or banditti, whether we fight for the holy sepulchre or for lacks of rupees, I detest invasions of quiet kingdoms, both for their sakes and for our own; and it is happy for the former, that the latter are never permanently benefited.

Though I have been drawn away from your letter by the subject of it and by political reflections, I must not forget to thank you for your solicitude and advice about my health but pray be assured that I am sufficiently attentive to it, and never stay long here in wet weather, which experience has told me is prejudicial. I am sorry for it, but I know London agrees with me better than the country. The latter suits my age and inclination; but my health is a more cogent reason, and governs me. I know my own constitution exactly, and have formed my way of life accordingly. weather, nothing gives me cold; because, for these nine and thirty years, I have hardened myself so, by braving all weathers and taking no precautions against cold, that the extremest and most sudden changes do not affect me in that respect. Yet damp, without giving me cold, affects my nerves; and, the moment I feel it, I go to town. I am certainly better since my last fit of gout than ever I was after one in short, perfectly

No

well; that is, well enough for my age. In one word, I am very weak, but have no complaint; and as my constitution, frame, and health require no exercise, nothing but fatigue affects me: and therefore you, and all who are so good as to interest themselves about me and give advice, must excuse me if I take none. I am preached to about taking no care against catching cold, and am told I shall one day or other be caught—possibly but I must die of something; and why should not what has done to sixty, be right? My regimen and practice have been formed on experience and success. Perhaps a practice that has suited the weakest of frames, would kill a Hercules. God forbid I should recommend it; for I never saw another human being that would not have died of my darings, especially in the gout. Yet I have always found benefit; because my nature is so feverish, that everything cold, inwardly or outwardly, suits me. Cold air and water are my specifics, and I shall die when I am not master enough of myself to employ them; or rather, as I said this winter, on comparing the iron texture of my inside with the debility of my outside, "I believe I shall have nothing but my inside left!" Therefore, my dear sir, my regard for you will last as long as there is an atom of me remaining.

VOL. III. NEW SERIES.

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LETTER CCLXVII.

Barton Mills, April 28, 1777. AFTER an interval of three years, in which my nephew remained as much in his senses as he was supposed to be before his declared phrenzy, he was seized a fortnight ago with a fever which soon brought out the colour of his blood. In two days he was furious. The low wretches by whom in his sensible hours he has always been surrounded, concealed the symptoms till they were terrifying. I received no notice till the sixth day, and then-by the stage-coach! I set out directly for the hovel where he is-a pasnidge-house, as the reverend proprietor* called it to me, on the edge of the fens, which my lord hires, and is his usual residence. The single chamber without a bed is a parlour seven feet high, directly under my lord's bedchamber, without shutters, and so smoky that there is no sitting in it unless the door is open. I am forced to lie here, five miles off, in an inn-a palace to his dwelling. The morning after my arrival, a physician I had sent for from Norwich, forty miles from hence, coming down to tell me how he had found my lord, we were alarmed with a scream and a bustle. The doctor had ordered the window to be opened to let out the smoke,

* One Ball, Minister of Eriswell, a jockey-parson. He having taken his doctor's degree in an interval of his correspondence with Mr. Walpole on Lord Orford's transactions about the parsonage-house, and Mr. Walpole directing his letter to him, ignorant of his titular advancement, "To Mr. Ball," the man in his answer was so absurd as to add a postscript in these words, "Dr. Ball, if you please, the next time you favour me."