three, or four, or five years we have dined on meals to come, and had little to pick but the bones of provisions we have lost. As I have nothing new to communicate or announce in the political line, I am glad to quit so disagreeable a theme.

I cannot controul your ingenious plea against the ex-post-facto law that I should wish to establish, on the occasion of a second present that you are sending me- -or rather a thousandth present; but I do earnestly beg it may be the last. Mr. Morrice is confined at Paris by the gout, or at least was when I heard of him; so, I cannot particularize my thanks yet: though, the more I like what he brings me, the less I shall be able to refrain from scolding you. You deserve that I should serve you as Mrs. Bracegirdle, the vestal actress, treated the old Lord Burlington, with whom he was in love in vain. One day he sent her a present of some fine old china. She told the servant he had made a mistake; that it was true the letter was for her, but the china for his lady, to whom he must carry it. Lord! the Countess was so full of gratitude when her husband came home to dinner! Observe, after the ex-post-facto crystal, the next munificence goes to Linton à la Bracegirdle; and I do not think I am very modest to begin only then.

I must notify the rupture of our great match, which I announced in my last. Lord Egremont, who proves a most worthless young fellow, and is as weak and irresolute, has behaved with so much neglect and want of attention, that Lady Maria heroically took the reso

lution of writing to the Duchess, who was in the country, to desire her leave to break off the match. The Duchess, who had disliked the conduct of her future son-in-law, but could not refuse her consent to so advantageous a match, gladly assented; but the foolish boy, by new indiscretion, has drawn universal odium on himself. He instantly published the rupture, but said nothing of Lady Maria's having been the first to declare off; and thus everybody thinks he broke off the match, and condemns him ten times more than would have been the case if he had told the truth, though he was guilty enough in giving the provocation. We are all charmed with the sense and spirit of my niece, who would not risk so probable a chance of unhappiness, though the fortune was so great, and she could not dislike his person. Still these three charming girls inherit more of their mother's beauty than of her fortune. Each has missed one of the first matches in this country; Lady Laura Lord Carmarthen,* Lady Maria Lord Egremont, Lady Horatia the Duke of Ancaster, after each had proposed and been accepted! The fate of young women of quality is hard in other countries they are shut up till their parents have bargained for, without consulting, them; here they are exposed to the addresses

* Son of the Duke of Leeds. The marriage was broken off, the Duke not being able to make an adequate provision; Lord Carmarthen having children by his first wife, on whom the whole estate was settled. The Duke of Ancaster died just as the marriage was determined upon. Lady Laura was afterwards married to her first cousin, Lord Chewton, son of the Earl of Waldegrave.

of every coxcomb that has a title or an estate to warrant his impertinence.

The trial of Lord George Gordon is put off till November-I do not know why. Dissatisfaction grows again on the continuance of the camps, and on the numbers of boys that have been executed for the riots; for the bulk of the criminals are so young, that half a dozen schoolmasters might have quashed the insurrection.* There does not appear to have been the least connection or concert between the several mobs; nor any motive in them but a sudden impulse of mischief, actuated by the contagion of example and encouraged by the inactivity of all gradations of Government. The Ministers did nothing to prevent or stop the tumult; the justices of peace shrunk; the courts of justice thought of shutting up shops; the House of Lords adjourned, and so did the House of Commons, even after the

* Of the one hundred and thirty-five individuals tried for riots, fiftynine were convicted. With a view to the extension of the royal mercy to the chief part of the unhappy rioters, Mr. Burke drew up "Some Thoughts on the approaching Executions," and exerted his influence in pressing letters to the Lord Chancellor, the President of the Council, and the Secretary of the Treasury, to submit his opinions to the King and to Lord North. "Every circumstance of mercy and of comparative justice does," he says, " in my opinion, plead in favour of such low, untaught, or ill-taught wretches: but, above all, the policy of Government is deeply interested, that the punishments should appear one solemn and deliberate act, aimed, not at random and at particular offences, but done with a relation to the general spirit of the tumults; and they ought to be nothing more than what is sufficient to mark and discountenance that spirit." For the guilty instigators of the tumults Mr. Burke had no such consideration; for it is stated, that on seeing some of the leading Associators in the lobby of the House of Commons, he exclaimed loudly in their hearing, I am astonished that those men can have the audacity still to nose Parliament."-ED.

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worst was past. A capital blazing, and held in terror for a week by so contemptible a rabble, will not tell well in story! I pity our future historians, who will find plenty of victories in our gazettes, and scarce anywhere else! Adieu !

LETTER CCCXXXIV.

Strawberry Hill, Aug. 24, 1780.

I HAVE waited for news, till I can send you none but bad. The Russian fleet is stalking in our channel, and our own East and West India outward-bound fleets are gobbled up by the Spanish squadron off Cape Finisterre. This is the heaviest commercial blow we have yet received at once.* It is an age since we have heard from America. We attributed the silence to an obstinate east-wind that blew for nine-and-twenty days. There have been parentheses of West since, and we expect news every moment, and with anxiety. Thus you see I do not resign my post of your gazetteer, though it is but an irksome office when it is to record our wane. The re-conquest of America, I believe, is less near than you foreigners conjecture, and than has been so confidently foretold at home. All I know is, that we have been gaming for what was our own. we leave off play, we shall see whether we have won or

When

* On the 9th of August, a rich and considerable convoy for the East and West Indies, under the conduct of Captain Moutray of the Ramilies, and two or three frigates, which had sailed from Portsmouth, were intercepted by the combined fleets, under Don Louis de Cordova. The Ramilies and the frigates had the fortune to escape.-Ed.

VOL. III.-NEW SERIES.

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lost; nay, should we recover our stake, we must compute what it has cost. The card-money has not been cheap.

The Countess Cowper,* mother-in-law of your pinchbeck Prince, is dead of a cancer. Her own son, Lord Spencer, is in a bad state of health. Each gets a jointure by her death.

Mr. Windham, I hear, is at Brussels on his return. I am peevish with him for having looked on you through our ill-humoured foggy eyes. I have almost always been out of luck in my recommendations; but I assure you I do you ample justice, and have always been completely convinced that they have been in fault. Your temper and flowing benevolence for forty years have been always uniform; and it is least of all likely that you should grow sour only to those I interfere for. I know you and my countrymen better. The latter have retained few of their virtues, but I do not find that they have exchanged them for urbanity. Mr. Windham, I believe, is a worthy man, but I wish he had been less morose.

P.S. I have heard this evening, that an account is arrived of Walsingham having joined Rodney,+ and

* Giorgina, daughter of John Carteret, Earl of Granville, first married to John Spencer, only brother of Charles Duke of Marlborough; and secondly to the second Earl Cowper, to whom she was second wife.

Even when joined by Commodore Walsingham's squadron, Rodney still found his force so inferior to that of the enemy, that he could only act on the defensive, and was consequently unable to seek an engagement. Owing to the pestilential disorder among the Spanish forces, and the dissension in the combined fleet, nothing material was attempted before the belligerent powers found themselves obliged to quit the Indian