The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume II Part 78

The campaign in Ireland, I hear, will be very warm; the Primate is again to be the object; Ponsonby, commander against him.

Lord George's situation will not help the Primate's. Adieu!

(1070) Now first printed.

512 Letter 335 To George Montagu, Esq.

Strawberry Hill, Sat.u.r.day, October 11, 1759.

I don't desire any such conviction of your being ill as seeing you nor can you wonder that I wish to persuade myself that what I should be very sorry for, never happens. Poor Fred.

Montagu's gout seems more serious: I am concerned that he has so much of a judge in him already.

You are very good in thinking of me about the sofas; but you know the Holbein chamber is complete, and old matters arc not flung away upon you yourself Had not you rather have your sofa than Lord Northampton's running footman? Two hundred years hence one might be amused with reading of so fantastic a dress, but they are horrid in one's own time. Mr. Bentley and I go to-morrow to Chaffont for two or three days. Mr. Chute is at the Vine already, but, I believe, will be in town this week.

I don't know whether it proceeds from the menaced invasion or the last comet, but we are all dying of heat. Every body has put out their fires, and, if it lasts, I suppose will next week make summer clothes. The mornings are too hot for walking: last night I heard of strawberries. I impute it to the hot weather that my head has been turned enough to contend with the bards of the newspapers. You have seen the French epigram on Madame Pompadour, and fifty vile translations of it. Here IS Mine--

O yes! here are flat-bottom boats to be sold, And soldiers to let-rather hungry than bold: Here are ministers richly deserving to swing, And commanders whose recompense should be a string.

O France! still your fate you may lay at Pitt's door; You were saved by a Maid, and undone by a * * *

People again believe the invasion; and I don't wonder, considering how great a militia we have, with such a boy as you mention. I own, before I begin to be afraid, I have a little curiosity to see the militia tried. I think one shall at least laugh before one cries. Adieu! what time have you fixed for looking southwards?

P. S. Your pictures you may have when you please; I think you had better stay and take them with you, than risk the rubbing them by the wagon. Mr. M'untz has not been lately in town-- that is, Hannah has drawn no bill on him lately--so he knows nothing of your snuff-box. This it is to trust to my vivacity, when it is past Its bloom. Lord! I am a mere antiquarian, a mere painstaking mortal. Mr. Bentley says, that if all antiquarians were like me, there would be no such thing as an antiquarian, for I set down every thing, SO circ.u.mstantially that I leave them nothing to find out.

513 Letter 336 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.(1071) Strawberry Hill, October 14th, 1759.

If Strawberry Hill was not so barren of events as Chatham, I would have writ to you again; nay, if it did not produce the very same events. Your own Light Horse are here, and commit the only vivacities of the place--two or three of them are in the cage every day for some mischief or other. Indeed, they seem to have been taken from school too soon, and, as Rigby said of some others of these new troops, the moment their exercise is over, they all go a bird's-nesting. If the French load their flat-bottom boats with rods instead of muskets, I fear all our young heroes will run away. The invasion seems again come into fas.h.i.+on: I wish it would come, that one might hear no more of it--nay, I wish it for two or three reasons.

If they don't come, we shall still be fatigued with the militia, who will never go to plough again till they see an enemy: if there is a peace before the militia runs away, one shall be robbed every day by a const.i.tutional force. I want the French too, to have come, that you may be released; but that will not be soon enough for me, who am going to Park-place. I came from Chaffont to-day, and I cannot let the winter appear without making my Lady Ailesbury a visit.

Hitherto my impediments may have looked like excuses, though they were nothing less. Lady Lyttelton goes on Wednesday: I propose to follow her on Monday; but I won't announce myself, that I may not be disappointed, and be a little more welcome by the surprise; though I should be very ungrateful, if I affected to think that I wanted that.

I cannot say I have read the second letter on Lord George: but I have done what will satisfy the booksellers more; I have bought nine or ten pamphlets: my library shall be au fait about him, but I have an aversion to paper wars, and I must be a little more interested than I am about him, before I can attend to them: my head is to be filled with more sacred trash.

The Speaker was here t'other day, and told me of the intimacy between his son and you and the militia. He says the lawyers are examining whether Lord George can be tried or not. I am sorry Lord Stormont is marriediski;(1072) he will pa.s.s his life under the north pole, and whip over to Scotland by way of Greenland without coming to London.

I dined t'other day at Sion with the Holdernesses; Lady Mary c.o.ke was there, and in this great dearth of candidates she permits Haslang to die for her. They were talking in the bow-window, when a sudden alarm being given that dinner was on the table, he expressed great joy and appet.i.te. You can't imagine how she was offended. Adieu!

(1071) Now first printed.

(1072) Lord Stormont had recently married Henrietta Frederica, daughter of count Bunau, of Saxony.-E.

514 Letter 337 To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, Oct. 16, 1759.

I love to prepare your countenance for every event that may happen, for an amba.s.sador, who is nothing but an actor, should be that greatest of actors, a philosopher; and with the leave of wise men (that is, hypocrites), philosophy I hold to be little more than presence of mind now undoubtedly preparation is a prodigious help to presence of mind. In short, you must not be surprised that we have failed at Quebec, as we certainly shall. You may say, if you please, in the style of modern politics that your court never supposed it could be taken; the attempt was only made to draw off the Russians from the King of Prussia, and leave him at liberty to attack Daun. Two days ago came letters from Wolfe, despairing, as much as heroes can despair The town is well victualled, Amherst is not arrived, and fifteen thousand men encamped defend it. We have lost many men by the enemy, and some by our friends-that is, we now call our nine thousand only seven thousand. How this little army will get away from a much larger, and in this season in that country, I don't guess--yes, I do.

You may be making up a little philosophy too against the invasion, which is again come into fas.h.i.+on, and with a few trifling incidents in its favour, such as our fleet dispersed and driven from their coasts by a great storm. Before that, they were actually embarking, but with so ill a grace that an entire regiment mutinied, and they say is broke. We now expect them in Ireland, unless this dispersion of our fleet tempts them hither. If they do not come in a day or two, I shall give them over.

You will see in our gazettes that we make a great figure in the East Indies. In short, Mr. Pitt and this little island appear of some consequence even in the map of the world. He is a new sort of Fabius,

----Qui verbis rest.i.tuit rem.

Have you yet received the -watch? I see your poor Neapolitan Prince(1073) is at last set aside--I should honour Dr. Serrao's integrity, if I did not think it was more humane to subscribe to the poor boy's folly, than hazard his being poisoned by making it doubtful.

My charming niece is breeding--you see I did not make my lord Waldegrave an useless present. Adieu! my dear Sir.

(1073) The King's second son, Don Philip, set aside for being in a state of incurable idiotcy.-E.

514 Letter 338 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.

Strawberry Hill, Oct. 18, 1759.

I intended my visit to Park-place to show my lady Ailesbury that when I come hither it is not solely on your account, and yet I will not quarrel with my journey thither if I should find you there; but seriously I cannot help begging you to think whether you will go thither or not, just now. My first thought about you has ever been what was proper for you to do; and though you are the man in the world that think of that the most yourself, yet you know I have twenty scruples, which even you sometimes laugh at. I will tell them to You, and then you will judge, as you can best. Sir Edward Hawke and his fleet is dispersed, at least driven back to Plymouth: the French, if one may believe that they have broken a regiment for mutinying against embarking, were actually embarked at that instant. The most sensible people I know, always thought they would postpone their invasion, if ever they intended it, till our great s.h.i.+ps could not keep the sea, or were eaten up by the scurvy. Their ports are now free; their situation is desperate: the new account of our taking Quebec leaves them in the most deplorable condition; they will be less able than ever to raise money, we have got ours for next year; and this event would facilitate it, if we had not: they must try for a peace, they have nothing to go to market with but Minorca. In short, if they cannot strike some desperate blow in this island or Ireland, they are undone: the loss of twenty thousand men to do us some mischief, would be cheap. I should even think Madame Pompadour in danger of being torn to pieces, if they did not make some attempt.

Madame Maintenon, not half so unpopular, mentions in one of her letters her unwillingness to trust her niece Mademoiselle Aumale on the road, for fear of some such accident. You will smile perhaps at all this reasoning and pedantry; but it tends to this--if desperation should send the French somewhere, and the wind should force them to your coast, which I do not suppose their object, and you should be out of the way, you know what your enemies would say; and strange as it is, even you have been proved to have enemies.

My dear Sir, think of this! Wolfe, as I am convinced, has fallen a sacrifice to his rash blame of you. If I understand any thing in the world, his letter that came on Sunday said this: "Qu'ebec is impregnable; it is flinging away the lives of brave men to attempt it. I am in the situation of Conway at Rochefort; but having blamed him, I must do what I now see he was in the right to see was wrong and yet what he would have done; and as I am commander-, which he was not, I have the melancholy power of doing what he was prevented doing."(1074) Poor man! his life has paid the price of his injustice; and as his death has purchased such benefit to his country, I lament him, as I am sure you, who have twenty times more courage and good-nature than I have, do too. In short, I, who never did any thing right or prudent myself, (not, I am afraid, for want of knowing what was so,) am content with your being perfect, and with suggesting any thing to you that may tend to keep you so;--and (what is not much to the present purpose) if such a pen as mine can effect it, the world hereafter shall know that you was so. In short, I have pulled down my Lord Falkland, and desire you will take care that I may speak the truth when I erect you in his place; for remember, I love truth even better than I love you. I always confess my own faults, and I will not palliate yours. But, laughing apart, if you think there is no weight in what I say, I shall gladly meet you at Park-place, whither I shall go on Monday, and stay as long as I can, unless I hear from you to the contrary. If you should think I have hinted any thing to you of consequence, would not it be handsome, if, after receiving leave you should write to my Lord Llegonier, that though you had been at home but one week in the whole summer, yet there might be occasion for your presence in the camp, you should decline the permission he had given you?- -See what it is to have a wise relation, who preaches a thousand fine things to you which he would be the last man in the world to practise himself. Adieu!

(1074) General Wolfe's letter, written four days before his death, which will be found in the Chatham Correspondence, does not contain a single sentence which can be tortured into the construction here given to it. "The extreme heat of the weather in August," he says, "and a good deal of fatigue, threw me into a fever; but that the business might go on, I begged the generals to consider amongst themselves what was fittest to be done. Their sentiments were unanimous, that (as the easterly winds begin to blow, and s.h.i.+ps can pa.s.s the town in the night with provisions, Artillery, etc.) we "should endeavour, by conveying a considerable corps into the upper river, to draw them from their inaccessible situation and bring them to an action. I agreed to the proposal; and we are now here, with about three thousand six Hundred men, waiting an opportunity to attack them, when and wherever they can best be got at. The weather has been extremely unfavourable for a day or two, so that we have been inactive. I am so far recovered as to do business; but my const.i.tution is entirely ruined, without the consolation of having done any considerable service to the state, or without any prospect of it." Walpole, however, in his animated description of the capture of Quebec, in his Memoires, does ample justice to the character of Wolfe. "His fall," he says, "was n.o.ble indeed. He received a wound in the head, but covered it from his soldiers with his handkerchief.

A second ball struck him in the belly: that too he dissembled.

A third hitting him on the breast, he sunk under the anguish, and was carried behind the ranks. Yet, fast as life ebbed out, his whole anxiety centred on the fortune of the day. He begged to be borne nearer to the action; but his sight being dimmed by the approach of death, he entreated to know what they who supported him saw; he was answered, that the enemy gave ground; he eagerly repeated the question; heard the enemy was totally routed; cried, 'I am satisfied!' and expired."-E.

516 Letter 339 To Sir Horace Mann.

Strawberry Hill, Oct. 19, 1759.

I had no occasion to be in such a hurry to prepare your amba.s.sadorial countenance; if I had stayed but one day more, I might have left its muscles to behave as they pleased. The notification of a probable disappointment at Quebec came only to heighten the pleasure of the conquest. You may now give yourself what airs you please, you are master of East and West Indies. An amba.s.sador is the only man in the world whom bullying becomes: I beg your pardon, but you are spies, if you are not bragadochios. All precedents are on your side: Persians, Greeks, Romans, always insulted their neighbours when they conquered Quebec. Think how pert the French would have been on such an occasion, and remember that they are Austrians to whom you are to be saucy. You see, I write as if my name was Belleisle and yours Contades.

It was a very singular affair, the generals on both sides slain, and on both sides the second in command wounded; in short, very near what battles should be, in which only the princ.i.p.als ought to suffer. If their army has not ammunition and spirit enough to fall again upon ours before Amherst comes up, all North America is ours!

Poetic justice could not have been executed with more rigour than it has been on the perjury, treachery, and usurpations of the French. I hope Mr.-Pitt will not leave them at the next treaty an opportunity of committing so many national crimes again. How they or we can make a peace, I don't see; can we give all back, or they give all up? No, they must come hither; they have nothing left for @it but to conquer us.

Don't think it is from forgetting to tell you particulars, that I tell you none; I am here, and don't know one but what you will see in the Gazette, and by which it appears that the victory was owing to the impracticability, as the French thought, and to desperate resolution on our side. What a scene! an army in the night dragging itself up a precipice by stumps of trees to a.s.sault a town and attack an army strongly entrenched and double in numbers!

Adieu ! I think I shall not write to you again this twelvemonth; for, like Alexander, we have no more worlds left to conquer.

P. S. Monsieur Thurot is said to be sailed with his tiny squadron --but can the lords of America be afraid of half a dozen canoes ? Mr. Chute is sitting by me, and says, n.o.body is more obliged to Mr. Pitt than you are: he has raised you from a very comfortable situation to hold your head above the Capitol.

517 Letter 340 To George Montagu, Esq.

Strawberry Hill, Oct. 21, 1759.

Your pictures shall be sent as soon as any of us go to London, but I think that will not be till the Parliament meets. Can we easily leave the remains of such a year as this? It is still all gold. I have not dined or gone to bed by a fire till the day before yesterday. Instead of the glorious and ever-memorable year 1759, as the newspapers call it, I call it this ever-warm and victorious year. We have not had more conquest than fine weather: one would think we had plundered East and West Indies of suns.h.i.+ne. Our bells are worn threadbare with ringing for victories. I believe it will require ten votes of the House of Commons before the people will believe it is the Duke of Newcastle that has done this, and not Mr. Pitt. One thing is very fatiguing--all the world is made knights or generals. Adieu I don't know a word of news less than the conquest of America. Adieu! yours ever.

P ' S. You shall hear from me again if we take Mexico or China before Christmas.

P. S. I had sealed my letter, but break it open again, having forgot to tell you that Mr. Cowslade has the pictures of Lord and Lady Cutts, and is willing to sell them.