The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume I Part 90

(1411) Henry fourth son of the Earl of Dartmouth, was made secretary of the treasury by Sir Robert Walpole; and was afterwards surveyor of the roads, a lord of the admiralty, a lord of the treasury, treasurer of the navy, and chancellor of the exchequer. He had been bred to the sea, and was for a little time minister at Berlin. The Duke of Newcastle, in a letter to Mr. Pitt, of the 18th of January, says, " I have thought of a person, to whom the King has this day readily agreed. It is Mr. Harry Legge. There, is capacity, integrity, quality, rank and address." See Chatham Correspondence, vol. i. p. 27.-E.

(1412) c.o.xe, in his Memoirs of lord Walpole, says, that Mr.

Legge, though a man of great talents for business, "was unfit for a foreign mission, and of a character ill suited to the temper of that powerful casuist, whose extraordinary dogmas were supported by 140,000 of the most effectual but convincing arguments in the world." Vol. ii. II. 304.-E.

(1413) Thomas Villiers, brother of the Earl of Jersey, had been minister It Dresden, and was afterwards a lord of the admiralty.

(1414) Anthony Chute, of the Vine, in Hamps.h.i.+re, elder brother of J. Chute; died in 1754.

(1415) John Pitt, one of the lords of trade.

1416) Henry Drax, the Prince's secretary. He died in 1755.

(1417) The publication was ent.i.tled " Letters to an Honest Sailor." Walpole's inference is not borne out by the letter itself. Pulteney's words; are, "Pursue your stroke, but venture not losing the honour of it by too much intrepidity. Should you make no more progress than you have done, no one could blame you but those persons only who ought to have sent some land- forces with you, and did not. To their slackness it will be very justly imputed by all mankind, should you make no further progress till Lord Cathcart joins you."-E.

(1418) A washerwoman at the Temple, executed for three murders. (She was executed in March 1733, opposite Mitre Court, in Fleet Street. A portrait of her is given in the Gentleman's Magazine for that year. So great was the public expectation for her confession, that the ma.n.u.script of it was sold for twenty pounds.-E.)

(1419) The coffee-house at Florence.

544 Letter 248 To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, Feb. 16, 1748.

I am going to tell you nothing but what Mr. Chute has told you already,-that my Lord Chesterfield has resigned the seals, that the Duke of Newcastle has change] his province, and that the Duke of Bedford is the new secretary of state. I think you need be under no apprehension from this change; I should be frightened enough if you had the least reason, but I am quite at ease. Lord Chesterfield, who I believe had no quarrel but with his partner, is gone to Bath; and his youngest brother, John Stanhope,(1420) comes into the admiralty, where Sandwich is now first lord. There seems to be some hitch in Legge's emba.s.sy; I believe we were overhasty.

Proposals of peace were expected to be laid before Parliament, but that talk is vanished. The Duke of Newcastle, who is going greater lengths in every thing for which he overturned Lord Granville, is all military; and makes more courts than one by this disposition. The Duke goes to Holland this week, and I hear we are going to raise another million. There are prodigious discontents in the army: the town got a list of a hundred and fifty officers who desired at once to resign, but I believe this was exaggerated. We are great and very exact disciplinarians; our partialities are very strong, especially on the side of aversions, and none of these articles tally exactly with English tempers. Lord Robert Bertie(1421) received a reprimand the other day by an aide-de-camp for blowing his nose as he relieved the guard under a window;(1422) where very exact notice is constantly taken of very small circ.u.mstances.

We divert ourselves extremely this winter; plays, b.a.l.l.s, masquerades, and pharaoh are all in fas.h.i.+on. The d.u.c.h.ess of Bedford has given a great ball, to which the King came with thirty masks. The d.u.c.h.ess of Queensberry is to give him a masquerade. Operas are the only consumptive entertainment.

There was a new comedy last Sat.u.r.day, which succeeds, called The Foundling. I like the old Conscious lovers better, and that not much. The story is the same, only that the Bevil of the new piece is in more hurry, and consequently more natural.

It Is extremely well acted by Garrick and Barry, Mrs. Cibber and Mrs. Woffington. My sister was brought to bed last night of another boy. Sir C. Williams, I hear, grows more likely to go to Turin: you will have a more agreeable correspondent than your present voluminous brother.(1423) Adieu!

(1420) John Stanhope, third son of Philip, third Earl of Chesterfield, successively M. P. for Nottingham and Dorhy. He died in 1748.-D.

(1421) Lord Robert Bertie was third son of Robert, first Duke of Ancaster, by his second wife. He became a general in the army and colonel of the second regiment of Guards, and was also a lord of the bedchamber and a member of parliament. He died in 1732.-D.

(1422) The Duke's.

(1423) Mr. Villettes.

545 Letter 249 To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, March 11, 1748.

I have had nothing lately to tell you but illnesses and distempers: there is what they call a miliary fever raging, which has taken off a great many people, It was scarce known till within these seven or eight years, but apparently increases every spring and autumn. They don't know how to treat it, but think that they have discovered that bleeding is bad for it. The young Duke of Bridgewater(1424) is dead of it. The Marquis of Powis(1425) is dead too, I don't know of what: but though a Roman Catholic, he has left his whole fortune to Lord herbert, the next male of his family, but a very distant relation. It is twelve thousand pounds a-year, with a very rich mine upon it; there is a debt, but the money and personal estate will pay it. After Lord Herbert(1426) and his brother, who are both unmarried, the estate is to go to the daughter of Lord Waldegrave's sister, by her first husband, who was the Marquis's brother.

In defiance of all these deaths, we are all diversions; Lady Keith(1427) and a company of Scotch n.o.bility have formed a theatre, and have acted The Revenge several times; I can't say excellently: the Prince and Princess were at it last night.

The d.u.c.h.ess of Queensberry gives a masquerade tonight, in hopes of drawing the King to it; but he will not go. I do; but must own it is wondrous foolish to dress one's self out in a becoming dress in cold blood. There has been a new comedy called The Foundling;(1428) far from good, but it took. Lord Hobart and some more young men made a party to d.a.m.n it, merely for the love of d.a.m.nation. The Templars espoused the play, and went around with syringes charged with stinking oil, and with sticking plaisters; but it did not come to action.

Garrick was impertinent, and the pretty men gave over their plot the moment they grew to be in the right.

I must now notify to you the approaching espousals of the most ill.u.s.trious Prince Pigwiggin with Lady Rachel Cavendish, third daughter of the Duke of Devons.h.i.+re: the victim does not dislike it! my uncle makes great settlements; and the Duke is to get a peerage for Pigwiggin upon the foot that the father cannot be spared out of the House of Commons! Can you bear this old buffoon making himself of consequence, and imitating my father!

The Princess of Orange has got a son, and we have taken a convoy that was going to Bergen-op-zoom; two trifling occurrences that are most pompously exaggerated, when The whole of both is, that the Dutch, who before sold themselves to France, will now grow excellent patriots when they have a master entailed upon them; and we shall run ourselves more into danger, on having got all advantage which the French don't feel.

Violent animosities are sprung up in the House of Commons upon a sort of private affair between the Chief Justice Willes and the Grenvilles, who have engaged the ministry in an extraordinary step, of fixing the a.s.sizes at Buckingham by act of parliament in their favour. We have had three long days upon it in our House, and it is not yet over; but though they will carry it both there and in the lords, it is by a far smaller majority than any they have had in this Parliament.(1429) The other day, Dr. Lee and Mr. Potter had made two very strong speeches @-against Mr. Pelham on this subject; he rose with the greatest emotion, fell into the most ridiculous pa.s.sion, was near crying, and not knowing how to return it on the two fell upon the Chief Justice (who was not present), and accused him of ingrat.i.tude. The eldest Willes got up extremely moved, but with great propriety and cleverness told Mr. Pelham that his father had no obligation to any man now in the ministry; that he had been obliged to one of' the greatest Ministers that ever was, who is now no more; that the person who accused his father of ingrat.i.tude was now leagued with the very men who had ruined that minister, to whom he (Mr. Pelham) owed his advancement, and without whom he would have been nothing!" This was dangers!-not a word of reply.

I had begun my letter before the masquerade, but had not time to finish it: there Were not above one hundred persons; the dresses pretty; the d.u.c.h.ess as mad as you remember her. She had stuck up orders about dancing, as you see in public bowling-greens; turned half the company out at twelve; kept those she liked to supper; and, in short, contrived to do an agreeable thing in the rudest manner imaginable; besides having dressed her husband in a Scotch plaid, which just now is One of the things in the world that is reckoned most offensive; but you know we are all mad, so good night!

(1424) John Egerton, second Duke of Bridgewater, eldest surviving son of Scroop, the first Duke, by his second wife, Lady Rachel Russell. He was succeeded by his younger brother Francis; upon whose death, in 1803, the dukedom of Bridgewater became extinct.-D.

(1425) William Herbert, second Marquis of Powis, upon whose death the t.i.tle became extinct. His father, William, the First Marquis, was created Duke of Powis and Marquis of Montgomery, by James the Second, after his abdication, which t.i.tles were in consequence never allowed.-]).

(1426) Henry Arthur Herbert, Lord Herbert, afterwards created Earl of Powis, married the young lady on whom the estate was entailed: his brother died unmarried.

(1427) Caroline, eldest daughter of John, Duke of Argyll, married the eldest son of the Duke of Buccleuch, who dying before his father, she afterwards married Charles Townshend, second son of the Lord Viscount Townshend. (She was created Baroness Greenwich in 1767.-D.

(1428) By Edward Moore. It met with tolerable success during its run, but on the first night of its appearance the character of Faddle gave considerable disgust, and was much curtailed in the ensuing representation.-E.

(1429) The bill pa.s.sed the Commons on the 15th of March, by 155 to 108. For the debate thereon, see Parliamentary History, vol. xiv. p. 206.-E.

547 Letter 250 To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, April 29, 1748.

I know I have not writ to you the Lord knows when, but I waited for something to tell you, and I have now what there was not much reason to expect. The preliminaries to the peace are actually signed"(1430) by the English, Dutch, and French: the Queen,(1431) who would remain the only sufferer, though vastly less than she could expect, protests against this treaty, and the Sardinian minister has refused to sign too, till further orders. Spain is not mentioned, but France answers for them, and that they shall give us a new a.s.siento.

The armistice is for six weeks, with an exception to Maestricht; upon which the Duke sent Lord George Sackville to Marshal Saxe to tell him that, as they are so near being friends, he shall not endeavour to raise the siege and spill more blood, but hopes the marshal will give the garrison good terms, as they have behaved so bravely. The conditions settled are a general rest.i.tution on all sides, as Modena to its Duke, Flanders to the Queen, the Dutch towns to the Dutch, Cape Breton to France, and Final to the Genoese; but the Sardinian to have the cessions made to him by the Queen, who, you see, is to be made observe the treaty of Worms, though we do not. Parma and Placentia are to be given to Don Philip; Dunkirk to remain as it is, on the land-side; but to be Utrecht'd(1432) again to the sea. The Pretender to be renounced, with all his descendants, male and female, even in stronger terms than by the quadruple alliance; and the cessation of arms to take place in all other parts of the world, as in the year 1712. The contracting powers agree to think of means of making the other powers come into this treaty, in case they refuse.

This is the substance; and wonderful it is what can make the French give us such terms, or why they have lost so much blood and treasure to so little purpose! for they have destroyed very little of the fortifications in Flanders. Monsieur de St. Severin told Lord Sandwich, that he had full powers to sign now, but that the same courier that should carry our refusal, was to call at Namur and Bergen-op-zoom, where are mines under all the works, which were immediately to be blown up. There is no accounting for this, but from the King'S aversion to go to the army, and to Marshal Saxe's fear of losing his power with the loss of a battle. He told Count Flemming, the Saxon minister, who asked him if the French were in earnest in their offer of peace, "Il est vrai, nous demandons la paix comme des l'aches, et ne pouvons pas l'obtenir."

Stocks rise; the ministry are in spirits, and ;e s'en faut but we shall admire this peace as our own doing! I believe two reasons that greatly advanced it are, the King's wanting to go to Hanover, and the Duke's wanting to go into a salivation.

We had last night the most magnificent masquerade that ever was seen: it was by Subscription at the Haymarket: every body who subscribed five guineas had four tickets. There were about seven hundred people, all in chosen and very fine dresses. The supper was in two rooms, besides those for the King and Prince, who, with the foreign ministers, had tickets given them.

You don't tell me whether the seal of which you sent me the impression, is to be sold: I think it fine, but not equal to the price which you say was paid for it. What is it? Homer or Pindar?

I am very miserable at the little prospect you have of success in your own affair: I think the person(1433) you employed has used you scandalously. I would have you write to my uncle; but my applying to him would be far from doing you service. Poor Mr. Chute has got so bad a cold that he could not go last night to the masquerade. Adieu! my dear child! there is nothing -well that I don't wish you, but my wishes are very ineffectual!

(1430) The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle.-D.

(1431) Of Hungary.-D.

(1432) That is, the works destroyed, as they were after the treaty of Utrecht.-D.

(1433) Mr. Stone, the Duke of Newcastle's private secretary.-E.

549 Letter 251 To George Montagu, Esq.

May 18, 1748.