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<h2> LETTER XLVII </h2>
<h3> LONDON, August 23, O. S. 1748. </h3>
<p>DEAR BOY: Your friend, Mr. Eliot, has dined with me twice since I returned
here, and I can say with truth that while I had the seals, I never
examined or sifted a state prisoner with so much care and curiosity as I
did him. Nay, I did more; for, contrary to the laws of this country, I
gave him in some manner, the QUESTION ordinary and extraordinary; and I
have infinite pleasure in telling you that the rack which I put him to,
did not extort from him one single word that was not such as I wished to
hear of you. I heartily congratulate you upon such an advantageous
testimony, from so creditable a witness. 'Laudati a laudato viro', is one
of the greatest pleasures and honors a rational being can have; may you
long continue to deserve it! Your aversion to drinking and your dislike to
gaming, which Mr. Eliot assures me are both very strong, give me, the
greatest joy imaginable, for your sake: as the former would ruin both your
constitution and understanding, and the latter your fortune and character.
Mr. Harte wrote me word some time ago, and Mr. Eliot confirms it now, that
you employ your pin money in a very different manner, from that in which
pin money is commonly lavished: not in gew-gaws and baubles, but in buying
good and useful books. This is an excellent symptom, and gives me very
good hopes. Go on thus, my dear boy, but for these next two years, and I
ask no more. You must then make such a figure and such a fortune in the
world as I wish you, and as I have taken all these pains to enable you to
do. After that time I allow you to be as idle as ever you please; because
I am sure that you will not then please to be so at all. The ignorant and
the weak are only idle; but those who have once acquired a good stock of
knowledge, always desire to increase it. Knowledge is like power in this
respect, that those who have the most, are most desirous of having more.
It does not clog, by possession, but increases desire; which is the case
of very few pleasures.</p>
<p>Upon receiving this congratulatory letter, and reading your own praises, I
am sure that it must naturally occur to you, how great a share of them you
owe to Mr. Harte's care and attention; and, consequently, that your regard
and affection for him must increase, if there be room for it, in
proportion as you reap, which you do daily, the fruits of his labors.</p>
<p>I must not, however, conceal from you that there was one article in which
your own witness, Mr. Eliot, faltered; for, upon my questioning him home
as to your manner of speaking, he could not say that your utterance was
either distinct or graceful. I have already said so much to you upon this
point that I can add nothing. I will therefore only repeat this truth,
which is, that if you will not speak distinctly and graceful, nobody will
desire to hear you. I am glad to learn that Abbe Mably's 'Droit Public de
l'Europe' makes a part of your evening amusements. It is a very useful
book, and gives a clear deduction of the affairs of Europe, from the
treaty of Munster to this time. Pray read it with attention, and with the
proper maps; always recurring to them for the several countries or towns
yielded, taken, or restored. Pyre Bougeant's third volume will give you
the best idea of the treaty of Munster, and open to you the several views
of the belligerent' and contracting parties, and there never were greater
than at that time. The House of Austria, in the war immediately preceding
that treaty, intended to make itself absolute in the empire, and to
overthrow the rights of the respective states of it. The view of France
was to weaken and dismember the House of Austria to such a degree, as that
it should no longer be a counterbalance to that of Bourbon. Sweden wanted
possessions on the continent of Germany, not only to supply the
necessities of its own poor and barren country, but likewise to hold the
balance in the empire between the House of Austria and the States. The
House of Brandenburg wanted to aggrandize itself by pilfering in the fire;
changed sides occasionally, and made a good bargain at last; for I think
it got, at the peace, nine or ten bishoprics secularized. So that we may
date, from the treaty of Munster, the decline of the House of Austria, the
great power of the House of Bourbon, and the aggrandizement of that of
Bradenburg: which, I am much mistaken, if it stops where it is now.</p>
<p>Make my compliments to Lord Pulteney, to whom I would have you be not only
attentive, but useful, by setting him (in case he wants it) a good example
of application and temperance. I begin to believe that, as I shall be
proud of you, others will be proud too of imitating you: Those
expectations of mine seem now so well grounded, that my disappointment,
and consequently my anger, will be so much the greater if they fail; but
as things stand now, I am most affectionately and tenderly, Yours.</p>
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<h2> LETTER XLVIII </h2>
<h3> LONDON, August 30, O. S. 1748 </h3>
<p>DEAR BOY: Your reflections upon the conduct of France, from the treaty of
Munster to this time, are very just; and I am very glad to find, by them,
that you not only read, but that you think and reflect upon what you read.
Many great readers load their memories, without exercising their
judgments; and make lumber-rooms of their heads instead of furnishing them
usefully; facts are heaped upon facts without order or distinction, and
may justly be said to compose that</p>
<p>'——-Rudis indigestaque moles<br/>
Quem dixere chaos'.<br/></p>
<p>Go on, then, in the way of reading that you are in; take nothing for
granted, upon the bare authority of the author; but weigh and consider, in
your own mind, the probability of the facts and the justness of the
reflections. Consult different authors upon the same facts, and form your
opinion upon the greater or lesser degree of probability arising from the
whole, which, in my mind, is the utmost stretch of historical faith;
certainty (I fear) not being to be found. When a historian pretends to
give you the causes and motives of events, compare those causes and
motives with the characters and interests of the parties concerned, and
judge for yourself whether they correspond or not. Consider whether you
cannot assign others more probable; and in that examination, do not
despise some very mean and trifling causes of the actions of great men;
for so various and inconsistent is human nature, so strong and changeable
are our passions, so fluctuating are our wills, and so much are our minds
influenced by the accidents of our bodies that every man is more the man
of the day, than a regular consequential character. The best have
something bad, and something little; the worst have something good, and
sometimes something great; for I do not believe what Velleius Paterculus
(for the sake of saying a pretty thing) says of Scipio, 'Qui nihil non
laudandum aut fecit, aut dixit, aut sensit'. As for the reflections of
historians, with which they think it necessary to interlard their
histories, or at least to conclude their chapters (and which, in the
French histories, are always introduced with a 'tant il est vrai', and in
the English, SO TRUE IT IS), do not adopt them implicitly upon the credit
of the author, but analyze them yourself, and judge whether they are true
or not.</p>
<p>But to return to the politics of France, from which I have digressed. You
have certainly made one further reflection, of an advantage which France
has, over and above its abilities in the cabinet and the skill of its
negotiators, which is (if I may use the expression) its SOLENESS,
continuity of riches and power within itself, and the nature of its
government. Near twenty millions of people, and the ordinary revenue of
above thirteen millions sterling a year, are at the absolute disposal of
the Crown. This is what no other power in Europe can say; so that
different powers must now unite to make a balance against France; which
union, though formed upon the principle of their common interest, can
never be so intimate as to compose a machine so compact and simple as that
of one great kingdom, directed by one will, and moved by one interest. The
Allied Powers (as we have constantly seen) have, besides the common and
declared object of their alliance, some separate and concealed view to
which they often sacrifice the general one; which makes them, either
directly or indirectly, pull different ways. Thus, the design upon Toulon
failed in the year 1706, only from the secret view of the House of Austria
upon Naples: which made the Court of Vienna, notwithstanding the
representations of the other allies to the contrary, send to Naples the
12,000 men that would have done the business at Toulon. In this last war
too, the same causes had the same effects: the Queen of Hungary in secret
thought of nothing but recovering of Silesia, and what she had lost in
Italy; and, therefore, never sent half that quota which she promised, and
we paid for, into Flanders; but left that country to the maritime powers
to defend as they could. The King of Sardinia's real object was Savona and
all the Riviera di Ponente; for which reason he concurred so lamely in the
invasion of Provence, where the Queen of Hungary, likewise, did not send
one-third of the force stipulated, engrossed as she was by her oblique
views upon the plunder of Genoa, and the recovery of Naples. Insomuch that
the expedition into Provence, which would have distressed France to the
greatest degree, and have caused a great detachment from their army in
Flanders, failed shamefully, for want of every one thing necessary for its
success. Suppose, therefore, any four or five powers who, all together,
shall be equal, or even a little superior, in riches and strength to that
one power against which they are united; the advantage will still be
greatly on the side of that single power, because it is but one. The power
and riches of Charles V. were, in themselves, certainly superior to those
of Frances I., and yet, upon the whole, he was not an overmatch for him.
Charles V.'s dominions, great as they were, were scattered and remote from
each other; their constitutions different; wherever he did not reside,
disturbances arose; whereas the compactness of France made up the
difference in the strength. This obvious reflection convinced me of the
absurdity of the treaty of Hanover, in 1725, between France and England,
to which the Dutch afterward acceded; for it was made upon the
apprehensions, either real or pretended, that the marriage of Don Carlos
with the eldest archduchess, now Queen of Hungary, was settled in the
treaty of Vienna, of the same year, between Spain and the late Emperor
Charles VI., which marriage, those consummate politicians said would
revive in Europe the exorbitant power of Charles V. I am sure, I heartily
wish it had; as, in that case, there had been, what there certainly is not
now, one power in Europe to counterbalance that of France; and then the
maritime powers would, in reality, have held the balance of Europe in
their hands. Even supposing that the Austrian power would then have been
an overmatch for that of France (which, by the way, is not clear), the
weight of the maritime powers, then thrown into the scale of France, would
infallibly have made the balance at least even. In which case too, the
moderate efforts of the maritime powers on the side of France would have
been sufficient; whereas now, they are obliged to exhaust and beggar
themselves; and that too ineffectually, in hopes to support the shattered;
beggared, and insufficient House of Austria.</p>
<p>This has been a long political dissertation; but I am informed that
political subjects are your favorite ones; which I am glad of, considering
your destination. You do well to get your materials all ready, before you
begin your work. As you buy and (I am told) read books of this kind, I
will point out two or three for your purchase and perusal; I am not sure
that I have not mentioned them before, but that is no matter, if you have
not got them. 'Memoires pour servir a l'Histoire du 17ieme Siecle', is a
most useful book for you to recur to for all the facts and chronology of
that country: it is in four volumes octavo, and very correct and exact. If
I do not mistake, I have formerly recommended to you, 'Les Memoires du
Cardinal de Retz'; however, if you have not yet read them, pray do, and
with the attention which they deserve. You will there find the best
account of a very interesting period of the minority of Lewis XIV. The
characters are drawn short, but in a strong and masterly manner; and the
political reflections are the only just and practical ones that I ever saw
in print: they are well worth your transcribing. 'Le Commerce des Anciens,
par Monsieur Huet. Eveque d'Avranche', in one little volume octavo, is
worth your perusal, as commerce is a very considerable part of political
knowledge. I need not, I am sure, suggest to you, when you read the course
of commerce, either of the ancients or of the moderns, to follow it upon
your map; for there is no other way of remembering geography correctly,
but by looking perpetually in the map for the places one reads of, even
though one knows before, pretty near, where they are.</p>
<p>Adieu! As all the accounts which I receive of you grow better and better,
so I grow more and more affectionately, Yours.</p>
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