<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0205" id="link2H_4_0205"></SPAN></p>
<h2> 1756-1758 </h2>
<p>LETTER CCIII</p>
<p>BATH, November 15, 1756</p>
<p>MY DEAR FRIEND: I received yours yesterday morning together with the
Prussian, papers, which I have read with great attention. If courts could
blush, those of Vienna and Dresden ought, to have their falsehoods so
publicly, and so undeniably exposed. The former will, I presume, next
year, employ an hundred thousand men, to answer the accusation; and if the
Empress of the two Russias is pleased to argue in the same cogent manner,
their logic will be too strong for all the King of Prussia's rhetoric. I
well remember the treaty so often referred to in those pieces, between the
two Empresses, in 1746. The King was strongly pressed by the Empress Queen
to accede to it. Wassenaer communicated it to me for that purpose. I asked
him if there were no secret articles; suspecting that there were some,
because the ostensible treaty was a mere harmless, defensive one. He
assured me that there were none. Upon which I told him, that as the King
had already defensive alliances with those two Empresses, I did not see of
what use his accession to this treaty, if merely a defensive one, could
be, either to himself or the other contracting parties; but that, however,
if it was only desired as an indication of the King's good will, I would
give him an act by which his Majesty should accede to that treaty, as far,
but no further, as at present he stood engaged to the respective Empresses
by the defensive alliances subsisting with each. This offer by no means
satisfied him; which was a plain proof of the secret articles now brought
to light, and into which the court of Vienna hoped to draw us. I told
Wassenaer so, and after that I heard no more of his invitation.</p>
<p>I am still bewildered in the changes at Court, of which I find that all
the particulars are not yet fixed. Who would have thought, a year ago,
that Mr. Fox, the Chancellor, and the Duke of Newcastle, should all three
have quitted together? Nor can I yet account for it; explain it to me if
you can. I cannot see, neither, what the Duke of Devonshire and Fox, whom
I looked upon as intimately united, can have quarreled about, with
relation to the Treasury; inform me, if you know. I never doubted of the
prudent versatility of your Vicar of Bray: But I am surprised at O'Brien
Windham's going out of the Treasury, where I should have thought that the
interest of his brother-in-law, George Grenville, would have kept him.</p>
<p>Having found myself rather worse, these two or three last days, I was
obliged to take some ipecacuanha last night; and, what you will think odd,
for a vomit, I brought it all up again in about an hour, to my great
satisfaction and emolument, which is seldom the case in restitutions.</p>
<p>You did well to go to the Duke of Newcastle, who, I suppose, will have no
more levees; however, go from time to time, and leave your name at his
door, for you have obligations to him. Adieu.</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0206" id="link2H_4_0206"></SPAN></p>
<h2> LETTER CCIV </h2>
<h3> BATH, December 14, 1756. </h3>
<p>MY DEAR FRIEND: What can I say to you from this place, where EVERY DAY IS
STILL BUT AS THE FIRST, though by no means so agreeably passed, as Anthony
describes his to have been? The same nothings succeed one another every
day with me, as, regularly and uniformly as the hours of the day. You will
think this tiresome, and so it is; but how can I help it? Cut off from
society by my deafness, and dispirited by my ill health, where could I be
better? You will say, perhaps, where could you be worse? Only in prison,
or the galleys, I confess. However, I see a period to my stay here; and I
have fixed, in my own mind, a time for my return to London; not invited
there by either politics or pleasures, to both which I am equally a
stranger, but merely to be at home; which, after all, according to the
vulgar saying, is home, be it ever so homely.</p>
<p>The political settlement, as it is called, is, I find, by no means
settled; Mr. Fox, who took this place in his way to his brother's, where
he intended to pass a month, was stopped short by an express, which he
received from his connection, to come to town immediately; and accordingly
he set out from hence very early, two days ago. I had a very long
conversation with him, in which he was, seemingly at least, very frank and
communicative; but still I own myself in the dark. In those matters, as in
most others, half knowledge (and mine is at most that) is more apt to lead
one into error, than to carry one to truth; and our own vanity contributes
to the seduction. Our conjectures pass upon us for truths; we will know
what we do not know, and often, what we cannot know: so mortifying to our
pride is the bare suspicion of ignorance!</p>
<p>It has been reported here that the Empress of Russia is dying; this would
be a fortunate event indeed for the King of Prussia, and necessarily
produce the neutrality and inaction, at least, of that great power; which
would be a heavy weight taken out of the opposite scale to the King of
Prussia. The 'Augustissima' must, in that case, do all herself; for though
France will, no doubt, promise largely, it will, I believe, perform but
scantily; as it desires no better than that the different powers of
Germany should tear one another to pieces.</p>
<p>I hope you frequent all the courts: a man should make his face familiar
there. Long habit produces favor insensibly; and acquaintance often does
more than friendship, in that climate where 'les beaux sentimens' are not
the natural growth.</p>
<p>Adieu! I am going to the ball, to save my eyes from reading, and my mind
from thinking.</p>
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