LETTER CCVI

Blackheath, September 17, 1757

My dear friend:  Lord Holderness has been so kind as to communicate to me all the letters which he has received from you hitherto, dated the 15th, 19th, 23d, and 26th August; and also a draught of that which he wrote to you the 9th instant.  I am very well pleased with all your letters; and, what is better, I can tell you that the King is so too; and he said, but three days ago, to Monsieur Munchausen, he (meaning you) sets out very well, and I like his letters; provided that, like most of my English ministers abroad, he does not grow idle hereafter.  So that here is both praise to flatter, and a hint to warn you.  What Lord Holderness recommends to you, being by the King’s order, intimates also a degree of approbation; for the Blacker ink, and the Larger character, show, that his Majesty, whose eyes are grown weaker, intends to read all your letters himself.  Therefore, pray do not neglect to get the blackest ink you can; and to make your secretary enlarge his hand, though ‘d’ailleurs’ it is a very good one.

Had I been to wish an advantageous situation for you, and a good debut in it, I could not have wished you either better than both have hitherto proved.  The rest will depend entirely upon yourself; and I own I begin to have much better hopes than I had; for I know, by my own experience, that the more one works, the more willing one is to work.  We are all, more or less, ‘des animaux d’habitude’.  I remember very well, that when I was in business, I wrote four or five hours together every day, more willingly than I should now half an hour; and this is most certain, that when a man has applied himself to business half the day, the other half, goes off the more cheerfully and agreeably.  This I found so sensibly, when I was at The Hague, that I never tasted company so well nor was so good company myself, as at the suppers of my post days.  I take Hamburg now to be ’le centre du refuge Allemand’.  If you have any Hanover ‘refugies’ among them, pray take care to be particularly attentive to them.  How do you like your house?  Is it a convenient one?  Have the ‘Casserolles’ been employed in it yet?  You will find ‘les petits soupers fins’ less expensive, and turn to better account, than large dinners for great companies.

I hope you have written to the Duke of Newcastle; I take it for granted that you have to all your brother ministers of the northern department.  For God’s sake be diligent, alert, active, and indefatigable in your business.  You want nothing but labor and industry to be, one day, whatever you please, in your own way.