You will be sorry for poor M’Kinsey and Lady Betty, who have lost their only child at Turin.  Adieu!

ADMIRAL BOSCAWEN’S VICTORY—­DEFEAT OF THE KING OF PRUSSIA—­LORD G. SACKVILLE.

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

ARLINGTON STREET, Sept. 13, 1759.

With your unathletic constitution I think you will have a greater weight of glory to represent than you can bear.  You will be as epuise as Princess Craon with all the triumphs over Niagara, Ticonderoga, Crown-point, and such a parcel of long names.  You will ruin yourself in French horns, to exceed those of Marshal Botta, who has certainly found out a pleasant way of announcing victories.  Besides, all the West Indies, which we have taken by a panic, there is Admiral Boscawen has demolished the Toulon squadron, and has made you Viceroy of the Mediterranean.  I really believe the French will come hither now, for they can be safe nowhere else.  If the King of Prussia should be totally undone in Germany,[1] we can afford to give him an appanage, as a younger son of England, of some hundred thousand miles on the Ohio.  Sure universal monarchy was never so put to shame as that of France!  What a figure do they make!  They seem to have no ministers, no generals, no soldiers!  If anything could be more ridiculous than their behaviour in the field, it would be in the cabinet!  Their invasion appears not to have been designed against us, but against their own people, who, they fear, will mutiny, and to quiet whom they disperse expresses, with accounts of the progress of their arms in England.  They actually have established posts, to whom people are directed to send their letters for their friends in England.  If, therefore, you hear that the French have established themselves at Exeter or at Norwich, don’t be alarmed, nor undeceive the poor women who are writing to their husbands for English baubles.

[Footnote 1:  Frederic the Great had sustained a severe defeat at Hochkirch in October, 1758, and a still more terrible one in August of this year from Marshals Laudon and Soltikof at Kunersdorf.  It seemed so irreparable that for a moment he even contemplated putting an end to his life; but he was saved from the worst consequences of the blow by jealousies which sprang up between the Austrian and Russian commanders, and preventing them from profiting by their victory as they might have done.]

We have lost another Princess, Lady Elizabeth.[1] She died of an inflammation in her bowels in two days.  Her figure was so very unfortunate, that it would have been difficult for her to be happy, but her parts and application were extraordinary.  I saw her act in “Cato” at eight years old, (when she could not stand alone, but was forced to lean against the side-scene,) better than any of her brothers and sisters.  She had been so unhealthy, that at that age she had not been taught to read, but had learned the part of Lucia by hearing the others study their parts.  She went to her father and mother, and begged she might act.  They put her off as gently as they could—­she desired leave to repeat her part, and when she did, it was with so much sense, that there was no denying her.