* * * * *

I must tell you an ingenuity of Lord Raymond, an epitaph on the Indemnifying Bill—­I believe you would guess the author:—­

Interr’d beneath this marble stone doth lie
The Bill of Indemnity;
To show the good for which it was design’d,
It died itself to save mankind.

* * * * *

There has lately been published one of the most impudent things that ever was printed; it is called “The Irish Register,” and is a list of all the unmarried women of any fashion in England, ranked in order, duchesses-dowager, ladies, widows, misses, &c., with their names at length, for the benefit of Irish fortune-hunters, or as it is said, for the incorporating and manufacturing of British commodities.  Miss Edwards is the only one printed with a dash, because they have placed her among the widows.  I will send you this, “Miss Lucy in Town,” and the magazines, by the first opportunity, as I should the other things, but your brother tells me you have had them by another hand.  I received the cedrati, for which I have already thanked you:  but I have been so much thanked by several people to whom I gave some, that I can very well afford to thank you again....

P.S.—­I unseal my letter to tell you what a vast and, probably, final victory we have gained to-day.  They moved, that the Lords flinging out the Bill of Indemnity was an obstruction of justice, and might prove fatal to the liberties of this country.  We have sat till this moment, seven o’clock, and have rejected this motion by 245 to 193.  The call of the House, which they have kept off from fortnight to fortnight, to keep people in town, was appointed for to-day.  The moment the division was over, Sir John Cotton rose and said, “As I think the inquiry is at an end, you may do what you will with the call.”  We have put it off for two months.  There’s a noble postscript!

DEBATE ON DISBANDING THE HANOVERIAN TROOPS—­FIRST SPEECH OF MURRAY (AFTERWARDS EARL OF MANSFIELD)—­BON MOT OF LORD CHESTERFIELD.

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

ARLINGTON STREET, Dec. 9, 1742.

I shall have quite a partiality for the post of Holland; it brought me two letters last week, and two more yesterday, of November 20th and 27th; but I find you have your perpetual headaches—­how can you say that you shall tire me with talking of them? you may make me suffer by your pains, but I will hear and insist upon your always telling me of your health.  Do you think I only correspond with you to know the posture of the Spaniards or the epuisements of the Princess!  I am anxious, too, to know how poor Mr. Whithed does, and Mr. Chute’s gout.  I shall look upon our sea-captains with as much horror as the King of Naples can, if they bring gouts, fits, and headaches.

You will have had a letter from me by this time, to give up sending the Dominichin by a man-of-war, and to propose its coming in a Dutch ship.  I believe that will be safe.