Jacobite, to complain of want of provisions; yet they do not venture to recall him!  Yesterday they had another baiting from Pitt, who is ravenous for the place of Secretary at War:  they would give it him; but as a preliminary, he insists on a declaration of our having nothing to do with the continent.  He mustered his forces, but did not notify his intention; only at two o’clock Lyttelton said at the Treasury, that there would be business at the House.  The motion was, to augment our naval force, which, Pitt said, was the only method of putting an end to the rebellion.  Ships built a year hence to suppress an army of Highlanders, now marching through England!  My uncle [old Horace] attacked him, and congratulated his country on the wisdom of the modern young men; and said he had a son of two-and-twenty, who, he did not doubt, would come over wiser than any of them.  Pitt was provoked, and retorted on his negotiations and grey-headed experience.  At those words, my uncle, as if he had been at Bartholomew fair, snatched off his wig, and showed his grey hairs, which made the august senate laugh, and put Pitt out, who, after laughing himself, diverted his venom upon Mr. Pelham.  Upon the question, Pitt’s party amounted but to thirty-six:  in short, he has nothing left but his words, and his haughtiness, and his Lytteltons, and his Grenvilles.  Adieu!

THE REBEL ARMY HAS RETREATED FROM DERBY—­EXPECTATION OF A FRENCH INVASION.

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

ARLINGTON STREET, Dec. 9, 1745.

I am glad I did not write to you last post as I intended; I should have sent you an account that would have alarmed you, and the danger would have been over before the letter had crossed the sea.  The Duke, from some strange want of intelligence, lay last week for four-and-twenty hours under arms at Stone, in Staffordshire, expecting the rebels every moment, while they were marching in all haste to Derby.  The news of this threw the town into great consternation; but his Royal Highness repaired his mistake, and got to Northampton, between the Highlanders and London.  They got nine thousand pounds at Derby, and had the books brought to them, and obliged everybody to give them what they had subscribed against them.  Then they retreated a few miles, but returned again to Derby, got ten thousand pounds more, plundered the town, and burnt a house of the Countess of Exeter.  They are gone again, and go back to Leake, in Staffordshire, but miserably harassed, and, it is said, have left all their cannon behind them, and twenty waggons of sick.  The Duke has sent General Hawley with the dragoons to harass them in their retreat, and despatched Mr. Conway to Marshal Wade, to hasten his march upon the back of them.  They must either go to North Wales, where they will probably all perish, or to Scotland, with great loss.  We dread them no longer.  We are threatened with great preparations for a French invasion, but the coast is exceedingly guarded; and