That secrecy will now prevail
      In politics, is certain;
    Since Holdernesse, who gets the seals,
      Was bred behind the curtain.

The Admirals Rowley and Boscawen are brought into the Admiralty under Lord Anson, who is advanced to the head of the board.  Seamen are tractable fishes! especially it will be Boscawen’s case, whose name in Cornish signifies obstinacy, and who brings along with him a good quantity of resentment to Anson.  In short, the whole present system is equally formed for duration!

Since I began my letter, Lord Holdernesse has kissed hands for the seals.  It is said that Lord Halifax is to be made easy, by the plantations being put under the Board of Trade.  Lord Granville comes into power as boisterously as ever, and dashes at everything.  His lieutenants already beat up for volunteers; but he disclaims all connexions with Lord Bath, who, he says, forced him upon the famous ministry of twenty-four hours, and by which he says he paid all his debts to him.  This will soon grow a turbulent scene—­it is not unpleasant to sit upon the beach and see it; but few people have the curiosity to step out to the sight.  You, who knew England in other times, will find it difficult, to conceive what an indifference reigns with regard to ministers and their squabbles.  The two Miss Gunnings,[1] and a late extravagant dinner at White’s, are twenty times more the subject of conversation than the two brothers [Newcastle and Pelham] and Lord Granville.  These are two Irish girls, of no fortune, who are declared the handsomest women alive.  I think their being two so handsome and both such perfect figures is their chief excellence, for singly I have seen much handsomer women than either; however, they can’t walk in the park or go to Vauxhall, but such mobs follow them that they are generally driven away.  The dinner was a folly of seven young men, who bespoke it to the utmost extent of expense:  one article was a tart made of duke cherries from a hot-house; and another, that they tasted but one glass out of each bottle of champagne.  The bill of fare is got into print, and with good people has produced the apprehension of another earthquake.  Your friend St. Leger was at the head of these luxurious heroes—­he is the hero of all fashion.  I never saw more dashing vivacity and absurdity, with some flashes of parts.  He had a cause the other day for ducking a sharper, and was going to swear:  the judge said to him, “I see, Sir, you are very ready to take an oath.”  “Yes, my lord,” replied St. Leger, “my father was a judge.”

[Footnote 1:  One of the Miss Gunnings had singular fortune.  She was married to two Dukes—­the Duke of Hamilton, and, after his death, the Duke of Argyll.  She refused a third, the Duke of Bridgewater; and she was the mother of four—­two Dukes of Hamilton and two Dukes of Argyll.  Her sister married the Earl of Coventry.  In his “Memoirs of George III.”  Walpole mentions that they were so poor while in Dublin that they could not have been presented to the Lord-Lieutenant if Peg Woffington, the celebrated actress, had not lent them some clothes.]