The troops for Flanders go on board Saturday se’nnight, the first embarkation of five thousand men:  the whole number is to be sixteen thousand.  It is not yet known what success Earl Stair has had at the Hague.  We are in great joy upon the news of the King of Prussia’s running away from the Austrians:  (566) though his cowardice is well established, it is yet believed that the flight in question was determined by his head, not his heart; in short, that it was treachery to his allies.

I forgot to tell you, that of the Secret Committee Sir John Rushout and Cholmley TurnOr never go to it, nor, which is more extraordinary, Sir John Barnard.  He says he thought their views were more general, but finding them so particular against one man, he Will not engage with them.

I have been breakfasting this morning at Ranelagh-garden:  (567) they have built an immense amphitheatre, with balconies full of little ale-houses; it is in rivalry to Vauxhall, and costs above twelve thousand pounds.  The building is not finished, but, they get great sums by people going to see it and breakfasting in the house:  there were yesterday no less than three hundred and eighty persons, at eighteen pence a-piece.  You see how poor we are, when, with a tax of four shillings in the pound, we are laying out such sums for cakes and ale.

We have a new opera, with your favourite song, se cerca, se dice:  (568) Monticelli sings it beyond what you can conceive.  Your last was of April 8th.  I like the medal of the Caesars and Nihils (569) extremely; but don’t at all like the cracking of your house, (570) except that it drives away your Pettegola. (571) What I like much worse is your recovering your strength so slowly; but I trust to the warm weather.

Miss Granville, daughter of the late Lord Lansdown, (572) is named maid of honour, in the room of Miss Hamilton, who I told you is to be Lady Brook-they are both so small! what little eggs they will lay!

How does my Princess?(573) does not she deign to visit you too?  Is Sade (574) there still?  Is Madame Suares quite gone into devotion yet?  Tell me any thing-I love any thing that you write to me.  Good night!

(564) He was afterwards made an Irish lord. (Lord Rawdon in 1750, and Earl of Moira in 1761.  His first two wives were the daughters of the Earl of Egmont and Viscount Hillsborough.  His third wife, by whom he was the father of the late Lord Hastings, was the daughter, and eventually the heiress, of Theophilus, ninth Earl of Huntingdon.-D.)

(565) Alluding to Paxton, who was sent thither for refusing to give evidence.

(566) this must allude to the King of Prussia’s abandonment of his design to penetrate through Austria to Vienna, which he gave of) in consequence of the lukewarmness of his Saxon and the absence of his French allies.  It is curious now, when the mist of contemporary prejudices has passed away, to hear Frederick the Great accused of cowardice.-D.