You wondered at my journey to Houghton; now -wonder more, for I am going to Mount Edgecumbe.  Now my summers are in my own hands, and I am not obliged to pass great part of them in Norfolk, I find it is not so very terrible to dispose of them up and down.  In about three weeks I shall set out, and see Wilton and Doddington’s in my way.  Dear Harry, do but get a victory, and I will let off every cannon at Plymouth:  reserving two, till I hear particularly that you have killed two more Frenchmen with your own hand.(1069) Lady Mary(1070) sends you her compliments; she is going to pass a week with Miss Townshend(1071) at Muffits; I don’t think you will be forgot.  Your sister Anne has got a new distemper, which she says feels like something jumping in her.  You know my style on such an occasion, and may be sure I have not spared this distemper.  Adieu!  Yours ever.

(1066) The author of Leonidas.

(1067) Mr. Conway was still with the army in Flanders.

(1068) An act had recently passed to prevent excessive and deceitful gaming.-E.

(1069) Alluding to Mr. Conway’s having been engaged with two French grenadiers at once in the battle of Fontenoy.

(1070) Lady Mary Walpole, youngest daughter of Sir R. Walpole, afterwards married to Charles Churchill, Esq.

(1071) DAUGHTER of Charles Viscount Townshend, afterwards married to Edward Cornwallis, brother to Earl Cornwallis, and groom of the bedchamber to the King.

424 Letter 170 To sir Horace Mann.  Strawberry Hill, July 5, 1745.

All yesterday we were in the utmost consternation an express came the night before from Ostend with an account of the French army in Flanders having seized Ghent and Bruges, cut off a detachment of four thousand men, surrounded our army, who must be cut to pieces or surrender themselves prisoners, and that the Duke was gone to the Hague, but that the Dutch had signed a neutrality.  You will allow that here was ample subject for confusion!  To-day we are a little relieved, by finding that we have lost but five hundred men(1072) instead of four thousand, and that our army, which is inferior by half to theirs, is safe behind a river.  With this came the news of the Great Duke’s victory over the Prince of Conti:(1073) he has killed fifteen thousand, and taken six thousand prisoners.  Here is already a third great battle this summer!  But Flanders is gone!  The Dutch have given up all that could hinder the French from overrunning them, upon condition that the French should not overrun them.  Indeed, I cannot be so exasperated at the Dutch as it is the fashion to be; they have not forgot the peace of Utrecht, though we have.  Besides, how could they rely on any negotiation with a people whose politics alter so often as ours?  Or why were we to fancy that my Lord Chesterfield’s parts would have more weight than my uncle had, whom, ridiculous as he was, they had never known to take a trip to Avignon to confer with the Duke of Ormond?(1074)