P. S. Lord! ’tis the 1st of August, 1745, a holiday(1089) that is going to be turned out of the almanack!

(1086) Fran`cois-Adh`emar de Monteil, Comte de Grignan, Lieutenant-general of Provence.  He married, in 1669, the daughter of Madame de S`evign`e-E.

(1087) As he was, on the preceding day, by the Duke of Newcastle, at Clermont.-E.

(1088) Natural daughter of James Scot, Duke of Monmouth, by Eleanor, daughter of Sir Robert Needham.-E.

(1089) The anniversary of the accession of the House of Brunswick to the throne of England.

432 Letter 176 To sir Horace Mann.  Arlington Street, Aug. 7, 1745.

I have no news to tell you:  Ostend is besieged, and must be gone in a few days.  The Regency are all come to town to prevent an invasion—­I should as soon think them able to make one—­not but old Stair, who still exists upon the embers of an absurd fire that warmed him ninety years ago, thinks it still practicable to march to Paris, and the other day in council prevented a resolution of sending for our army home; but as we always do half of a thing, when even the whole would scarce signify, they seem determined to send for ten thousand—­the other ten will remain in Flanders, to keep up the bad figure that we have been making there all this summer.  Count Saxe has been three times tapped since the of Fontenoy:  but if we get rid of his enmity, there is Belleisle gone, amply to supply and succeed to his hatred!  Van Hoey, the ingenious Dutchman at Paris, wrote to the States to know if he should make new liveries against the rejoiCings for the French conquests in Flanders.  I love the governor of SLuys; when the States sent him a reprimand, for not admitting our troops that retreated thither from the affair of Ghent, asking him if he did not know that he ought to admit their allies? he replied, “Yes; and would they have him admit the French too as their allies?”

There is a proclamation come out for apprehending the Pretender’s son;(1090) he was undoubtedly on board the frigate attendant on the Elizabeth, with which Captain Brett fought so bravely:(1090) the boy is now said to be at Brest.

I have put off my journey to the Hague, as the sea is full of ships, and many French ones about the siege of Ostend:  I go tomorrow to Mount Edgecumbe.  I don’t think it impossible but you may receive a letter from me on the road, with a paragraph like that in Cibber’s life, “Here I met the revolution.”

My lady Orford is set out for Hanover; her gracious sovereign does not seem inclined to leave it.  Mrs. Chute(1092) has sent me this letter, which you will be so good as to send to Rome.  We have taken infinite riches; vast wealth in the East Indies, vast from the West; in short, we grow so fat that we shall very soon be fit to kill.