they have not sent us one son, that two days ago we believed we had got the other too.  A small ship has taken the Soleil privateer from Dunkirk, going to Montrose, with twenty French officers, sixty others, and the brother of the beheaded Lord Derwentwater and his son,(1134) who at first was believed to be the second boy.  News came yesterday of a second privateer, taken with arms and money; of another lost on the Dutch coast, and of Vernon being in pursuit of two more.  All this must be a great damp to the party, who are coming on—­fast—­fast to their destruction.  Last night they were to be at Preston, but several repeated accounts make them under five thousand—­none above seven; they must have diminished greatly by desertion.  The country is so far from rising for them, that the towns are left desolate on their approach, and the people hide and bury their effects, even to their pewter.  Warrington bridge is broken down, which will turn them some miles aside.  The Duke, with the flower of that brave army which stood all the fire at Fontenoy, will rendezvous at Stone, beyond Litchfield, the day after to-morrow:  Wade is advancing behind them, and will be at Wetherby in Yorkshire to-morrow.  In short, I have no conception of their daring to fight either army, nor see any visible possibility of their not being very soon destroyed.  My fears have been great, from the greatness of our stake; but I now write in the greatest confidence of our getting over this ugly business.  We have another very disagreeable affair, that may have fatal consequences:  there rages a murrain among the cows; we dare not eat milk, butter, beef, nor any thing from that species.  Unless there is snow or frost soon, it is likely to @spread dreadfully though hitherto it has not reached many miles from London.  At first, it was imagined that the Papists had empoisoned the pools; but the physicians have pronounced it infectious, and brought from abroad.

I forgot to tell you, that my uncle begged the Duke of Newcastle to stifle this report of the sham Pretender lest the King should hear it and recall the Duke, as too great to fight a counterfeit.  It is certain that the army adore the Duke, and are gone in the greatest spirits; and on the parade, as they began their march, the Guards vowed that they would neither give nor take quarter.  For bravery, his Royal Highness is certainly no Stuart, but literally loves to be in the act of fighting.  His brother has so far the same taste, that the night of his new son’s christening, he had the citadel of Carlisle in sugar at supper, and the company besieged it with sugar-plums.  It was well imagined, considering the time and the circumstances.  One thing was very proper; old Marshal Stair was there, who is grown child enough to be fit to war only with such artillery.  Another piece of ingenuity of that court was on the report of Pitt being named secretary at war.  The Prince hates him, since the fall of Lord Granville: