You must live on domestic news, for our foreign is exceedingly unwholesome.  Antwerp is gone;(1203) and Bathiani with the allied army retired under the cannon of Breda; the junction of the Hanoverians cut off, and that of the Saxons put off.  We are now, I suppose, at the eve of a bad peace; though, as Cape Breton must be a condition, I don’t know who will dare to part with it.  Little Eolus (the Duke of Bedford) says they shall not have it, that they shall have Woburn(1204) as soon-and I suppose they will! much such positive patriot politics have brought on all this ruin upon us!  All Flanders is gone, and all our money, and half our men, and half our navy, because we would have no search.  Well! but we ought to think on what we have got too!—­we have got Admiral Vernon’s head on our signs, and we are going to have Mr. Pitt at the head of our affairs.  Do you remember the physician in Moli`ere, who wishes the man dead that he may have the greater honour from recovering him?  Mr. Pitt is paymaster; Sir W. Yonge vice-treasurer of Ireland:  Mr. Fox, secretary-at-war; Mr. Arundel,(1205) treasurer of the chambers, in the room of Sir John Cotton, who is turned out; Mr. Campbell (one of my father’s admiralty) and Mr. Legge in the treasury, and Lord Duncannon(1206) succeeds Legge in the admiralty.

Your two last were of April 19th and 26th.  I wrote one to Mr. Chute, inclosed to you, with farther particulars of the battle; and I hope you received @it.  I am entirely against your sending my eagle while there is any danger.  Adieu! my dear child!  I wrote to-day, merely because I had not written very lately; but you see I had little to say.

(1200) Elder brother of the Duke of Athol; he was outlawed for the former rebellion.

(1201) Arthur Elphinstone, sixth Lord Balmerino in Scotland.  He was beheaded at the same time and place with Lord Kilmarnock; and on the scaffold distinguished himself by his boldness, fortitude, and even cheerfulness.-D.’

(1202) This was a mistake; it was not Lord Ogilvie, but Lord Cromarty.

(1203) It was taken by the French.-D.

(1204) The seat of the Duke of Bedford.

(1205) The Hon. Richard Arundel, youngest son of John, second Lord Arundel of Trerice.  He had been master of the mint under Sir Robert Walpole’s administration.-D.

(1206) William Ponsonby, Viscount Duncannon, afterwards second Earl of Besborough.-D.

479 Letter 202 To George Montagu, Esq.  Arlington Street, May 22, 1746.

Dear George, After all your goodness to me, don’t be angry that I am glad I am got into brave old London again:  though my cats don’t purr like Goldwin, yet one of them has as good a heart as old Reynolds, and the tranquillity of my own closet makes me some amends for the loss of the library and toute la belle compagnie celestine.  I don’t know whether that expression will do for the azure ceilings; but I found it at my fingers’ ends, and so it slipped through my pen.  We called at Langley,(1207) but did not like it, nor the Grecian temple at all; it is by no means gracious.