Your cousin Sandwich(1252) is certainly going on an embassy to Holland.  I don’t know whether it is to qualify him, by new dignity, for the head of the admiralty, or whether (which is more agreeable to present policy) to satisfy him instead of it.  I know when Lord Malton,(1253) who was a young earl, asked for the garter, to stop his pretensions, they made him a marquis.  When Lord Brooke, who is likely to have ten sons, though he has none yet, asked to have his barony settled on his daughters, they refused him with an earldom; and they professed making Pitt paymaster, in order to silence the avidity of his faction.

Dear George, I am afraid I shall not be in your neighbourhood, as I promised myself.  Sir Charles Williams has let his house.  I wish you would one day whisk over and look at Harley House.  The inclosed advertisement makes it sound pretty, though I am afraid too large for me.  Do look at it impartially:  don’t be struck at first sight with any brave old windows; but be so good as to inquire the rent, and if I can have it for a year, and with any furniture.  I have not had time to copy out the verses, but you shall have them soon.  Adieu, with my compliments to your sisters.

(1251) Matthew Skinner, afterwards a Welsh judge.-E.

(1252) John, the fourth Earl of Sandwich; son of Edward Richard, Viscount Hichinbrooke.  He signed the treaty of peace at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748.

(1253) Thomas Watson Wentworth, Earl of Malton, created Marquis of Rockingham, in 1746. [He died In 1782, when his title became extinct.)

495 Letter 213 To George Montagu, Esq.  Arlington Street, Aug. 5, 1746.

Though I can’t this week accept your invitation, I can prove to you that I am most desirous of passing my time with you, and therefore en attendant Harley House, if you can find me out any clean, small house in Windsor, ready furnished, that is not -,absolutely in the middle of the town, but near you, I should be glad to take it for three or four months.(1254) I have been about Sir Robert Rich’s, but they will only sell it.  I am as far from guessing why they send Sandwich in embassy, as you are; and, when I recollect of what various materials our late ambassadors have been composed, I can only say, “ex quovis ligno fit Mercurius.”  Murray(1255) has certainly been discovering, and warrants are out; but I don’t yet know who are to be their prize.  I begin to think that the ministry had really no intelligence till now.  I before thought they had, but durst not use it.  A-propos to not daring, I went t’other night to look at my poor favourite Chelsea,(1256) for the little Newcastle is gone to be dipped in the sea.  In one of the rooms is a bed for her Duke, and a press-bed for his footman; for he never dares lie alone, and, till be was married, had always a servant to sit up with him.  Lady Cromartie presented her petition to the King last Sunday.  He was very civil to her, but would not at all give