(1306) The Duke of Grafton.

(1307) Mrs. Boscawen, wife of the Hon. George Boscawen, fifth son of Viscount Falmouth.-E.

511 Letter 224 To Sir Horace Mann.  Arlington Street, Nov. 4, 1746.

Mr. Chute and I a,,reed not to tell you of any new changes till we could tell you more of them, that you might not be “put into a taking,” as you was last winter with the revolution of three days; but I think the present has ended with a single fit.  Lord Harrington,(1308) quite on a sudden, resigned the seals; it is said, on some treatment not over-gracious; but he is no such novice to be shocked with that, though I believe it has been rough ever since his resigning last year, which he did more boisterously than he is accustomed to behave to Majesty.  Others talk of some quarrel with his brother secretary, who, in complaisance, is all for drums and trumpets.  Lord Chesterfield was immediately named his successor; but the Duke of Newcastle has taken the northern provinces, as of more business, and consequently better suited to his experience and abilities!  I flatter myself that this can no way affect you.  Ireland is to be offered to Lord Harrington, or the Presidentship; and the Duke of Dorset, now President, is to have the other’s refusal.  The King has endured a great deal with your old complaint; and I felt for him, recollecting all you underwent.

You will have seen in the papers all the histories of our glorious expeditions(1309) and invasions of France, which have put Cressy and Agincourt out of all countenance.  On the first view, indeed, one should think that our fleet had been to victual; for our chief prizes were cows and geese and turkeys.  But I rather think that the whole was fitted out by the Royal Society, for they came back quite satisfied with having discovered a fine bay!  Would one believe, that in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and forty-six, we should boast of discovering something on the coast of France, as if we had found out the Northeast passage, or penetrated into some remote part of America?  The Guards are come back too, who never went:  in one Single day they received four several different orders!

Matthews is broke at last.  Nobody disputes the justice of the sentence; but the legality of it is not quite so authenticated.  Besides some great errors in the forms, whenever the Admiralty perceived any of the court-martial inclined to favour him, they were constantly changed.  Then, the expense has been enormous; two hundred thousand pounds! chiefly by employing young captains, instead of old half-pay officers; and by these means, double commissions.  Then there has been a great fracas between the court-martial and Willes.(1310) He, as Chief Justice, sent a summons in the ordinary form of law, to Mayerne, to appear as an evidence in a trial where a captain had prosecuted Sir Chaloner Ogle for horrid tyranny:  the ingenious court-martial sat down and drew up articles of impeachment, like any House of Commons, against the Chief Justice for stopping their proceedings! and the Admiralty, still more ingenious, had a mind to complain of him to the house!  He was charmed to catch them at such absurdities—­but I believe at last it is all compromised.