I have received yours of April 25th, since I came home.  You will scold me for being so careless about the Pretender’s son; but I am determined not to take up his idea again, till he is at least on this side Derby.  Do excuse me; but when he could not get to London, with all the advantages which the ministry had smoothed for him, how can he ever meet more concurring circumstances?  If my lady’S(1366) return has no better foundation than Niccolini’s authority, I assure you you may believe as little of it as you please.  If he knows no more of her, than he does of every thing else that he pretends to know, as I am persuaded he does not, knowledge cannot possibly be thinner spread.  He has been a progress to add more matter to the mass, that he already don’t understand.  Adieu!

(1363) The Prince of Orange had just been raised to that dignity in a tumultuary manner.

(1364) The Count de Saxe was a natural son of Augustus the Second, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony, and of the Countess Konigsmark.  The Count de LOWendahl was not a “b`atard” himself; but his father, Woldemar, Baron of Lowendahl, was the son of the Count of Gildoniew, who was the natural son of Frederick the Third, King of Denmark.-D.

(1365) William, second Earl Cowper, son of the Chancellor.  He died in 1764.-D.

(1366) Lady Orford.-D.

527 Letter 234
To Sir Horace Mann. 
Arlington Street, May 19th, 1747,

As you will receive the Gazette at the same time with this letter, I shall leave you to that for the particulars of the great naval victory that Anson has gained over the French off Cape Finisterre.(1367) It is a very big event, and by far one of the most considerable that has happened during this war.  By it he has defeated two expeditions at once; for the fleet he has demolished was to have split, part for the recovery of Cape Breton, part for the East Indies.  He has always been most remarkably fortunate:  Captain Granville, the youngest of the brothers, was as unlucky:  he was killed by the cannon that was fired as a signal for their striking.(1368) He is extremely commended:  I am not partial to the family; but it is but justice to mention, that when he took a great prize some time ago, after a thousand actions of generosity to his officers and crew, he cleared sixteen thousand pounds, of which he gave his sister ten.  The King is in great spirits.  The French fought exceedingly well.

I have no other event to tell you, but the promotion of a new brother of yours.  I condole with you, for they have literally sent one Dayrolies(1369) resident to Holland, under Lord Sandwich,

—­Minum partes tractare secundas.

This curious minister has always been a led-captain to the Dukes of Grafton and Richmond; used to be sent to auctions for them, and to walk in the Park with their daughters, and once went dry nurse to Holland with them.  He has belonged, too, a good deal to my Lord Chesterfield, to whom, I believe, he owes this new honour; as he had before made him black-rod in Ireland, and gave the ingenious reason, that he had a black face.  I believe he has made him a minister, as one year, at Tunbridge, he had a mind to make a wit of Jacky Barnard, and had the impertinent vanity to imagine that his authority was sufficient.