(732) Lord Hardwicke.

348 Letter 202
To Sir Horace Mann. 
Arlington Street, Nov. 13, 1756.

Your brother has told me that Mr. Pitt accepts your southern province, yielding to leave Lord Holderness in the northern.  I don’t know what calm you at this distance may suppose this will produce; I should think little; for though the Duke of Newcastle resigned on Thursday, and Mr. Fox resigns to-day, the chief friends of each remain in place -, and Mr. Pitt accedes with so little strength that his success seems very precarious.  If he Hanoverizes, or checks any inquiries, he loses his popularity, and falls that way; if he burnouts the present rage of the people, he provokes two powerful factions.  His only chance seems to depend on joining with the Duke of Newcastle, who is most offended with Fox:  but after Pitt’s personal exclusion of his grace, and considering Pitt’s small force, it may not be easy for him to be accepted there.  I foresee nothing but confusion:  the new system is composed of such discordant parts that it can produce no harmony.  Though the Duke of Newcastle, the Chancellor, Lord Anson, and Fox quit, yet scarce one of their friends is discarded.  The very cement seems disjunctive; I mean the Duke of Devonshire, who takes the treasury.  If he acts cordially, he disobliges his intimate friend Mr. Fox; if he does not, he offends Pitt.  These little reasonings will give you light, though very insufficient for giving you a clear idea of the most perplexed and complicate situation that ever was.  Mr. Legge returns to be chancellor of the exchequer, and Sir George Lyttelton is indemnified with a peerage.  The Duke of Newcastle has got his dukedom entailed on Lord Lincoln.  The seals are to be in commission, if not given to a lord keeper.  Your friend Mr. Doddington(733) is out again for about the hundred and fiftieth time.  The rest of the list is pretty near settled; you shall have it as soon as it takes place.  I should tell you that Lord Temple is first lord of the admiralty.

Being much too busy to attend to such trifles as a war and America, we know mighty little of either.  The massacre at Oswego happily proves a romance:  part of the two regiments that were made prisoners there are actually arrived at Plymouth, the provisions at Quebec being too scanty to admit additional numbers.  The King of Prussia is gone into winter quarters, but disposed in immediate readiness.  One hears that he has assured us, that if we will keep our fleet in good order, he will find employment for the rest of our enemies.  Two days ago, in the midst of all the ferment at court, Coloredo, the Austrian minister, abruptly demanded an audience, in which he demanded our quotas:  I suppose the King told him that whenever he should have a ministry again he would consult them.  I will tell you my comment on this:  the Empress-Queen, who is scrupulous on the ceremonial of mischief, though she so easily passes over the