any Frenchmen left in France; which Mr. Pitt, in very fine words, had assured them there was not, and which my Lord Howe, in very fine silence, had confirmed.  However, somehow or other, (Mr. Deputy Hodges says they were not French, but Papists sent from Vienna to assist the King of France,) twelve battalions fell upon our rear-guard, and, which General Blighe says is “very Common,” (I suppose he means that rashness and folly should run itself’ into a scrape,)—­were all cut to pieces or taken.  The town says, Prince Edward (Duke of York) ran hard to save himself; I don’t mean too fast, but scarcely fast enough; and the General says, that Lord Frederick Cavendish, your friend, is safe; the thing he seems to have thought of most, except a little vain parade of his own self-denial on his nephew.  I shall not be at all surprised if, to show he was not in the wrong, Mr. Pitt should get ready another expedition by the depth of winter, and send it in search of the cannons and colours of these twelve battalions.  Pray Heaven your letter don’t put it in his head to give you the command!  It is not true, that he made the King ride upon one of the cannons to the Tower.

I was really touched with my Lady Howe’s advertisement,(952) though I own at first it made me laugh; for seeing an address to the voters for Nottingham signed “Charlotte Howe,” I concluded (they are so manly a family) that Mrs. Howe,(953) who rides a fox-chase, and dines at the table d’h`ote at Grantham, intended to stand for member of Parliament.

Sir John Armitage died on board a ship before the landing; Lady Hardwickc’s nephew, Mr. Cocks, scarce recovered of his Cherbourg wound, is killed.’  He had seven thousand pounds a year, and was volunteer.  I don’t believe his uncle and aunt advised his venturing so much money.

My Lady Burlington is very ill, and the distemper shows itself oddly; she breaks out all over in-curses and blasphemies.  Her maids are afraid of catching them, and will hardly venture into her room.

On reading over your letter again, I begin to think that the connexion between Mr. Pitt and my dainty widow is stronger than I imagined.  One of them must have caught of the other that noble contempt which makes a thing’s being impossible not signify.  It sounds very well in sensible mouths; but how terrible to be the chambermaid or the army of such people!  I really am in a panic, and having some mortal impossibilities about me which a dainty widow might not allow to signify, I will balance a little between her and my Lady Carlisle, who, I believe, knows that impossibilities do signify.  These were some of my reflections on reading your letter again; another was, that I am now convinced you sent your letter open to the post on purpose; you knew It was so good a letter that every body ought to see it-and yet you would pass for a modest man!

I am glad I am not in favour enough to be consulted by my Lord Duchess(954) on the Gothic farm; she would have given me so many fine and unintelligible reasons why it should not be as it should be, that I should have lost a little of my patience.  You don’t tell me if the goose-board in hornbean is quite finished; and have you forgot that I actually was in t’other goose-board, the conjuring room?