lighted up her garden for the Spaniards:  I was not there, having excused myself for a headache, which I had not, but ought to have caught the night before.  Mr. Doddington entertained these Fuentes’s at Hammersmith; and to the shame of our nation, while they were drinking tea in the summer-house, some gentlemen, ay, my lord, gentlemen, went into the river and showed the ambassadress and her daughter more than ever they expected to see of England.

I dare say you are sorry for poor Lady Anson.  She was exceedingly good-humoured, and did a thousand good-natured and generous actions.  I tell you nothing of the rupture of Lord Halifax’s match, of which you must have heard so much; but you will like a bon-mot upon it.  They say, the hundreds of Drury have got the better of the thousands of Drury.(70) The pretty Countess(71) is still alive, was I thought actually dying on Tuesday night, and I think will go off very soon.  I think there will soon be a peace:  my only reason is, that every body seems so backward at making war.  Adieu! my dear lord!

(67) A staymaker of the time, who advertised in the newspapers that he made stays at such a price, “tabby all over.”

(68) Dodington had been minister in Spain.

(69) The Duke of Kingston.

(70) Lord Halifax kept an actress belonging to Drury Lane Theatre; and the marriage broken off was with a daughter of Sir Thomas Drury, an heiress.-E.

(71) The Countess of Coventry.  She survived till the 1st of October.-E.

Letter 28 To Sir Horace Mann.  Arlington Street, June 20, 1760. (page 68)

Who the deuce was thinking of Quebec?  America was like a book one has read and done with; or at least, if one looked at the book, one just recollected that there was a supplement promised, to contain a chapter on Montreal, the starving and surrender of it--but here are we on a sudden reading our book backwards.  An account came two days ago that the French on their march to besiege Quebec, had been attacked by General Murray, who got into a mistake and a morass, attacked two bodies that were joined, when he hoped to come up with one of them before the junction, was enclosed, embogged,’and defeated.  By the list of officers killed and wounded, I believe there has been a rueful slaughter--the place, too, I suppose will be retaken.  The year 1760 is not the year 1759.  Added to the war we have a kind of plague too, an epidemic fever and sore throat:  Lady Anson is dead of it; Lord Bute and two of his daughters were in great danger; my Lady Waldegrave has had it, and I am mourning for Mrs. Thomas Walpole,(72) who died of it—­you may imagine I don’t come much to town; I had some business here to-day, particularly with Dagge, whom I have sent for to talk about Sophia;(73) he will be here presently, and then I will let you know what he says.