P.S. It is uncertain who will be Chief Justice; Murray could have no competitor, but the Duke of Newcastle cannot part with him from the House of Commons.' MY DEAR LORD: 469. TO THE EARL OF STRAFFORD. Strawberry Hill, June 6, 1756. I AM not sorry to be paving my way to Wentworth Castle' by a letter, where I suppose you are by this time, and for which I waited: it is not that I stayed so long before I executed my embassy auprès de Milord Tylney. He has but one pair of gold pheasants at present, but promises my Lady Strafford the first fruits of their loves. He gave me hopes of some pied peacocks sooner, for which I asked directly, as one must wait for the lying-in of the pheasants. If I go on negotiating so successfully, I may hope to arrive at a peerage a little sooner than my uncle has. As your lordship, I know, is so good as to interest yourself in the calamities of your friends, I will, as shortly as I can, describe and grieve your heart with a catastrophe that has happened to two of them. My Lady Ailesbury, Mr. Conway, and Miss Rich passed two days last week at Strawberry Hill. We were returning from Mrs. Clive's through the long field, and had got over the high stile that comes into the road; that is, three of us. It had rained, and the stile was wet. I could not let Miss Rich straddle across so damp a palfrey, but took her in my arms to lift her over. At that instant I saw a coach and six come thundering down the hill from my house; and hurrying to set down my charge, and stepping backwards, I missed the first step, came down headlong with the nymph in my arms; but turning quite round as we rushed to the ground, 1 Mr. Potter, in a letter to Mr. Pitt, of the 4th of June, says, "Upon the death of the Chief Justice, all the Attorney-General's private friends thought the office, on every account, so fit for him, that it would be infatuation to decline it, and that the AttorneyGeneral himself was of the same opinion, but the Duke of Newcastle was frightened at the thoughts of what was to become of the House of Commons.”—Chatham Correspondence, vol. i., p. 159.-WRIGHT. 2 This is the first of fifty-four letters addressed by Walpole (between 1756 and 1790) to his friend and neighbour at Twickenham, William Wentworth, second Earl of Strafford, of the second creation. Lord Strafford married Lady Anne Campbell, youngest daughter of John, the great Duke of Argyle, and died in 1791. His house at Twickenham faced the river, and stood between the church and what is now Orleans house.- CUNNINGHAM. In Yorkshire, now (1857) the seat of Frederick Vernon Wentworth, Esq., who inherited it through Mrs. Kaye, sister of the last Earl of Strafford, who died without issue in 1799.-CUNNINGHAM. the first thing that touched the earth was Miss Rich's head. You must guess in how improper a situation we fell; and you must not tell my Lady Strafford before anybody that every petticoat, &c. in the world were canted-high enough indeed! The coach came on, and never stopped. The apprehension that it would run over my Chloe made me lie where I was, holding out my arm to keep off the horses, which narrowly missed trampling us to death. The ladies, who were Lady Holdernesse, Miss Pelham, and your sister Lady Mary Coke, stared with astonishment at the theatre which they thought I had chosen to celebrate our loves; the footmen laughed; and you may imagine the astonishment of Mr. Conway and Lady Ailesbury, who did not see the fall, but turned and saw our attitude. It was these spectators that amazed Miss Pelham, who described the adventure to Mrs. Pitt, and said, "What was most amazing, there were Mr. Conway and Lady Ailesbury looking on!" I shall be vexed to have told you this long story, if Lady Mary has writ it already; only tell me honestly if she has described it as decently as I have. If you have not got the new Letters and Memoirs of Madame Maintenon, I beg I may recommend them for your summer reading. As far as I have got, which is but into the fifth volume of the Letters, I think you will find them very curious, and some very entertaining. The fourth volume has persuaded me of the sincerity of her devotion; and two or three letters at the beginning of my present tome have made me even a little jealous for my adored Madame de Sévigné. I am quite glad to find that they do not continue equally agreeable. The extreme misery to which France was reduced at the end of Queen Anne's war, is more striking than one could conceive. I hope it is a debt that they are not going to pay, though the news that arrived on Wednesday have but a black aspect. The consternation on the behaviour of Byng,' and on the amazing council of war at Gibraltar, is extreme: many think both next to impossibilities. In the meantime we fear the loss of Minorca. I could not help smiling t'other day at two passages in Madame Maintenon's Letters The Hon. John Byng, fourth son of Admiral Byng; a distinguished officer, who, for his eminent services, was created, in 1721, Viscount Torrington.WRIGHT. 2 A council of war was held at Gibraltar, to decide upon a request made by Admiral Byng for a reinforcement of troops from that garrison for the defence of Minorca ; where M. de la Galissonière, with thirteen sail of the line and several transports, had, towards the end of April, landed a large body of land-forces under the command of the Duc de Richelieu.-WRIGHT. relating to the Duc de Richelieu, when he first came into the world: "Jamais homme n'a mieux réussi à la cour, la première fois qu'il y a paru: ce'est réellement une très-jolie créature!" Again:"C'est la plus aimable poupée qu'on puisse voir." How mortifying that this "jolie poupée" should be the avenger of the Valoises! Adieu, my lord. I don't believe that a daughter of the Duke of Argyll will think that the present I have announced in the first part of my letter balances the inglorious article in the end. I wish you would both renew the breed of heroes, which seems scarcer than that of gold pheasants! Your most faithful Servant. MY DEAR SIR: 470. TO JOHN CHUTE, ESQ. Arlington Street, June 8, 1756. PRAY have a thousand masses said in your divine chapel à l'intention of your poor country. I believe the occasion will disturb the founder of it, and make him shudder in his shroud for the ignominy of his countrymen. By all one learns, Byng, Fowke, and all the officers at Gibraltar, were infatuated! They figured PortMahon lost, and Gibraltar a-going! a-going! Lord Effingham, Cornwallis, Lord Robert Bertie, all, all signed the council of war, and are in as bad odour as possible. The King says it will be his death, and that he neither eats nor sleeps-all our trust is in Hanoverians. The Prince has desired to be excused living at Kensington, but accepts of 40,000l. a year; 5,0007. is given to Prince Edward, and an establishment is settling; but that too will meet with difficulties. I will be more circumstantial when we meet.' My uncle [old Horace] has chose no motto nor supporters yet: one would think there were fees to pay for them! Mr. Fox said to him, "Why don't you take your family motto ?" He replied, "Because my nephew would say, I think I speak as well as my brother." I believe he means me. I like his awe. The Duke of Richmond, taking me for his son, reproached himself to Lady Caroline Fox for not wishing me joy. She is so sorry she undeceived 1 "June 6. I heard that a message in writing had been sent to the Prince, from the King, offering him an allowance of 40,000l. a year, and an apartment in the palaces of Kensington and St. James's. The answer was full of high gratitude for the allowance, but declining the apartment, on account of the mortification it would be to his mother; though it is well known that he does not live with her, either in town or country." Dodington, p. 345.-WRIGHT. VOL. III. him! Charles Townshend has turned his artillery upon his own court: he says, "Silly fellow for silly fellow, I don't see why it is not as well to be governed by my uncle with a blue riband, as by my cousin with a green one." I have passed to-day one of the most agreeable days of my life; your righteous spirit will be offended with me-but I must tell you: my Lord and Lady Bath carried my Lady Hervey and me to dine with my Lady Allen' at Blackheath. What added to the oddness of the company in which I found myself was her sister Mrs. Cleveland, whose bitterness against my father and uncle for turning out her husband you have heard-but she is very agreeable. I had a little private satisfaction in very naturally telling my Lord Bath how happy I have made his old printer, Franklyn. The Earl was in extreme good-humour, repeated epigrams, ballads, anecdotes, stories, which, as Madame Sévigné says, puts one in mind "de sa défunte veine." The Countess was not in extreme good-humour, but in the best-humoured ill-humour in the world; contested everything with great drollery, and combated Mrs. Cleveland on Madame Maintenon's character, with as much satire and knowledge of the world as ever I heard in my life. I told my Lord Bath General Wall's foolish vain motto, "Aut Cæsar aut nihil." He replied, "He is an impudent fellow: he should have taken 'Murus aheneus."" Dodington has translated well the motto on the caps of the Hanoverians, "Vestigia nulla retrorsum." They never mean to go back again. Saunders, the new admiral, told the King yesterday in a very odd phrase, that they should screw his heart out, if Byng is not now in the harbour of Mahon. The world condemns extremely the rashness of superseding admirals on no information but from our enemies. The ministry tremble for Thursday se'nnight (inter alia), when the King is to desire the Parliament to adjourn again. I believe altogether it will make a party. Adieu! 471. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, June 14, 1756. OUR affairs have taken a strange turn, my dear Sir, since I wrote to you last at the end of May; we have been all confusion, conster 1 Dame Mary Allen, wife of Sir Joseph Allen. She died June 27, 1758, and was buried at Greenwich.-CUNNINGHAM. nation, and resentment! At this moment we are all perplexity! When we were expecting every instant that Byng would send home Marshal Richelieu's head to be placed upon Temple-bar, we were exceedingly astonished to hear that the governor and garrison of Gibraltar had taken a panic for themselves, had called a council of war, and in direct disobedience to a positive command, had refused Byng a battalion from thence. This council was attended, and their resolution signed, by all the chief officers there, among whom are some particular favourites, and some men of the first quality. Instead of being shocked at this disappointment, Byng accompanied it with some wonderfully placid letters, in which he notified his intention of retiring under the cannon of Gibraltar, in case he found it dangerous to attempt the relief of Minorca! These letters had scarce struck their damp here, before D'Abreu, the Spanish minister, received an account from France, that Galissonière had sent word that the English fleet had been peeping about him, with exceeding caution, for two or three days; that on the 20th of May they had scuffled for about three hours, that night had separated them, and that to his great astonishment, the English fleet, of which he had not taken one vessel, had disappeared in the morning. If the world was scandalised at this history, it was nothing to the exasperation of the court, who, on no other foundation than an enemy's report, immediately ordered Admiral Hawke and Saunders [created an admiral on purpose] to bridle and saddle the first ship at hand, and post away to Gibraltar, and to hang and drown Byng and West, and then to send them home to be tried for their lives: and not to be too partial to the land, and to be as severe upon good grounds as they were upon scarce any, they dispatched Lord Tyrawley and Lord Panmure upon the like errand over the Generals Fowke and Stuart. This expedition had so far a good effect, that the mob itself could not accuse the ministry of want of rashness; and luckily for the latter, in three days more the same canal confirmed the disapappearance of the English fleet for four days after the engagementbut behold! we had scarce had time to jumble together our sorrow for our situation, and our satisfaction for the dispatch we had used to repair it, when yesterday threw us into a new puzzle. Our spies, the French, have sent us intelligence that Galissonière is disgraced, recalled, and La Motte sent to replace him, and that Byng has reinforced the garrison of St. Philip's' with-150 men! You, who are 1 In the month of June, 1756, the Marshal de Richelieu, at the head of sixteen |