undermined everywhere, I believe they are too sensible not to desire to be delivered of their burthen, which those who increase yet dread to take on themselves. Mr. Pitt's health is as bad as his situation; confidence between the other factions almost impossible; yet I believe their impatience will prevail over their distrust. The nation expects a change every day, and being a nation, I believe, desires it; and being the English nation, will condemn it the moment it is made. We are trembling for Hanover, and the Duke [of Cumberland] is going to command the army of observation. These are the politics of the week: the diversions are balls, and the two Princes frequent them; but the eldest nephew [afterwards George III.] remains shut up in a room, where, as desirous as they are of keeping him, I believe he is now and then incommode. The Duke of Richmond has made two balls on his approaching wedding with Lady Mary Bruce, (Mr. Conway's' daughter-in-law): it is the perfectest match in the world; youth, beauty, riches, alliances, and all the blood of all the kings from Robert Bruce to Charles II. They are the prettiest couple in England, except the father-in-law and mother.

As I write so often to you, you must be content with shorter letters, which, however, are always as long as I can make them. This summer will not contract our correspondence Adieu! my dear Sir.

499 TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Arlington Street, April 7, 1757.

You will receive letters by this post that will surprise you; I will try to give you a comment to them; an exact explication I don't know who could give you. You will receive the orders of a new master,' Lord Egremont. I was going on to say that the Ministry is again changed, but I cannot say changed, it is only dismissed-and here is another inter-ministerium.

The King has never borne Lord Temple,' and soon grew displeased

1 Lady Mary Bruce was only daughter of Charles, last Earl of Ailesbury, by Caroline, his third wife, daughter of General John Campbell, afterwards Duke of Argyll. Lady Ailesbury married to her second husband, Colonel Henry Seymour Conway, only brother of Francis, Earl of Hertford.-WALPOLE.

That is a new Secretary of State in the room of Pitt.-CUNNINGHAM.

3 "To Lord Temple the King had the strongest aversion, his lordship having a pert familiarity, which is not always agreeable to his Majesty; besides, in the affair of Admiral Byng, he had used some insolent expressions, which his Majesty could never forgive. Pitt, he said, made him long speeches, which probably might be very fine

with Mr. Pitt: on Byng's affair it came to aversion. It is now given out that both I have mentioned have personally affronted the King. On the execution, he would not suffer Dr. Hay of the Admiralty to be brought into Parliament, though he had lost his seat on coming into his service. During this squabble negotiations were set on foot between the Duke of Newcastle and Mr. Fox, and would have been concluded if either of them would have risked being hanged for the other. The one most afraid broke off the treaty; need I say it was the Duke?' While this was in agitation, it grew necessary for the Duke [of Cumberland] to go abroad and take the command of the Army of Observation. He did not care to be checked there by a hostile ministry at home: his father was as unwilling to be left in their hands. The drum was beat for forces; none would list. However, the change must be made. The day before yesterday Lord Temple was dismissed, with all his Admiralty but Boscawen, who was of the former, and with an offer to Mr. Elliot to stay, which he has declined. The new admirals are Lord Winchelsea, Rowley again, Moyston, Lord Carysfort, Mr. Sandys, and young Hamilton of the Board of Trade. It was hoped that this disgrace would drive Mr. Pitt and the rest of his friends to resign-for that very reason they would not. The time pressed; to-day was fixed for the Duke's departure, and for the recess of Parliament during the holidays. Mr. Pitt was dismissed, and Lord Egremont has received the seals to-day. Mr. Fox has always adhered to being only Paymaster; but the impossibility of finding a Chancellor of the Exchequer, which Lord Duplin of the Newcastle faction, and Dodington of Mr. Fox's, have refused, has, I think, forced Mr. Fox to resolve to take that post himself. However, that and everything else is unsettled, and Mr. Fox is to take nothing till the Inquiries are over. The Duke of Devonshire remains in the Treasury, declaring that it is only for a

but were greatly beyond his comprehension, and that his letters were affected, formal, and pedantic: but as to Temple, he was so disagreeable a fellow, there was no bearing him."-Waldegrave's Memoirs, p. 93.-WRIGHT.

1 "I told his Majesty that the Duke of Newcastle was quite doubtful what part he should take, being equally balanced between fear on one side and love of power on the other. To this the King replied, 'I know he is apt to be afraid, therefore go and encourage him; tell him I do not look upon myself as king whilst I am in the hands of these scoundrels; that I am determined to get rid of them at any rate; that I expect his assistance, and that he may depend on my favour and protection."" Waldegrave, p. 96.—WRIGHT.

2 The new admiralty actually consisted of the following:-Lord Winchelsea, Admiral Sir W. Rowley, K.B., Hon. Edward Boscawen, Gilbert Elliot, Esq., John Proby, first Lord Carysfort, Savage Mostyn, Esq., and the Hon. Edward Sandys, afterwards second Lord Sandys.-DOVER.

short time, and till they can fix on somebody else. The Duke of Newcastle keeps aloof, professing no connexion with Mr. Pitt; Lord Hardwicke is gone into the country for a fortnight. The stocks fall, the foreign ministers stare; Leicester-house is going to be very angry, and I fear we are going into great confusion. As I wish Mr. Fox so well, I cannot but lament the undigested rashness of this measure.

Having lost three packet-boats lately, I fear I have missed a letter or two of yours: I hope this will have better fortune; for, almost unintelligible as it is, you will want even so awkward a key.

Mr. Fox was very desirous of bargaining for a peerage for Lady Caroline; the King has positively refused it, but has given him the reversion for three lives of Clerk of the Pells in Ireland, which Dodington has now. Mr. Conway is made Groom of the Bedchamber to the King.

A volume on all I have told you would only perplex you more; you will have time to study what I send you now. I go to Strawberry Hill to-morrow for the holidays: and till they are over, certainly nothing more will be done. You did not expect this new confusion, just when you was preparing to tremble for the campaign. Adieu!

500. TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Arlington Street, April 20, 1757.

You will wonder that I should so long have announced my Lord Egremont to you for a master, without his announcing himself to you-it was no fault of mine; everything here is a riddle or an absurdity. Instead of coming forth Secretary of State, he went out of town, declaring he knew nothing of the matter. On that, it was affirmed that he had refused the seals. The truth is, they have never been offered to him in form. He had been sounded, and I believe was not averse, but made excuses that were not thought invincible. As we are in profound peace with all the world, and can do without any government, it is thought proper to wait a little, till what are called the Inquiries are over;' what they are, I will tell

"April 6, Mr. Pitt dismissed. Mr. Fox and I were ordered from the King, by Lord Holdernesse, to come and kiss his hand as paymaster of the army, and treasurer of the navy. We wrote to the Duke of Cumberland our respectful thanks and acceptance of the offices; but we thought it would be more for his Majesty's service not to enter upon them publicly till the Inquiry was over."-Dodington, p. 352.WRIGHT.

you presently. A man' who has hated and loved the Duke of Newcastle pretty heartily in the course of some years, is willing to wait, in hopes of prevailing on him to resume the seals-that Duke is the arbiter of England! Both the other parties are trying to unite with him. The King pulls him, the next reign (for you know his grace is very young) pulls him back. Present power tempts: Mr Fox's unpopularity terrifies he will reconcile all by immediate duty to the King, with a salvo to the intention of betraying him to the Prince, to make his peace with the latter, as soon as he has made up with the former. Unless his grace takes Mr. Fox by the hand, the latter is in an ugly situation-if he does, is he in a beautiful one?

Yesterday began the famous and long-expected Inquiries. The House of Commons in person undertakes to examine all the intelligence, letters, and orders, of the administration that lost Minorca. In order to this, they pass over a whole winter; then they send for cart-loads of papers from all the offices, leaving it to the discretion of the clerks to transcribe, insert, omit, whatever they please; and without inquiring what the accused ministers had left or secreted. Before it was possible for people to examine these with any attention, supposing they were worth any, the whole House goes to work, sets the clerk to reading such bushels of letters, that the very dates fill three-and-twenty sheets of paper; he reads as fast as he can, nobody attends, everybody goes away, and to-night they determined that the whole should be read through on to-morrow and Friday, that one may have time to digest on Saturday and Sunday what one had scarce heard, cannot remember, nor is it worth the while; and then on Monday, without asking any questions, examining any witnesses, authority, or authenticity, the Tories are to affirm that the ministers were very negligent; the Whigs, that they were wonderfully informed, discreet, provident, and active; and Mr. Pitt and his friends are to affect great zeal for justice, are to avoid provoking the Duke of Newcastle, and are to endeavour to extract from all the nothings they have not heard, something that is to lay all the guilt at Mr. Fox's door. Now you know very exactly what the Inquiries are-and this wise nation is gaping to see the chick which their old brood-hen the House of Commons will produce from

1 The King.-WALPOLE.

2 On the 19th of April, the House of Commons went into a committee on the state of the navy, and the causes which had led to the loss of the island of Minorca.WRIGHT.

an egg laid in November, neglected till April, and then hatched in a quicksand!

The Common Council have presented gold boxes' with the freedom of their city to Mr. Pitt and Mr. Legge-no gracious compliment to St. James's. It is expected that the example will catch, but as yet, I hear of no imitations. Pamphlets, cards, and prints swarm again: George Townshend has published one of the latter, which is so admirable in its kind, that I cannot help sending it to you. His genius for likenesses in caricature is astonishing—indeed, Lord Winchelsea's figure is not heightened-your friends Dodington and Lord Sandwich are like; the former made me laugh till I cried. The Hanoverian drummer, Ellis, is the least like, though it has much of his air. I need say nothing of the lump of fat' crowned with laurel on the altar. As Townshend's parts lie entirely in his pencil, his pen has no share in them; the labels are very dull, except the inscription on the altar, which I believe is his brother Charles's. This print, which has so diverted the town, has produced to-day a most bitter pamphlet against George Townshend, called "The Art of Political Lying." Indeed, it is strong.

The Duke [of Cumberland], who has taken no English with him but Lord Albemarle, Lord Frederick Cavendish,' Lord George Lennox, Colonel Keppel, Mr. West, and Colonel Carlton, all his own servants, was well persuaded to go by Stade; there were French parties laid to intercept him on the other road.-It might have saved him an unpleasant campaign.-We have no favourable events, but that Russia, who had neither men, money, nor magazines, is much softened, and halts her troops.

5

The Duke of Grafton still languishes: the Duke of Newcastle has so pestered him with political visits, that the physicians ordered him to be excluded: yet he forced himself into the house. The Duke's gentlemen would not admit him into the bedchamber, saying, his grace was asleep. Newcastle protested he would go in on tip-toe and only look at him-he rushed in, clattered his heels to waken

1 Lady Hervey (Molly Lepel) in one of her letters says (alluding to these presenta tions) it rains gold boxes. an expression very much in Walpole's manner.— CUNNINGHAM.

2 The Duke of Cumberland.-WALPOLE.

3 Third son of William, third Duke of Devonshire. He was made a field-marshal in 1796, and died in 1803.-Dover.

✦ Second son of Charles, second Duke of Richmond. He died in March, 1805.— DOVER.

Charles Fitzroy, second Duke of Grafton, K.G., lord chamberlain, and one of the godfathers of Horace Walpole. He died 6 May, 1757.-CUNNINGHAM.