Letters to His Son, 1766 to 1771
T >> The Earl of Chesterfield >> Letters to His Son, 1766 to 1771
Poor Harte is here, and in a most miserable condition; those who wish him
the best, as I do, must wish him dead. God bless you!
LETTER CCXCV
LONDON, February 13, 1767.
MY DEAR FRIEND: It is so long since I have had a letter from you, that I
am alarmed about your health; and fear that the southern parts of France
have not done so well by you as they did by me in the year 1741, when
they snatched me from the jaws of death. Let me know, upon the receipt of
this letter, how you are, and where you are.
I have no news to send you from hence; for everything seems suspended,
both in the court and in the parliament, till Lord Chatham's return from
the Bath, where he has been laid up this month, by a severe fit of the
gout; and, at present, he has the sole apparent power. In what little
business has hitherto been done in the House of Commons, Charles
Townshend has given himself more ministerial airs than Lord Chatham will,
I believe, approve of. However, since Lord Chatham has thought fit to
withdraw himself from that House, he cannot well do without Charles'
abilities to manage it as his deputy.
I do not send you an account of weddings, births, and burials, as I take
it for granted that you know them all from the English printed papers;
some of which, I presume, are sent after you. Your old acquaintance, Lord
Essex, is to be married this week to Harriet Bladen, who has L20,000
down, besides the reasonable expectation of as much at the death of her
father. My kinsman, Lord Strathmore, is to be married in a fortnight, to
Miss Bowes, the greatest heiress perhaps in Europe. In short, the
matrimonial frenzy seems to rage at present, and is epidemical. The men
marry for money, and I believe you guess what the women marry for. God
bless you, and send you health!
LETTER CCXCVI
LONDON, March 3, 1767
MY DEAR FRIEND: Yesterday I received two letters at once from you, both
dated Montpellier; one of the 29th of last December, and the other the
12th of February: but I cannot conceive what became of my letters to you;
for, I assure you, that I answered all yours the next post after I
received them; and, about ten days ago, I wrote you a volunteer, because
you had been so long silent, and I was afraid that you were not well; but
your letter of the 12th of February has removed all my fears upon that
score. The same climate that has restored your health so far will
probably, in a little more time, restore your strength too; though you
must not expect it to be quite what it was before your late painful
complaints. At least I find that, since my late great rheumatism, I
cannot walk above half an hour at a time, which I do not place singly to
the account of my years, but chiefly to the great shock given then to my
limbs. 'D'ailleurs' I am pretty well for my age and shattered
constitution.
As I told you in my last, I must tell you again in this, that I have no
news to send. Lord Chatham, at last, came to town yesterday, full of
gout, and is not able to stir hand or foot. During his absence, Charles
Townshend has talked of him, and at him, in such a manner, that
henceforward they must be either much worse or much better together than
ever they were in their lives. On Friday last, Mr. Dowdeswell and Mr.
Grenville moved to have one shilling in the pound of the land tax taken
off; which was opposed by the Court; but the Court lost it by eighteen.
The Opposition triumph much upon this victory; though, I think, without
reason; for it is plain that all the landed gentlemen bribed themselves
with this shilling in the pound.
The Duke of Buccleugh is very soon to be married to Lady Betty Montague.
Lord Essex was married yesterday, to Harriet Bladen; and Lord Strathmore,
last week, to Miss Bowes; both couples went directly from the church to
consummation in the country, from an unnecessary fear that they should
not be tired of each other if they stayed in town. And now 'dixi'; God
bless you!
You are in the right to go to see the assembly of the states of,
Languedoc, though they are but the shadow of the original Etats, while
there was some liberty subsisting in France.
LETTER CCXCVII
LONDON, April 6, 1767.
MY DEAR FRIEND: Yesterday I received your letter from Nimes, by which I
find that several of our letters have reciprocally miscarried. This may
probably have the same fate; however, if it reaches Monsieur Sarrazin, I
presume he will know where to take his aim at you; for I find you are in
motion, and with a polarity to Dresden. I am very glad to find by it,
that your meridional journey has perfectly recovered you, as to your
general state of health; for as to your legs and thighs, you must never
expect that they will be restored to their original strength and
activity, after so many rheumatic attacks as you have had. I know that my
limbs, besides the natural debility of old age, have never recovered the
severe attack of rheumatism that plagued me five or six years ago. I
cannot now walk above half an hour at a time and even that in a hobbling
kind of way.
I can give you no account of our political world, which is in a situation
that I never saw in my whole life. Lord Chatham has been so ill, these
last two months, that he has not been able (some say not willing) to do
or hear of any business, and for his 'sous Ministres', they either
cannot, or dare not, do any, without his directions; so everything is now
at a stand. This situation, I think, cannot last much longer, and if Lord
Chatham should either quit his post, or the world, neither of which is
very improbable, I conjecture, that which is called the Rockingham
Connection stands the fairest for the Ministry. But this is merely my
conjecture, for I have neither 'data' nor 'postulata' enough to reason
upon.
When you get to Dresden, which I hope you will not do till next month,
our correspondence will be more regular. God bless you!
LETTER CCXCVIII
LONDON, May 5, 1767,
MY DEAR FRIEND: By your letter of the 25th past, from Basle, I presume
this will find you at Dresden, and accordingly I direct to you there.
When you write me word that you are at Dresden, I will return you an
answer, with something better than the answer itself.
If you complain of the weather, north of Besancon, what would you say to
the weather that we have had here for these last two months,
uninterruptedly? Snow often, northeast wind constantly, and extreme cold.
I write this by the side of a good fire; and at this moment it snows very
hard. All my promised fruit at Blackheath is quite destroyed; and, what
is worse, many of my trees.
I cannot help thinking that the King of Poland, the Empress of Russia,
and the King of Prussia, 's'entendent comme larrons en foire', though the
former must not appear in it upon account of the stupidity, ignorance,
and bigotry of his Poles. I have a great opinion of the cogency of the
controversial arguments of the Russian troops, in favor of the
Dissidents: I am sure I wish them success; for I would have all
intoleration intolerated in its turn. We shall soon see more clearly into
this matter; for I do not think that the Autocratrice of all the Russias
will be trifled with by the Sarmatians.
What do you think of the late extraordinary event in Spain? Could you
have ever imagined that those ignorant Goths would have dared to banish
the Jesuits? There must have been some very grave and important reasons
for so extraordinary a measure: but what they were I do not pretend to
guess; and perhaps I shall never know, though all the coffeehouses here
do.
Things are here in exactly the same situation, in which they were when I
wrote to you last. Lord Chatham is still ill, and only goes abroad for an
hour in a day, to take the air, in his coach. The King has, to my certain
knowledge, sent him repeated messages, desiring him not to be concerned
at his confinement, for that he is resolved to support him, 'pour et
contre tous'. God bless you!
LETTER CCXCIX
LONDON, June 1, 1767.
MY DEAR FRIEND: I received yesterday your letter of the 20th past, from
Dresden, where I am glad to find that you are arrived safe and sound.
This has been everywhere an 'annus mirabilis' for bad weather, and it
continues here still. Everybody has fires, and their winter clothes, as
at Christmas. The town is extremely sickly; and sudden deaths have been
very frequent.
I do not know what to say to you upon public matters; things remain in
'statu quo', and nothing is done. Great changes are talked of, and, I
believe, will happen soon, perhaps next week; but who is to be changed,
for whom, I do not know, though everybody else does. I am apt to think
that it will be a mosaic Ministry, made up 'de pieces rapportees' from
different connections.
Last Friday I sent your subsidy to Mr. Larpent, who, I suppose, has given
you notice of it. I believe it will come very seasonably, as all places,
both foreign and domestic, are so far in arrears. They talk of paying you
all up to Christmas. The King's inferior servants are almost starving.
I suppose you have already heard, at Dresden, that Count Bruhl is either
actually married, or very soon to be so, to Lady Egremont. She has,
together with her salary as Lady of the Bed-chamber, L2,500 a year,
besides ten thousand pounds in money left her, at her own disposal, by
Lord Egremont. All this will sound great 'en ecus d'Allemagne'. I am glad
of it, for he is a very pretty man. God bless you!
I easily conceive why Orloff influences the Empress of all the Russias;
but I cannot see why the King of Prussia should be influenced by that
motive.
LETTER CCC
BLACKHEATH, JULY 2, 1767.
MY DEAR FRIEND: Though I have had no letter from you since my last, and
though I have no political news to inform you of, I write this to
acquaint you with a piece of Greenwich news, which I believe you will be
very glad of; I am sure I am. Know then that your friend Miss-----was
happily married, three days ago, to Mr.-------, an Irish gentleman, and a
member of that parliament, with an estate of above L2,000 a-year. He
settles upon her L600 jointure, and in case they have no children,
L1,500. He happened to be by chance in her company one day here, and was
at once shot dead by her charms; but as dead men sometimes walk, he
walked to her the next morning, and tendered her his person and his
fortune; both which, taking the one with the other, she very prudently
accepted, for his person is sixty years old.
Ministerial affairs are still in the same ridiculous and doubtful
situation as when I wrote to you last. Lord Chatham will neither hear of,
nor do any business, but lives at Hampstead, and rides about the heath.
His gout is said to be fallen upon his nerves. Your provincial secretary,
Conway, quits this week, and returns to the army, for which he
languished. Two Lords are talked of to succeed him; Lord Egmont and Lord
Hillsborough: I rather hope the latter. Lord Northington certainly quits
this week; but nobody guesses who is to succeed him as President. A
thousand other changes are talked of, which I neither believe nor reject.
Poor Harte is in a most miserable condition: He has lost one side of
himself, and in a great measure his speech; notwithstanding which, he is
going to publish his DIVINE POEMS, as he calls them. I am sorry for it,
as he had not time to correct them before this stroke, nor abilities to
do it since. God bless you!
LETTER CCCI
BLACKHEATH, July 9, 1767.
MY DEAR FRIEND: I have received yours of the 21st past, with the inclosed
proposal from the French 'refugies, for a subscription toward building
them 'un temple'. I have shown it to the very few people I see, but
without the least success. They told me (and with too much truth) that
while such numbers of poor were literally starving here from the dearness
of all provisions, they could not think of sending their money into
another country, for a building which they reckoned useless. In truth, I
never knew such misery as is here now; and it affects both the hearts and
the purses of those who have either; for my own part, I never gave to a
building in my life; which I reckon is only giving to masons and
carpenters, and the treasurer of the undertaking.
Contrary to the expectations of all mankind here, everything still
continues in 'statu quo'. General Conway has been desired by the King to
keep the seals till he has found a successor for him, and the Lord
President the same. Lord Chatham is relapsed, and worse than ever: he
sees nobody, and nobody sees him: it is said that a bungling physician
has checked his gout, and thrown it upon his nerves; which is the worst
distemper that a minister or a lover can have, as it debilitates the mind
of the former and the body of the latter. Here is at present an
interregnum. We must soon see what order will be produced from this
chaos.
The Electorate, I believe, will find the want of Comte Flemming; for he
certainly had abilities, and was as sturdy and inexorable as a Minister
at the head of the finances ought always to be. When you see Comtesse
Flemming, which I suppose cannot be for some time, pray make her Lady
Chesterfield's and my compliments of condolence.
You say that Dresden is very sickly; I am sure London is at least as
sickly now, for there reigns an epidemical distemper, called by the
genteel name of 'l'influenza'. It is a little fever, of which scarcely
anybody dies; and it generally goes off with a little looseness. I have
escaped it, I believe, by being here. God keep you from all distempers,
and bless you!
LETTER CCCII
LONDON, October 30, 1767.
MY DEAR FRIEND: I have now left Blackheath, till the next summer, if I
live till then; and am just able to write, which is all I can say, for I
am extremely weak, and have in a great measure lost the use of my legs; I
hope they will recover both flesh and strength, for at present they have
neither. I go to the Bath next week, in hopes of half repairs at most;
for those waters, I am sure, will not prove Medea's kettle, nor 'les eaux
de Jouvence' to me; however, I shall do as good courtiers do, and get
what I can, if I cannot get what I will. I send you no politics, for here
are neither politics nor ministers; Lord Chatham is quiet at Pynsent, in
Somersetshire, and his former subalterns do nothing, so that nothing is
done. Whatever places or preferments are disposed of, come evidently from
Lord-------, who affects to be invisible; and who, like a woodcock,
thinks that if his head is but hid, he is not seen at all.
General Pulteney is at last dead, last week, worth above thirteen hundred
thousand pounds. He has left all his landed estate, which is eight and
twenty thousand pounds a-year, including the Bradford estate, which his
brother had from that ancient family, to a cousin-german. He has left two
hundred thousand pounds, in the funds, to Lord Darlington, who was his
next nearest relation; and at least twenty thousand pounds in various
legacies. If riches alone could make people happy, the last two
proprietors of this immense wealth ought to have been so, but they never
were.
God bless you, and send you good health, which is better than all the
riches of the world!
LETTER CCCIII
LONDON, November 3, 1767.
MY DEAR FRIEND: Your last letter brought me but a scurvy account of your
health. For the headaches you complain of, I will venture to prescribe a
remedy, which, by experience, I found a specific, when I was extremely
plagued with them. It is either to chew ten grains of rhubarb every night
going to bed: or, what I think rather better, to take, immediately before
dinner, a couple of rhubarb pills, of five grains each; by which means it
mixes with the aliments, and will, by degrees, keep your body gently
open. I do it to this day, and find great good by it. As you seem to
dread the approach of a German winter, I would advise you to write to
General Conway, for leave of absence for the three rigorous winter
months, which I dare say will not be refused. If you choose a worse
climate, you may come to London; but if you choose a better and a warmer,
you may go to Nice en Provence, where Sir William Stanhope is gone to
pass his winter, who, I am sure, will be extremely glad of your company
there.
I go to the Bath next Saturday. 'Utinam de frustra'. God bless you!
LETTER CCCIV
BATH, September 19, 1767.
MY DEAR FRIEND: Yesterday I received your letter of the 29th past, and am
very glad to find that you are well enough to think that you may perhaps
stand the winter at Dresden; but if you do, pray take care to keep both
your body and your limbs exceedingly warm.
As to my own health, it is, in general, as good as I could expect it, at
my age; I have a good stomach, a good digestion, and sleep well; but find
that I shall never recover the free use of my legs, which are now full as
weak as when I first came hither.
You ask me questions concerning Lord C------, which neither I, nor, I
believe, anybody but himself can answer; however, I will tell you all
that I do know, and all that I guess, concerning him. This time
twelvemonth he was here, and in good health and spirits, except now and
then some little twinges of the gout. We saw one another four or five
times, at our respective houses; but for these last eight months, he has
been absolutely invisible to his most intimate friends, 'les sous
Ministres': he would receive no letters, nor so much as open any packet
about business.
His physician, Dr.-----, as I am told, had, very ignorantly, checked a
coming fit of the gout, and scattered it about his body; and it fell
particularly upon his nerves, so that he continues exceedingly vaporish;
and would neither see nor speak to anybody while he was here. I sent him
my compliments, and asked leave to wait upon him; but he sent me word
that he was too ill to see anybody whatsoever. I met him frequently
taking the air in his post-chaise, and he looked very well. He set out
from hence for London last Tuesday; but what to do, whether to resume, or
finally to resign the Administration, God knows; conjectures are various.
In one of our conversations here, this time twelvemonth, I desired him to
secure you a seat in the new parliament; he assured me that he would,
and, I am convinced, very sincerely; he said even that he would make it
his own affair; and desired that I would give myself no more trouble
about it. Since that, I have heard no more of it; which made me look out
for some venal borough and I spoke to a borough-jobber, and offered
five-and-twenty hundred pounds for a secure seat in parliament; but he
laughed at my offer, and said that there was no such thing as a borough
to be had now, for that the rich East and West Indians had secured them
all, at the rate of three thousand pounds at least; but many at four
thousand, and two or three that he knew, at five thousand. This, I
confess, has vexed me a good deal; and made me the more impatient to know
whether Lord C---had done anything in it; which I shall know when I go to
town, as I propose to do in about a fortnight; and as soon as I know it
you shall. To tell you truly what I think--I doubt, from all this NERVOUS
DISORDER that Lord C-----is hors de combat, as a Minister; but do not
ever hint this to anybody. God bless you!
LETTER CC
BATH, December 27, 1767. 'En nova progenies'!
MY DEAR FRIEND: The outlines of a new Ministry are now declared, but they
are not yet quite filled up; it was formed by the Duke of Bedford. Lord
Gower is made President of the Council, Lord Sandwich, Postmaster, Lord
Hillsborough, Secretary of State for America only, Mr. Rigby,
Vice-treasurer of Ireland. General Canway is to keep the seals a
fortnight longer, and then to surrender them to Lord Weymouth. It is very
uncertain whether the Duke of Grafton is to continue at the head of the
Treasury or not; but, in my private opinion, George Grenville will very
soon be there. Lord Chatham seems to be out of the question, and is at
his repurchased house at Hayes, where he will not see a mortal. It is yet
uncertain whether Lord Shelburne is to keep his place; if not, Lord
Sandwich they say is to succeed him. All the Rockingham people are
absolutely excluded. Many more changes must necessarily be, but no more
are yet declared. It seems to be a resolution taken by somebody that
Ministers are to be annual.
Sir George Macartney is next week to be married to Lady Jane Stuart, Lord
Bute's second daughter.
I never knew it so cold in my life as it is now, and with a very deep
snow; by which, if it continues, I may be snow-bound here for God knows
how long, though I proposed leaving this place the latter end of the
week.
Poor Harte is very ill here; he mentions you often, and with great
affection. God bless you!
When I know more you shall.
LETTER CCCVI
LONDON, January 29, 1768.
MY DEAR FRIEND: Two days ago I received your letter of the 8th. I wish
you had gone a month or six weeks sooner to Basle, that you might have
escaped the excessive cold of the most severe winter that I believe was
ever known. It congealed both my body and my mind, and scarcely left me
the power of thinking. A great many here, both in town and country, have
perished by the frost, and been lost in the snow.
You have heard, no doubt, of the changes at Court, by which you have got
a new provincial, Lord Weymouth; who has certainly good parts, and, as I
am informed, speaks very well in the House of Lords; but I believe he has
no application. Lord Chatham is at his house at Hayes; but sees no
mortal. Some say that he has a fit of the gout, which would probably do
him good; but many think that his worst complaint is in his head, which I
am afraid is too true. Were he well, I am sure he would realize the
promise he made me concerning you; but, however, in that uncertainty, I
am looking out for any chance borough; and if I can find one, I promise
you I will bid like a chapman for it, as I should be very sorry that you
were not in the next parliament. I do not see any probability of any
vacancy in a foreign commission in a better climate; Mr. Hamilton at
Naples, Sir Horace Mann at Florence, and George Pitt at Turin, do not
seem likely to make one. And as for changing your foreign department for
a domestic one, it would not be in my power to procure you one; and you
would become 'd'eveque munier', and gain nothing in point of climate, by
changing a bad one for another full as bad, if not worse; and a worse I
believe is not than ours. I have always had better health abroad than at
home; and if the tattered remnant of my wretched life were worth my care,
I would have been in the south of France long ago. I continue very lame
and weak, and despair of ever recovering any strength in my legs. I care
very little about it. At my age every man must have his share of physical
ills of one kind or another; and mine, thank God, are not very painful.
God bless you!
LETTER CCCVII
LONDON, March 12, 1768.
MY DEAR FRIEND: The day after I received your letter of the 21st past, I
wrote to Lord Weymouth, as you desired; and I send you his answer
inclosed, from which (though I have not heard from him since) I take it
for granted, and so may you, that his silence signifies his Majesty's
consent to your request. Your complicated complaints give me great
uneasiness, and the more, as I am convinced that the Montpellier
physicians have mistaken a material part of your case; as indeed all the
physicians here did, except Dr. Maty. In my opinion, you have no gout,
but a very scorbutic and rheumatic habit of body, which should be treated
in a very different manner from the gout; and, as I pretend to be a very
good quack at least, I would prescribe to you a strict milk diet, with
the seeds, such as rice, sago, barley, millet, etc., for the three summer
months at least, and without ever tasting wine. If climate signifies
anything (in which, by the way, I have very little faith), you are, in my
mind, in the finest climate in the world; neither too hot nor too cold,
and always clear; you are with the gayest people living; be gay with
them, and do not wear out your eyes with reading at home. 'L'ennui' is
the English distemper: and a very bad one it is, as I find by every day's
experience; for my deafness deprives me of the only rational pleasure
that I can have at my age, which is society; so that I read my eyes out
every day, that I may not hang myself.
You will not be in this parliament, at least not at the beginning of it.
I relied too much upon Lord C-----'s promise above a year ago at Bath. He
desired that I would leave it to him; that he would make it his own
affair, and give it in charge to the Duke of G----, whose province it was
to make the parliamentary arrangement. This I depended upon, and I think
with reason; but, since that, Lord C has neither seen nor spoken to
anybody, and has been in the oddest way in the world. I have sent to the
D-----of G------, to know if L-----C----had either spoken or sent to him
about it; but he assured me that he had done neither; that all was full,
or rather running over, at present; but that, if he could crowd you in
upon a vacancy, he would do it with great pleasure. I am extremely sorry
for this accident; for I am of a very different opinion from you, about
being in parliament, as no man can be of consequence in this country, who
is not in it; and, though one may not speak like a Lord Mansfield or a
Lord Chatham, one may make a very good figure in a second rank. 'Locus
est et pluribus umbris'. I do not pretend to give you any account of the
present state of this country, or Ministry, not knowing nor guessing it
myself.