Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (Письма к сыну – полный вариант)
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The French whisper in confidence, in order that it may be the more known and the more credited, that they intend to invade us this year, in no less than three places; that is England, Scotland, and Ireland. Some of our great men, like the devils, believe and tremble; others, and one little one whom I know, laugh at it; and, in general, it seems to be but a poor, instead of a formidable scarecrow. While somebody was at the head of a moderate army, and wanted (I know why) to be at the head of a great one, intended invasions were made an article of political faith; and the belief of them was required, as in the Church the belief of some absurdities, and even impossibilities, is required upon pain of heresy, excommunication, and consequently damnation, if they tend to the power and interest of the heads of the Church. But now that there is a general toleration, and that the best subjects, as well as the best Christians, may believe what their reasons find their consciences suggest, it is generally and rationally supposed the French will threaten and not strike, since we are so well prepared, both by armies and fleets, to receive and, I may add, to destroy them. Adieu! God bless you.
LETTER CCXLV
BLACKHEATH, June 15, 1759
MY DEAR FRIEND: Your letter of the 5th, which I received yesterday, gave me great satisfaction, being all in your own hand; though it contains great, and I fear just complaints of your ill state of health. You do very well to change the air; and I hope that change will do well by you. I would therefore have you write after the 20th of August, to Lord Holderness, to beg of him to obtain his Majesty's leave for you to return to England for two or three months, upon account of your health. Two or three months is an indefinite time, which may afterward insensibly stretched to what length one pleases; leave that to me. In the meantime, you may be taking your measures with the best economy.
The day before yesterday, an express arrived from Guadaloupe which brought an account of our being in possession of the whole island. And I make no manner of doubt but that, in about two months, we shall have as good news from Crown-point, Quebec, etc. Our affairs in Germany, I fear, will not be equally prosperous; for I have very little hopes for the King of Prussia or Prince Ferdinand. God bless you.
LETTER CCXLVI
BLACKHEATH, June 25, 1759
MY DEAR FRIEND: The two last mails have brought me no letter from you or your secretary. I will take this as a sign that you are better; but, however, if you thought that I cared to know, you should have cared to have written. Here the weather has been very fine for a fortnight together, a longer term than in this climate we are used to hold fine weather by. I hope it is so, too, at Hamburg, or at least at the villa to which you are gone; but pray do not let it be your 'villa viciosa', as those retirements are often called, and too often prove; though, by the way, the original name was 'villa vezzosa'; and by wags miscalled 'viciosa'.
I have a most gloomy prospect of affairs in Germany; the French are already in possession of Cassel, and of the learned part of Hanover, that is Gottingen; where I presume they will not stop 'pour l'amour des belles lettres', but rather go on to the capital, and study them upon the coin. My old acquaintance, Monsieur Richelieu, made a great progress there in metallic learning and inscriptions. If Prince Ferdinand ventures a battle to prevent it, I dread the consequences; the odds are too great against him. The King of Prussia is still in a worse situation; for he has the Hydra to encounter; and though he may cut off a head or two, there will still be enough left to devour him at last. I have, as you know, long foretold the now approaching catastrophe; but I was Cassandra. Our affairs in the new world have a much more pleasing aspect; Guadaloupe is a great acquisition, and Quebec, which I make no doubt of, will still be greater. But must all these advantages, purchased at the price of so much English blood and treasure, be at last sacrificed as a peace-offering? God knows what consequences such a measure may produce; the germ of discontent is already great, upon the bare supposition of the case; but should it be realized, it will grow to a harvest of disaffection.
You are now, to be sure, taking the previous necessary measures for your return here in the autumn and I think you may disband your whole family, excepting your secretary, your butler, who takes care of your plate, wine, etc., one or at most two, maid servants, and your valet de chambre and one footman, whom you will bring over with you. But give no mortal, either there or here, reason to think that you are not to return to Hamburg again. If you are asked about it, say, like Lockhart, that you are 'le serviteur des Evenemens'; for your present appointments will do you no hurt here, till you have some better destination. At that season of the year, I believe it will be better for you to come by sea than by land, but that you will be best able to judge of from the then circumstances of your part in the world.
Your old friend Stevens is dead of the consumption that has long been undermining him. God bless you, and send you health.
[Another two year lapse in the letters. D.W.] LETTER CCXLVII
BATH, February 26, 1761.
MY DEAR FRIEND: I am very glad to hear that your election is finally settled, and to say the truth, not sorry that Mr.--has been compelled to do, 'de mauvaise grace', that which he might have done at first in a friendly and handsome manner. However, take no notice of what is passed, and live with him as you used to do before; for, in the intercourse of the world, it is often necessary to seem ignorant of what one knows, and to have forgotten what one remembers.
I have just now finished Coleman's play, and like it very well; it is well conducted, and the characters are well preserved. I own, I expected from the author more dialogue wit; but, as I know that he is a most scrupulous classic, I believe he did not dare to put in half so much wit as he could have done, because Terence had not a single grain; and it would have been 'crimen laesae antiquitatis'. God bless you!
LETTER CCXLVIII
BATH, November 21, 1761.
MY DEAR FRIEND: I have this moment received your letter of the 19th. If I find any alterations by drinking these waters, now six days, it is rather for the better; but, in six days more, I think I shall find with more certainty what humor they are in with me; if kind, I will profit of, but not abuse their kindness; all things have their bounds, 'quos ultra citrave nequit consistere rectum'; and I will endeavor to nick that point.
The Queen's jointure is larger than, from SOME REASONS, I expected it would be, though not greater than the very last precedent authorized. The case of the late Lord Wilmington was, I fancy, remembered.
I have now good reason to believe that Spain will declare war to us, that is, that it will very soon, if it has not already, avowedly assist France, in case the war continues. This will be a great triumph to Mr. Pitt, and fully justify his plan of beginning with Spain first, and having the first blow, which is often half the battle.
Here is a great deal of company, and what is commonly called good company, that is, great quality. I trouble them very little, except at the pump, where my business calls me; for what is company to a deaf man, or a deaf man to company?
Lady Brown, whom I have seen, and who, by the way, has got the gout in her eye, inquired very tenderly after you. And so I elegantly rest, Yours, till death.
LETTER CCXLIX
BATH, December 6, 1761.
MY DEAR FRIEND: I have been in your debt some time, which, you know, I am not very apt to be: but it was really for want of specie to pay. The present state of my invention does not enable me to coin; and you would have had as little pleasure in reading, as I should have in writing 'le coglionerie' of this place; besides, that I am very little mingled in them. I do not know whether I shall be able to follow, your advice, and cut a winner; for, at present, I have neither won nor lost a single shilling. I will play on this week only; and if I have a good run, I will carry it off with me; if a bad one, the loss can hardly amount to anything considerable in seven days, for I hope to see you in town to-morrow sevennight.
I had a dismal letter from Harte, last week; he tells me that he is at nurse with a sister in Berkshire; that he has got
a confirmed jaundice, besides twenty other distempers. The true cause of these complaints I take to be the same that so greatly disordered, and had nearly destroyed the most august House of Austria, about one hundred and thirty years ago; I mean Gustavus Adolphus; who neither answered his expectations in point of profit nor reputation, and that merely by his own fault, in not writing it in the vulgar tongue; for as to facts I will maintain that it is one of the best histories extant.
'Au revoir', as Sir Fopling says, and God bless you!
LETTER CCL
BATH, November 2, 1762.
MY DEAR FRIEND: I arrived here, as I proposed, last Sunday; but as ill as I feared I should be when I saw you. Head, stomach, and limbs, all out of order.
I have yet seen nobody but Villettes, who is settled here for good, as it is called. What consequences has the Duke of Devonshire's resignation had? He has considerable connections and relations; but whether any of them are resigned enough to resign with him, is another matter. There will be, to be sure, as many, and as absurd reports, as there are in the law books; I do not desire to know either; but inform me of what facts come to your knowledge, and of such reports only as you believe are grounded. And so God bless you!
LETTER CCLI
BATH, November 13, 1762.
MY DEAR FRIEND: I have received your letter, and believe that your preliminaries are very near the mark; and, upon that supposition, I think we have made a tolerable good bargain with Spain; at least full as good as I expected, and almost as good as I wished, though I do not believe that we have got ALL Florida; but if we have St. Augustin, I suppose that, by the figure of 'pars pro toto', will be called all Florida. We have by no means made so good a bargain with France; for, in truth, what do we get by it, except Canada, with a very proper boundary of the river Mississippi! and that is all. As for the restrictions upon the French fishery in Newfoundland, they are very well 'per la predica', and for the Commissary whom we shall employ: for he will have a good salary from hence, to see that those restrictions are complied with; and the French will double that salary, that he may allow them all to be broken through. It is plain to me, that the French fishery will be exactly what it was before the war.
The three Leeward islands, which the French yield to us, are not, all together, worth half so much as that of St. Lucia, which we give up to them. Senegal is not worth one quarter of Goree. The restrictions of the French in the East Indies are as absurd and impracticable as those of Newfoundland; and you will live to see the French trade to the East Indies, just as they did before the war. But after all I have said, the articles are as good as I expected with France, when I considered that no one single person who carried on this negotiation on our parts was ever concerned or consulted in any negotiation before. Upon the whole, then, the acquisition of Canada has cost us fourscore millions sterling. I am convinced we might have kept Guadaloupe, if our negotiators had known how to have gone about it.
His most faithful Majesty of Portugal is the best off of anybody in this, transaction, for he saves his kingdom by it, and has not laid out one moidore in defense of it. Spain, thank God, in some measure, 'paye les pots cassis'; for, besides St. Augustin, logwood, etc., it has lost at least four millions sterling, in money, ships, etc.
Harte is here, who tells me he has been at this place these three years, excepting some few excursions to his sister; he looks ill, and laments that he has frequent fits of the yellow jaundice. He complains of his not having heard from you these four years; you should write to him. These waters have done me a great deal of good, though I drink but two-thirds of a pint in the whole day, which is less than the soberest of my countrymen drink of claret at every meal.
I should naturally think, as you do, that this session will be a stormy one, that is, if Mr. Pitt takes an active part; but if he is pleased, as the Ministers say, there is no other AEolus to blow a storm. The Dukes of Cumberland, Newcastle, and Devonshire, have no better troops to attack with than the militia; but Pitt alone is ipse agmen. God bless you!
LETTER CCLII
BATH, November 27, 1762.
MY DEAR FRIEND: I received your letter this morning, and return you the ball 'a la volee'. The King's speech is a very prudent one; and as I suppose that the addresses in answer to it were, as usual, in almost the same words, my Lord Mayor might very well call them innocent. As his Majesty expatiates so much upon the great ACHIEVEMENTS of the war, I cannot help hoping that, when the preliminaries shall be laid before Parliament IN DUE TIME, which, I suppose, means after the respective ratifications of all the contracting parties, that some untalked of and unexpected advantage will break out in our treaty with France; St. Lucia, at least. I see in the newspapers an article which I by no means like, in our treaty with Spain; which is, that we shall be at liberty to cut logwood in the Bay of Campeachy, BUT BY PAYING FOR IT. Who does not see that this condition may, and probably will, amount to a prohibition, by the price which the Spaniards may set it at? It was our undoubted right, and confirmed to us by former treaties, before the war, to cut logwood gratis; but this new stipulation (if true) gives us a privilege something like a reprieve to a criminal, with a 'non obstante' to be hanged.
I now drink so little water, that it can neither do me good nor hurt; but as I bathe but twice a-week, that operation, which does my rheumatic carcass good, will keep me here some time longer than you had allowed.
Harte is going to publish a new edition of his "Gustavus," in octavo; which, he tells me, he has altered, and which, I could tell him, he should translate into English, or it will not sell better than the former; for, while the world endures, style and manner will be regarded, at least as much as matter. And so, 'Diem vous aye dans sa sainte garde'!
LETTER CCLIII
BATH, December 13, 1762.
MY DEAR FRIEND: I received your letter this morning, with the inclosed preliminaries, which we have had here these three days; and I return them, since you intend to keep them, which is more than I believe the French will. I am very glad to find that the French are to restore all the conquests they made upon us in the East Indies during this war; and I cannot doubt but they will likewise restore to us all the cod that they shall take within less than three leagues of our coasts in North America (a distance easily measured, especially at sea), according to the spirit, though not the letter of the treaty. I am informed that the strong opposition to the peace will be in the House of Lords, though I cannot well conceive it; nor can I make out above six or seven, who will be against it upon a division, unless (which I cannot suppose) some of the Bishops should vote on the side of their maker. God bless you.
LETTER CCLIV
BATH, December 13, 1762.
MY DEAR FRIEND: Yesterday I received your letter, which gave me a very clear account of the debate in your House. It is impossible for a human creature to speak well for three hours and a half; I question even if Belial, who, according to Milton, was the orator of the fallen angels, ever spoke so long at a time.
There must have been, a trick in Charles Townshend's speaking for the Preliminaries; for he is infinitely above having an opinion. Lord Egremont must be ill, or have thoughts of going into some other place; perhaps into Lord Granville's, who they say is dying: when he dies, the ablest head in England dies too, take it for all in all.
I shall be in town, barring accidents, this day sevennight, by dinnertime; when I have ordered a haricot, to which you will be very welcome, about four o'clock. 'En attendant Dieu vous aye dans sa sainte garde'!
LETTER CCLV
BLACKHEATH, June 14, 1763
MY DEAR FRIEND: I received, by the last mail, your letter of the 4th, from The Hague; so far so good.
You arrived 'sonica' at The Hague, for our Ambassador's entertainment; I find he has been very civil to you. You are in the right to stop for two or three days at Hanau, and make your court to the lady of that place. -[Her Royal Highness Princess Mary of England, Landgravine of Hesse.] -Your Excellency makes a figure already in the newspapers; and let
them, and others, excellency you as much as they please, but pray suffer not your own servants to do it.
Nothing new of any kind has happened here since you went; so I will wish you a good-night, and hope God will bless you.
LETTER CCLVI
BLACKHEATH, July 14, 1763
MY DEAR FRIEND: Yesterday I received your letter from Ratisbon, where I am glad that you are arrived safe. You are, I find, over head and ears engaged in ceremony and etiquette. You must not yield in anything essential, where your public character may suffer; but I advise you, at the same time, to distinguish carefully what may, and what may not affect it, and to despise some German 'minutiae'; such as one step lower or higher upon the stairs, a bow more or less, and such sort of trifles.
By what I see in Cressener's letter to you, the cheapness of wine compensates the quantity, as the cheapness of servants compensates the number that you must make use of.
Write to your mother often, if it be but three words, to prove your existence; for, when she does not hear from you, she knows to a demonstration that you are dead, if not buried.
The inclosed is a letter of the utmost consequence, which I was desired to forward, with care and speed, to the most Serene LOUIS.
My head is not well to-day. So God bless you!
LETTER CCLVII
BLACKHEATH, August 1, 1763.
MY DEAR FRIEND: I hope that by this time you are pretty well settled at Ratisbon, at least as to the important points of the ceremonial; so that you may know, to precision, to whom you must give, and from whom you must require the 'seine Excellentz'. Those formalities are, no doubt, ridiculous enough in themselves; but yet they are necessary for manners, and sometimes for business; and both would suffer by laying them quite aside.