the long-coveted port of Dantzic and a long district on the shore of the Baltic to Prussia, and such extensive provinces adjoining Russia to Catharine, that all that was left to the Polish sovereign was a small territory with a population that hardly amounted to four millions of subjects.  The partition excited great indignation all over Europe, but in 1772 England was sufficiently occupied with the troubles beginning to arise in America, and France was still too completely under the profligate and imbecile rule of Louis XV. and Mme. du Barri, and too much weakened by her disasters in the Seven Years’ War, for any manly counsels or indication of justice and humanity to be expected from that country.]

[Footnote 2:  Grotius (a Latinised form of Groot) was an eminent statesman and jurist of Holland at the beginning of the seventeenth century.  He was a voluminous author; his most celebrated works being a treatise, “De jure belli et pacis,” and another on the “Truth of the Christian Religion.”]

[Illustration:  VIEW OF GARDEN, STRAWBERRY HILL, FROM THE GREAT BED-CHAMBER.]

UNSUCCESSFUL CRUISE OF KEPPEL—­CHARACTER OF LORD CHATHAM.

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

STRAWBERRY HILL, Oct. 8, 1778.

As you are so earnest for news, I am concerned when I have not a paragraph to send you.  It looks as if distance augmented your apprehensions; for, I assure you, at home we have lost almost all curiosity.  Though the two fleets have been so long at sea, and though, before their last sortie, one heard nothing but What news of the fleets? of late there has been scarcely any inquiry; and so the French one is returned to Brest, and ours is coming home.  Admiral Keppel is very unlucky in having missed them, for they had not above twenty-five ships.  Letters from Paris say that their camps, too, are to break up at the end of this month:  but we do not intend to be the dupes of that finesse, if it is one, but shall remain on our guard.  One must hope that winter will produce some negotiation; and that, peace.  Indeed, as war is not declared, I conclude there is always some treating on the anvil; and, should it end well, at least this age will have made a step towards humanity, in omitting the ceremonial of proclamation, which seems to make it easier to cease being at war.  But I am rather making out a proxy for a letter than sending you news.  But, you see, even armies of hundred thousands in Germany can execute as little as we; and you must remember what the Grand Conde, or the great Prince of Orange—­I forget which—­said, that unmarried girls imagine husbands are always on duty, unmilitary men that soldiers are always fighting.  One of the Duke of Marlborough’s Generals dining with the Lord Mayor, an Alderman who sat next to him said, “Sir, yours must be a very laborious profession.”—­“No,” replied the General, “we fight about four hours in the morning, and two or three after dinner, and then we have all the rest of the day to ourselves.”