The regulations of trade and commerce in France are excellent, as appears but too plainly for us, by the great increase of both, within these thirty years; for not to mention their extensive commerce in both the East and West Indies, they have got the whole trade of the Levant from us; and now supply all the foreign markets with their sugars, to the ruin almost of our sugar colonies, as Jamaica, Barbadoes, and the Leeward Islands.  Get, therefore, what informations you can of these matters also.

Inquire too into their church matters; for which the present disputes between the court and the clergy give you fair and frequent opportunities.  Know the particular rights of the Gallican church, in opposition to the pretensions of the See of Rome.  I need not recommend ecclesiastical history to you, since I hear that you study ‘Du Pin’ very assiduously.

You cannot imagine how much this solid and useful knowledge of other countries will distinguish you in your own (where, to say the truth, it is very little known or cultivated), besides the great use it is of in all foreign negotiations; not to mention that it enables a man to shine in all companies.  When kings and princes have any knowledge, it is of this sort, and more particularly; and therefore it is the usual topic of their levee conversations, in which it will qualify you to bear a considerable part; it brings you more acquainted with them; and they are pleased to have people talk to them on a subject in which they think to shine.

There is a sort of chit-chat, or small talk, which is the general run of conversation at courts, and in most mixed companies.  It is a sort of middling conversation, neither silly nor edifying; but, however, very necessary for you to become master of.  It turns upon the public events of Europe, and then is at its best; very often upon the number, the goodness or badness, the discipline, or the clothing of the troops of different princes; sometimes upon the families, the marriages, the relations of princes, and considerable people; and sometimes ‘sur le bon chere’, the magnificence of public entertainments, balls, masquerades, etc.  I would wish you to be able to talk upon all these things better, and with more knowledge than other people; insomuch that upon those occasions, you should be applied to, and that people should say, I dare say Mr. Stanhope can tell us.

Second-rate knowledge and middling talents carry a man further at courts, and in the busy part of the world, than superior knowledge and shining parts.  Tacitus very justly accounts for a man’s having always kept in favor and enjoyed the best employments under the tyrannical reigns of three or four of the very worst emperors, by saying that it was not ‘propter aliquam eximiam artem, sed quia par negotiis neque supra erat’.  Discretion is the great article; all these things are to be learned, and only learned by keeping a great deal of the best company.  Frequent those good houses where you have already a footing, and wriggle yourself somehow or other into every other.  Haunt the courts particularly in order to get that routine.