Now that you have (as I suppose) full leisure enough, I wish you would give yourself the trouble, or rather pleasure, to do what I hinted to you some time ago; that is, to write short memoirs of those affairs which have either gone through your hands, or that have come to your certain knowledge, from the inglorious battle of Hastenbeck, to the still more scandalous Treaty of Neutrality.  Connect, at least, if it be by ever so short notes, the pieces and letters which you must necessarily have in your hands, and throw in the authentic anecdotes that you have probably heard.  You will be glad when you have done it:  and the reviving past ideas, in some order and method, will be an infinite comfort to you hereafter.  I have a thousand times regretted not having done so; it is at present too late for me to begin; this is the right time for you, and your life is likely to be a busy one.  Would young men avail themselves of the advice and experience of their old friends, they would find the utility in their youth, and the comfort of it in their more advanced age; but they seldom consider that, and you, less than anybody I ever knew.  May you soon grow wiser!  Adieu.

LETTER CCXXV

Blackheath, June 30, 1758.

My dear friend:  This letter follows my last very close; but I received yours of the 15th in the short interval.  You did very well not to buy any Rhenish, at the exorbitant price you mention, without further directions; for both my brother and I think the money better than the wine, be the wine ever so good.  We will content our selves with our stock in hand of humble Rhenish, of about three shillings a-bottle.  However, ’pour la rarity du fait, I will lay out twelve ducats’, for twelve bottles of the wine of 1665, by way of an eventual cordial, if you can obtain a ’senatus consultum’ for it.  I am in no hurry for it, so send it me only when you can conveniently; well packed up ‘s’entend’.

You will, I dare say, have leave to go to Cassel; and if you do go, you will perhaps think it reasonable, that I, who was the adviser of the journey, should pay the expense of it.  I think so too; and therefore, if you go, I will remit the L100 which you have calculated it at.  You will find the House of Cassel the house of gladness; for Hanau is already, or must be soon, delivered of its French guests.

The Prince of Brunswick’s victory is, by all the skillful, thought a ‘chef d’oeuvre’, worthy of Turenne, Conde, or the most illustrious human butchers.  The French behaved better than at Rosbach, especially the Carabiniers Royaux, who could not be ‘entames’.  I wish the siege of Olmutz well over, and a victory after it; and that, with good news from America, which I think there is no reason to doubt of, must procure us a good peace at the end of the year.  The Prince of Prussia’s death is no public misfortune:  there was a jealousy and alienation between the King and him, which could never have been made up between the possessor of the crown and the next heir to it.  He will make something of his nephew, ‘s’il est du bois don’t on en fait’.  He is young enough to forgive, and to be forgiven, the possession and the expectative, at least for some years.