I am glad you have received my letter of the Ides of July.

LETTER CCXXX

Blackheath, September 8, 1758.

My dear friend:  This letter shall be short, being only an explanatory note upon my last; for I am not learned enough, nor yet dull enough, to make my comment much longer than my text.  I told you then, in my former letter, that, with your leave (which I will suppose granted), I would add fifty pounds to your draught for that sum; now, lest you should misunderstand this, and wait for the remittance of that additional fifty from hence, know then my meaning was, that you should likewise draw upon me for it when you please; which I presume, will be more convenient to you.

Let the pedants, whose business it is to believe lies, or the poets, whose trade it is to invent them, match the King of Prussia With a hero in ancient or modern story, if they can.  He disgraces history, and makes one give some credit to romances.  Calprenede’s Juba does not now seem so absurd as formerly.

I have been extremely ill this whole summer; but am now something better.  However, I perceive, ‘que l’esprit et le corps baissent’; the former is the last thing that anybody will tell me; or own when I tell it them; but I know it is true.  Adieu.

LETTER CCXXXI

Blackheath, September 22, 1758

My dear friend:  I have received no letter from you since you left Hamburg; I presume that you are perfectly recovered, but it might not have been improper to have told me so.  I am very far from being recovered; on the contrary, I am worse and worse, weaker and weaker every day; for which reason I shall leave this place next Monday, and set out for Bath a few days afterward.  I should not take all this trouble merely to prolong the fag end of a life, from which I can expect no pleasure, and others no utility; but the cure, or at least the mitigation, of those physical ills which make that life a load while it does last, is worth any trouble and attention.

We are come off but scurvily from our second attempt upon St. Malo; it is our last for this season; and, in my mind, should be our last forever, unless we were to send so great a sea and land force as to give us a moral certainty of taking some place of great importance, such as Brest, Rochefort, or Toulon.

Monsieur Munchausen embarked yesterday, as he said, for Prince Ferdinand’s army; but as it is not generally thought that his military skill can be of any great use to that prince, people conjecture that his business must be of a very different nature, and suspect separate negotiations, neutralities, and what not.  Kniphausen does not relish it in the least, and is by no means satisfied with the reasons that have been given him for it.  Before he can arrive there, I reckon that something decisive will have