will support them against all attacks.  You may remember, I said at first, that the popularity would soon be on the side of those who opposed the popular Militia Bill; and now it appears so with a vengeance, in almost every county in England, by the tumults and insurrections of the people, who swear that they will not be enlisted.  That silly scheme must therefore be dropped, as quietly as may be.  Now that I have told you all that I know, and almost all that I think, I wish you a good supper and a good-night.

LETTER CCVIII

Blackheath, September 30, 1757

My dear friend:  I have so little to do, that I am surprised how I can find time to write to you so often.  Do not stare at the seeming paradox; for it is an undoubted truth, that the less one has to do, the less time one finds to do it in.  One yawns, one procrastinates, one can do it when one will, and therefore one seldom does it at all; whereas those who have a great deal of business, must (to use a vulgar expression) buckle to it; and then they always find time enough to do it in.  I hope your own experience has by this time convinced you of this truth.

I received your last of the 8th.  It is now quite over with a very great man, who will still be a very great man, though a very unfortunate one.  He has qualities of the mind that put him above the reach of these misfortunes; and if reduced, as perhaps he may, to the ‘marche’ of Brandenburg, he will always find in himself the comfort, and with all the world the credit, of a philosopher, a legislator, a patron, and a professor of arts and sciences.  He will only lose the fame of a conqueror; a cruel fame, that arises from the destruction of the human species.  Could it be any satisfaction to him to know, I could tell him, that he is at this time the most popular man in this kingdom; the whole nation being enraged at that neutrality which hastens and completes his ruin.  Between you and me, the King was not less enraged at it himself, when he saw the terms of it; and it affected his health more than all that had happened before.  Indeed it seems to me a voluntary concession of the very worst that could have happened in the worst event.  We now begin to think that our great and secret expedition is intended for Martinico and St. Domingo; if that be true, and we succeed in the attempt, we shall recover, and the French lose, one of the most valuable branches of commerce—­I mean sugar.  The French now supply all the foreign markets in Europe with that commodity; we only supply ourselves with it.  This would make us some amends for our ill luck, or ill conduct in North America; where Lord Loudon, with twelve thousand men, thought himself no match for the French with but seven; and Admiral Holborne, with seventeen ships of the line, declined attacking the French, because they had eighteen, and a greater weight of Metal, according to the new sea-phrase, which