Harte is here, who tells me he has been at this place these three years, excepting some few excursions to his sister; he looks ill, and laments that he has frequent fits of the yellow jaundice.  He complains of his not having heard from you these four years; you should write to him.  These waters have done me a great deal of good, though I drink but two-thirds of a pint in the whole day, which is less than the soberest of my countrymen drink of claret at every meal.

I should naturally think, as you do, that this session will be a stormy one, that is, if Mr. Pitt takes an active part; but if he is pleased, as the Ministers say, there is no other AEolus to blow a storm.  The Dukes of Cumberland, Newcastle, and Devonshire, have no better troops to attack with than the militia; but Pitt alone is ipse agmen.  God bless you!

LETTER CCLII

Bath, November 27, 1762.

My dear friend:  I received your letter this morning, and return you the ball ‘a la volee’.  The King’s speech is a very prudent one; and as I suppose that the addresses in answer to it were, as usual, in almost the same words, my Lord Mayor might very well call them innocent.  As his Majesty expatiates so much upon the great achievements of the war, I cannot help hoping that, when the preliminaries shall be laid before Parliament in due time, which, I suppose, means after the respective ratifications of all the contracting parties, that some untalked of and unexpected advantage will break out in our treaty with France; St. Lucia, at least.  I see in the newspapers an article which I by no means like, in our treaty with Spain; which is, that we shall be at liberty to cut logwood in the Bay of Campeachy, but by paying for it.  Who does not see that this condition may, and probably will, amount to a prohibition, by the price which the Spaniards may set it at?  It was our undoubted right, and confirmed to us by former treaties, before the war, to cut logwood gratis; but this new stipulation (if true) gives us a privilege something like a reprieve to a criminal, with a ‘non obstante’ to be hanged.

I now drink so little water, that it can neither do me good nor hurt; but as I bathe but twice a-week, that operation, which does my rheumatic carcass good, will keep me here some time longer than you had allowed.

Harte is going to publish a new edition of his “Gustavus,” in octavo; which, he tells me, he has altered, and which, I could tell him, he should translate into English, or it will not sell better than the former; for, while the world endures, style and manner will be regarded, at least as much as matter.  And so, ‘Diem vous aye dans sa sainte garde’!

LETTER CCLIII

Bath, December 13, 1762.