LETTER CCLXIX

Blackheath, September 3, 1764.

Dear friend:  I have received your letter of the 13th past.  I see that your complete arrangement approaches, and you need not be in a hurry to give entertainments, since so few others do.

Comte Flemming is the man in the world the best calculated to retrieve the Saxon finances, which have been all this century squandered and lavished with the most absurd profusion:  he has certainly abilities, and I believe integrity; I dare answer for him, that the gentleness and flexibility of his temper will not prevail with him to yield to the importunities of craving and petulant applications.  I see in him another Sully; and therefore I wish he were at the head of our finances.

France and Spain both insult us, and we take it too tamely; for this is, in my opinion, the time for us to talk high to them.  France, I am persuaded, will not quarrel with us till it has got a navy at least equal to ours, which cannot be these three or four years at soonest; and then, indeed, I believe we shall hear of something or other; therefore, this is the moment for us to speak loud; and we shall be feared, if we do not show that we fear.

Here is no domestic news of changes and chances in the political world; which, like oysters, are only in season in the R months, when the parliament sits.  I think there will be some then, but of what kind, God knows.

I have received a book for you, and one for myself, from Harte.  It is upon agriculture, and will surprise you, as I confess it did me.  This work is not only in English, but good and elegant English; he has even scattered graces upon his subject; and in prose, has come very near Virgil’s “Georgics” in verse.  I have written to him, to congratulate his happy transformation.  As soon as I can find an opportunity, I will send you your copy.  You (though no Agricola) will read it with pleasure.

I know Mackenzie, whom you mention.  ‘C’est une delie; sed cave’.

Make mine and Lady Chesterfield’s compliments to Comte et Comtesse Flemming; and so, ‘Dieu vous aye en sa sainte garde’!

LETTER CCLXX

Blackheath, September 14, 1764

My dear friend:  Yesterday I received your letter of the 30th past, by which I find that you had not then got mine, which I sent you the day after I had received your former; you have had no great loss of it; for, as I told you in my last, this inactive season of the year supplies no materials for a letter; the winter may, and probably will, produce an abundant crop, but of what grain I neither know, guess, nor care.  I take it for granted, that Lord B------’surnagera encore’, but by the assistance of what bladders or cork-waistcoats God only knows.  The death of poor Mr. Legge, the epileptic fits of the Duke of Devonshire, for which he is gone to Aix-la-Chapelle, and the advanced age of the Duke of Newcastle, seem to facilitate an accommodation, if Mr. Pitt and Lord Bute are inclined to it.