I easily conceive why Orloff influences the Empress of all the Russias; but I cannot see why the King of Prussia should be influenced by that motive.

LETTER CCC

Blackheath, July 2, 1767.

My Dear friend:  Though I have had no letter from you since my last, and though I have no political news to inform you of, I write this to acquaint you with a piece of Greenwich news, which I believe you will be very glad of; I am sure I am.  Know then that your friend Miss-----was happily married, three days ago, to Mr.-------, an Irish gentleman, and a member of that parliament, with an estate of above L2,000 a-year.  He settles upon her L600 jointure, and in case they have no children, L1,500.  He happened to be by chance in her company one day here, and was at once shot dead by her charms; but as dead men sometimes walk, he walked to her the next morning, and tendered her his person and his fortune; both which, taking the one with the other, she very prudently accepted, for his person is sixty years old.

Ministerial affairs are still in the same ridiculous and doubtful situation as when I wrote to you last.  Lord Chatham will neither hear of, nor do any business, but lives at Hampstead, and rides about the heath.  His gout is said to be fallen upon his nerves.  Your provincial secretary, Conway, quits this week, and returns to the army, for which he languished.  Two Lords are talked of to succeed him; Lord Egmont and Lord Hillsborough:  I rather hope the latter.  Lord Northington certainly quits this week; but nobody guesses who is to succeed him as President.  A thousand other changes are talked of, which I neither believe nor reject.

Poor Harte is in a most miserable condition:  He has lost one side of himself, and in a great measure his speech; notwithstanding which, he is going to publish his Divine poems, as he calls them.  I am sorry for it, as he had not time to correct them before this stroke, nor abilities to do it since.  God bless you!

LETTER CCCI

Blackheath, July 9, 1767.

My Dear friend:  I have received yours of the 21st past, with the inclosed proposal from the French ’refugies, for a subscription toward building them ‘un temple’.  I have shown it to the very few people I see, but without the least success.  They told me (and with too much truth) that while such numbers of poor were literally starving here from the dearness of all provisions, they could not think of sending their money into another country, for a building which they reckoned useless.  In truth, I never knew such misery as is here now; and it affects both the hearts and the purses of those who have either; for my own part, I never gave to a building in my life; which I reckon is only giving to masons and carpenters, and the treasurer of the undertaking.