I have had some severe returns of my old complaints last week, and am still unwell; I cannot help it.

A friend of yours arrived here three days ago; she seems to me to be a serviceable strong-bodied bay mare, with black mane and tail; you easily guess who I mean.  She is come with mamma, and without ‘caro sposo’.

Adieu! my head will not let me go on longer.

LETTER CCXV

Bath, December 31, 1757

My dear friend:  I have this moment received your letter of the 18th, with the inclosed papers.  I cannot help observing that, till then, you never acknowledged the receipt of any one of my letters.

I can easily conceive that party spirit, among your brother ministers at Hamburg, runs as high as you represent it, because I can easily believe the errors of the human mind; but at the same time I must observe, that such a spirit is the spirit of little minds and subaltern ministers, who think to atone by zeal for their want of merit and importance.  The political differences of the several courts should never influence the personal behavior of their several ministers toward one another.  There is a certain ‘procede noble et galant’, which should always be observed among the ministers of powers even at war with each other, which will always turn out to the advantage of the ablest, who will in those conversations find, or make, opportunities of throwing out, or of receiving useful hints.  When I was last at The Hague, we were at war with both France and Spain; so that I could neither visit, nor be visited by, the Ministers of those two Crowns; but we met every day, or dined at third places, where we embraced as personal friends, and trifled, at the same time, upon our being political enemies; and by this sort of badinage I discovered some things which I wanted to know.  There is not a more prudent maxim than to live with one’s enemies as if they may one day become one’s friends; as it commonly happens, sooner or later, in the vicissitudes of political affairs.

To your question, which is a rational and prudent one, Whether I was authorized to give you the hints concerning Russia by any people in power here, I will tell you that I was not:  but, as I had pressed them to try what might be done with Russia, and got Mr. Keith to be dispatched there some months sooner than otherwise, I dare say he would, with the proper instructions for that purpose.  I wished that, by the hints I gave you, you might have got the start of him, and the merit, at least, of having ‘entame’ that matter with Soltikow.  What you have to do with him now, when you meet with him at any third place, or at his own house (where you are at liberty to go, while Russia has a Minister in London, and we a Minister at Petersburg), is, in my opinion, to say to him, in an easy cheerful manner, ’He bien, Monsieur, je me flatte que nous serons bientot amis