LETTER CCXIX

London, March 22, 1758

My dear friend:  I have now your letter of the 8th lying before me, with the favorable account of our progress in Lower Saxony, and reasonable prospect of more decisive success.  I confess I did not expect this, when my friend Munchausen took his leave of me, to go to Stade, and break the neutrality; I thought it at least a dangerous, but rather a desperate undertaking; whereas, hitherto, it has proved a very fortunate one.  I look upon the French army as ‘fondue’; and, what with desertion, deaths, and epidemical distempers, I dare say not a third of it will ever return to France.  The great object is now, what the Russians can or will do; and whether the King of Prussia can hinder their junction with the Austrians, by beating either, before they join.  I will trust him for doing all that can be done.

Sir C. W. is still in confinement, and, I fear, will always be so, for he seems ‘cum ratione insanire’; the physicians have collected all he has said and done that indicated an alienation of mind, and have laid it before him in writing; he has answered it in writing too, and justifies himself in the most plausible arguments than can possibly be urged.  He tells his brother, and the few who are allowed to see him, that they are such narrow and contracted minds themselves, that they take those for mad who have a great and generous way of thinking; as, for instance, when he determined to send his daughter over to you in a fortnight, to be married, without any previous agreement or settlements, it was because he had long known you, and loved you as a man of sense and honor; and therefore would not treat with you as with an attorney.  That as for Mademoiselle John, he knew her merit and her circumstances; and asks, whether it is a sign of madness to have a due regard for the one, and a just compassion for the other.  I will not tire you with enumerating any more instances of the poor man’s frenzy; but conclude this subject with pitying him, and poor human nature, which holds its reason by so precarious a tenure.  The lady, who you tell me is set out, ’en sera pour la seine et les fraix du voyage’, for her note is worth no more than her contract.  By the way, she must be a kind of ‘aventuriere’, to engage so easily in such an adventure with a man whom she had not known above a week, and whose ‘debut’ of 10,000 roubles showed him not to be in his right senses.

You will probably have seen General Yorke, by this time, in his way to Berlin or Breslau, or wherever the King of Prussia may be.  As he keeps his commission to the States General, I presume he is not to stay long with his Prussian Majesty; but, however, while he is there, take care to write to him very constantly, and to give all the information you can.  His father, Lord Hardwicke, is your great puff:  he commends your office letters, exceedingly.  I would have the Berlin commission your object, in good time; never lose view of it.  Do all you can to recommend yourself to the King of Prussia on your side of the water, and to smooth your way for that commission on this; by the turn which things have taken of late, it must always be the most important of all foreign commissions from hence.