I am now settled at Blackheath for the summer; where unseasonable frost and snow, and hot and parching east winds, have destroyed all my fruit, and almost my fruit-trees.  I vegetate myself little better than they do; I crawl about on foot and on horseback; read a great deal, and write a little; and am very much yours.

LETTER CCXXII

Blackheath, May 30, 1758.

My dear friend:  I have no letter from you to answer, so this goes to you unprovoked.  But ‘a propos’ of letters; you have had great honor done you, in a letter from a fair and royal hand, no less than that of her Royal Highness the Princess of Cassel; she has written your panegyric to her sister, Princess Amelia, who sent me a compliment upon it.  This has likewise done you no harm with the King, who said gracious things upon that occasion.  I suppose you had for her Royal Highness those attentions which I wish to God you would have, in due proportions, for everybody.  You see, by this instance, the effects of them; they are always repaid with interest.  I am more confirmed by this in thinking, that, if you can conveniently, you should ask leave to go for a week to Cassel, to return your thanks for all favors received.

I cannot expound to myself the conduct of the Russians.  There must be a trick in their not marching with more expedition.  They have either had a sop from the King of Prussia, or they want an animating dram from France and Austria.  The King of Prussia’s conduct always explains itself by the events; and, within a very few days, we must certainly hear of some very great stroke from that quarter.  I think I never in my life remember a period of time so big with great events as the present:  within two months the fate of the House of Austria will probably be decided:  within the same space of time, we shall certainly hear of the taking of Cape Breton, and of our army’s proceeding to Quebec within a few days we shall know the good or ill success of our great expedition; for it is sailed; and it cannot be long before we shall hear something of the Prince of Brunswick’s operations, from whom I also expect good things.  If all these things turn out, as there is good reason to believe they will, we may once, in our turn, dictate a reasonable peace to France, who now pays seventy per cent insurance upon its trade, and seven per cent for all the money raised for the service of the year.

Comte Bothmar has got the small-pox, and of a bad kind.  Kniphausen diverts himself much here; he sees all places and all people, and is ubiquity itself.  Mitchel, who was much threatened, stays at last at Berlin, at the earnest request of the King of Prussia.  Lady is safely delivered of a son, to the great joy of that noble family.  The expression, of a woman’s having brought her husband a son, seems to be a proper and cautious one; for it is never said from whence.