the maintenance of their prisoners.  Our request, to have the Comte d’Estaing recalled and censured, they have absolutely rejected, though, by the laws of war, he might be hanged for having twice broke his parole.  This does not do France honor:  however, I think we shall be quiet, and that at the only time, perhaps this century, when we might, with safety, be otherwise:  but this is nothing new, nor the first time, by many, when national honor and interest have been sacrificed to private.  It has always been so:  and one may say, upon this occasion, what Horace says upon another, ’Nam fuit ante Helenam’.

I have seen ‘les Contes de Guillaume Vade’, and like most of them so little, that I can hardly think them Voltaire’s, but rather the scraps that have fallen from his table, and been worked up by inferior workmen, under his name.  I have not seen the other book you mention, the ‘Dictionnaire Portatif’.  It is not yet come over.

I shall next week go to take my winter quarters in London, the weather here being very cold and damp, and not proper for an old, shattered, and cold carcass, like mine.  In November I will go to the Bath, to careen myself for the winter, and to shift the scene.  Good-night.

LETTER CCLXXII

London, October 19, 1764.

My dear friend:  Yesterday morning Mr.-----came to me, from Lord Halifax,
to ask me whether I thought you would approve of vacating your seat in
parliament, during the remainder of it, upon a valuable consideration,
meaning money.  My answer was, that I really did not know your disposition
upon that subject:  but that I knew you would be very willing, in general,
to accommodate them, so far as lay in your power:  that your election, to
my knowledge, had cost you two thousand pounds; that this parliament had
not sat above half its time; and that, for my part, I approved of the
measure well enough, provided you had an equitable equivalent.  I take it
for granted that you will have a letter from------, by this post, to that
effect, so that you must consider what you will do.  What I advise is
this:  Give them a good deal of ‘Galbanum’ in the first part of your
letter.  ‘Le Galbanum ne coute rien’; and then say that you are willing to
do as they please; but that you hope an equitable consideration will be
had to the two thousand pounds, which your seat cost you in the present
parliament, of which not above half the term is expired.  Moreover, that
you take the liberty to remind them, that your being sent from Ratisbon,
last session, when you were just settled there, put you to the expense of
three or four hundred pounds, for which you were allowed nothing; and
that, therefore, you hope they will not think one thousand pounds too
much, considering all these circumstances:  but that, in all events, you
will do whatever they desire.  Upon the whole, I think this proposal
advantageous to you, as you probably will not make use of your seat this
parliament; and, further, as it will secure you from another unpaid
journey from Dresden, in case they meet, or fear to meet, with
difficulties in any ensuing session of the present parliament.  Whatever
one must do, one should do ‘de bonne grace’.  ‘Dixi’.  God bless you!

LETTER CCLXXIII