When I know more you shall.

LETTER CCCVI

London, January 29, 1768.

My dear friend:  Two days ago I received your letter of the 8th.  I wish you had gone a month or six weeks sooner to Basle, that you might have escaped the excessive cold of the most severe winter that I believe was ever known.  It congealed both my body and my mind, and scarcely left me the power of thinking.  A great many here, both in town and country, have perished by the frost, and been lost in the snow.

You have heard, no doubt, of the changes at Court, by which you have got a new provincial, Lord Weymouth; who has certainly good parts, and, as I am informed, speaks very well in the House of Lords; but I believe he has no application.  Lord Chatham is at his house at Hayes; but sees no mortal.  Some say that he has a fit of the gout, which would probably do him good; but many think that his worst complaint is in his head, which I am afraid is too true.  Were he well, I am sure he would realize the promise he made me concerning you; but, however, in that uncertainty, I am looking out for any chance borough; and if I can find one, I promise you I will bid like a chapman for it, as I should be very sorry that you were not in the next parliament.  I do not see any probability of any vacancy in a foreign commission in a better climate; Mr. Hamilton at Naples, Sir Horace Mann at Florence, and George Pitt at Turin, do not seem likely to make one.  And as for changing your foreign department for a domestic one, it would not be in my power to procure you one; and you would become ‘d’eveque munier’, and gain nothing in point of climate, by changing a bad one for another full as bad, if not worse; and a worse I believe is not than ours.  I have always had better health abroad than at home; and if the tattered remnant of my wretched life were worth my care, I would have been in the south of France long ago.  I continue very lame and weak, and despair of ever recovering any strength in my legs.  I care very little about it.  At my age every man must have his share of physical ills of one kind or another; and mine, thank God, are not very painful.  God bless you!

LETTER CCCVII

London, March 12, 1768.

My dear friend:  The day after I received your letter of the 21st past, I wrote to Lord Weymouth, as you desired; and I send you his answer inclosed, from which (though I have not heard from him since) I take it for granted, and so may you, that his silence signifies his Majesty’s consent to your request.  Your complicated complaints give me great uneasiness, and the more, as I am convinced that the Montpellier physicians have mistaken a material part of your case; as indeed all the physicians here did, except Dr. Maty.  In my opinion, you have no gout, but a very scorbutic and rheumatic habit