341.  To the Earl of Strafford, Oct. 30.-Quebec.-518

342.  To the Right Hon. Lady Hervey, Nov. 3.-Poor Robin’s Almanac.  High Life below Stairs.-519

343.  To George Montagu, Esq.  Nov. 8.-French bankruptcy.  Mrs. Montagu and Lord Lyttelton.-519

344.  To Sir Horace Mann, Nov. 16.-Lord George Sackville.  Lord Temple’s resignation of the privy-seal on being refused the Garter.-521

Correspondence of the Honourable Horace Walpole

1749

13 Letter 1
To Sir Horace Mann. 
Strawberry Hill, March 4, 1749.

I have been so shut up in the House of Commons for this last fortnight or three weeks, that I have not had time to write you a line:  we have not had such a session since the famous beginning of last Parliament.  I am come hither for a day or two of rest and air, and find the additional pleasure of great beauty in my improvements:  I could talk to you through the whole sheet, and with much more satisfaction, upon this head; but I shall postpone my own amusement to yours, for I am sure you want much more to know what has been doing in Parliament than at Strawberry Hill.  You will conclude that we have been fighting over the peace; but we have not.  It is laid before Parliament, but will not be taken up; the Opposition foresee that a vote of approbation would pass, and therefore will not begin upon it, as they wish to reserve it for censure in the next reign—­or perhaps the next reign does not care to censure now what he must hereafter maintain—­and the ministry do not seem to think their treaty so perfect as not to be liable to blame, should it come to be canvassed.  We have been then upon several other matters:  but first I should tell you, that from the utmost tranquillity and impotence of a minority, there is at once started up so formidable an Opposition as to divide 137 against 203.(1) The minority is headed by the Prince, who has continued opposing, though very unsuccessfully, ever since the removal of Lord Granville, and the desertion of the patriots.  He stayed till the Pelhams had brought off every man of parts in his train, and then began to form his party.  Lord Granville has never come into it., for fear of breaking with the King; and seems now to be patching up again with his old enemies.  If Lord Bath has dealt with the Prince, it has been underhand.  His ministry has had at the head of it poor Lord Baltimore, a very good-natured, weak, honest man; and Dr. Lee, a civilian, who was of Lord Granville’s admiralty, and is still much attached to him.  He is a grave man, and a good speaker, but of no very bright parts, and, from his way of life and profession, much ignorant of, and unfit for, a ministry.  You will wonder what new resources the Prince has discovered-why, he has found them all in Lord Egmont, whom you have heard of under the name of Lord Perceval; but his father, an Irish Earl, is lately dead.  As he is likely to make a very considerable figure in our