This is merely a letter about your commission, and I hope it will get to you with wondrous haste.  I have not lost a minute in trying to execute what you desire, but it is impossible to perform all that is required.  A watch, perfect by Ellicot or Gray, with all the accompaniments, cannot possibly be had for near seventy-five pounds.  Though the directions do not expressly limit me to seventy-five, yet I know Italians enough to be sure that when they name seventy-five, they would not bear a codicil of fifty-five more.  Ellicot (and Gray is rather dearer) would have for watch and chain a hundred and thirty-four guineas; the seals will cost sixteen more.  Two hundred and sixty-eight sequins are more than I dare lay out.  But I will tell you what I have done:  Deard, one of the first jewellers and toymen Here, has undertaken to make a watch and chain, enamelled according to a pattern I have chosen of the newest kind, for a hundred guineas; with two seals for sixteen more; and he has engaged that, if this is not approved, he will keep it himself; but to this I must have an immediate answer.  He will put his own name to it, as a warrant to the goodness of the work; and then, except the nine of Ellicot or Gray, your friend will have as good a watch as he can desire.  I take for granted, at farthest, that I can have an answer by the 15th of July; and then there will be time, I trust, to convey it to you; I suppose by sea, for unless a fortunate messenger should be going `a point nomm`e, you may imagine that a traveller would not arrive there in any time.  My dear Sir, you know how happy I am to do any thing you desire; and I shall pique myself on your credit in this, but your friend has expected what, altogether, it is almost impossible to perform—­what can be done, shall be.

There is not a syllable of news—­if there was, I should not confine myself solely to the commission.  Some of our captains in the East Indies have behaved very ill; if there is an invasion, which I don’t believe there will, I am glad they were not here.  Adieu!

494 Letter 319 To The Earl Of Strafford.  Strawberry Hill, June 12, 1759.

My dear lord, After so kind a note as you left for me at your going Out Of town, you cannot wonder that I was determined to thank you the moment I knew you settled in Yorkshire.  At least I am not ungrateful, if I deserve your goodness by no other title.  I was willing to stay till I could amuse you, but I have not a battle big enough even to send in a letter.  A war that reaches from Muscovy to Alsace, and from Madras to California, don’t produce an article half so long as Mr. Johnson’s riding three horses at Once.  The King of Prussia’s campaign is still. in its papillotes; Prince Ferdinand is laid up like the rest of the pensioners on Ireland; Guadaloupe has taken a sleeping-draught, and our heroes in America seem to be planting suckers of laurels that will not make any future these three years.  All the war