My charming niece is breeding—­you see I did not make my lord Waldegrave an useless present.  Adieu! my dear Sir.

(1073) The King’s second son, Don Philip, set aside for being in a state of incurable idiotcy.-E.

514 Letter 338 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.  Strawberry Hill, Oct. 18, 1759.

I intended my visit to Park-place to show my lady Ailesbury that when I come hither it is not solely on your account, and yet I will not quarrel with my journey thither if I should find you there; but seriously I cannot help begging you to think whether you will go thither or not, just now.  My first thought about you has ever been what was proper for you to do; and though you are the man in the world that think of that the most yourself, yet you know I have twenty scruples, which even you sometimes laugh at.  I will tell them to You, and then you will judge, as you can best.  Sir Edward Hawke and his fleet is dispersed, at least driven back to Plymouth:  the French, if one may believe that they have broken a regiment for mutinying against embarking, were actually embarked at that instant.  The most sensible people I know, always thought they would postpone their invasion, if ever they intended it, till our great ships could not keep the sea, or were eaten up by the scurvy.  Their ports are now free; their situation is desperate:  the new account of our taking Quebec leaves them in the most deplorable condition; they will be less able than ever to raise money, we have got ours for next year; and this event would facilitate it, if we had not:  they must try for a
          peace, they have nothing to go to market with but
Minorca.  In short, if they cannot strike some desperate blow in this island or Ireland, they are undone:  the loss of twenty thousand men to do us some mischief, would be cheap.  I should even think Madame Pompadour in danger of being torn to pieces, if they did not make some attempt.  Madame Maintenon, not half so unpopular, mentions in one of her letters her unwillingness to trust her niece Mademoiselle
            Aumale on the road, for fear of some such
accident.  You will smile perhaps at all this reasoning and pedantry; but it tends to this—­if desperation should send the French somewhere, and the wind should force them to your coast, which I do not suppose their object, and you should be out of the way, you know what your enemies would say; and strange as it is, even you have been proved to have enemies. 
    My dear Sir, think of this!  Wolfe, as I am convinced, has
fallen a sacrifice to his rash blame of you.  If I understand any thing in the
    world, his letter that came on Sunday said this:  “Qu`ebec
is impregnable; it is flinging away the lives of brave men to attempt it.  I am in the situation of Conway at Rochefort; but having blamed him, I must do what I now see he was in the right