If Prince Ferdinand had studied how to please me, I don’t know any method he could have lighted upon so likely to gain my heart, as being beaten out of the field before you joined him.  I delight in a hero that is driven so far that nobody can follow him.  He is as well at Paderborn, as where I have long wished the King of Prussia, the other world.  You may frown if you please at my imprudence, you who are gone with all the disposition in the world to be well with your commander; the peace is in a manner made, and the anger of generals will not be worth sixpence these ten years.  We peaceable folks are now to govern the world, and you warriors must in your turn tremble at our Subjects the mob, as we have done before your hussars and court-martials.

I am glad you had so pleasant a passage.(145) My Lord Lyttelton would say, that Lady Mary Coke, like Venus, smiled over the waves, et mare prestabat eunti. in truth, when she could tame me, she must have had little trouble with the ocean.  Tell me how many burgomasters she has subdued, or how many would have fallen in love with her if they had not fallen asleep!  Come, has she saved two-pence by her charms?  Have they abated a farthing of their impositions for her being handsomer than any thing in the seven provinces?  Does she know how political her journey is thought?  Nay, my Lady Ailesbury, you are not out of the scrape; you are both reckoned des Mar`echale de Guebriant,(146) going to fetch, and consequently govern the young queen.  There are more jealousies about your voyage, than the Duke of Newcastle would feel if Dr. Shaw had prescribed a little ipecacuanha to my Lord Bute.

I am sorry I must adjourn my mirth, to give Lady Ailesbury a pang; poor Sir Harry Bellendine(147) is dead; he made a great dinner at Almac’s for the House of Drummond, drank very hard, caught a violent fever, and died in a very few days.  Perhaps you will have heard this before; I shall wish so; I do not like, even innocently, to be the cause of sorrow.

I do not at all lament Lord Granby’s leaving the army, and your immediate succession.  There are persons in the world who would gladly ease you of this burden.  As you are only to take the vice-royalty of a coop, and that for a few weeks, I shall but smile if you are terribly distressed.  Don’t let Lady Ailesbury proceed to Brunswick:  you might have had a wife who would not have thought it so terrible to fall into the hands [arms] of hussars; but as I don’t take that to be your Countess’s turn, leave her with the Dutch, who are not so boisterous as Cossacks or chancellors of the exchequer.

My love, my duty, my jealousy, to Lady Mary, if she is not sailed before you receive this—­if she is, I shall deliver them myself Good night!  I write immediately on the receipt of your letter, but you see I have nothing yet new to tell you.

(145) From Harwich to Holvoetsluys.

(146) The Mar`echale de Gu`ebriant was sent to the King of Poland with the character of ambassadress by Louis Xiii. to accompany the Princess Marie de Gonzague, who had been married by proxy to the King of Poland at Paris.