Fanny Burney’s brother is promoted.

(Fanny Burney to Mrs. Thrale.)
Chesington, Nov. 4.

I had no other adventure in London, but a most delightful incident has happened since I came hither.  We had just done tea on Friday, and Mrs. Hamilton, Kitty, Jem, and Mr. Crisp, were sitting down to cards, when we were surprised by an express from London, and it brought a “Whereas we think fit” from the Admiralty, to appoint Captain Burney to the command of the “Latona,” during the absence of the Honourable Captain Conway.  This is one of the best frigates in the navy, of thirty-eight guns, and immediately, I believe, ready for service.  Jem was almost frantic with ecstacy of joy:  he sang, laughed, drank to his own success, and danced about the room with Miss Kitty till He put her quite out of breath.  His hope is to get out immediately, and have a brush with some of the Dons, Monsieurs, or Mynheers, while he is in possession of a ship of sufficient force to attack any frigate he may meet.

[Mrs. Thrale wrote to Fanny from Streatham, Dec. 22:—­) I have picked up something to please you; Dr. Johnson pronounced an actual eulogium upon Captain Burney, to his yesterday’s listeners—­how amiable he was, and how gentle in his manner, etc., tho’ he had lived so many years with sailors and savages.

The death of Mr. Thrale.

(Fanny Burney to Mrs. Thrale(135)) m Wednesday Evening, April 4, 1781

You bid me write to you, and so I will; you bid me pray for you, and so, indeed, I do, for the restoration of your sweet

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peace of mind.  I pray for your resignation to this hard blow, for the continued union and exertion of your virtues with your talents, and for the happiest reward their exertion can meet with, in the gratitude and prosperity of your children.  These are my prayers for my beloved Mrs. Thrale; but these are not my only ones; no, the unfailing warmth of her kindness for myself I have rarely, for a long time past, slept without first petitioning.

I ran away without seeing you again when I found you repented that sweet compliance with my request which I had won from you.  For the world would I not have pursued you, had I first seen your prohibition, nor could I endure to owe that consent to teasing which I only solicited from tenderness.  Still, however, I think you had better have suffered me to follow you; I might have been of some use; I hardly could have been in your way.  But I grieve now to have forced you to an interview which I would have spared myself as well as you, had I foreseen how little it would have answered my purpose.

Yet though I cannot help feeling disappointed, I am not surprised; for in any case at all similar, I am sure I should have the same eagerness for solitude.