Letters to His Son, 1756-58 [10]
I fear we must, or else raise twelve millions more next year, to as little purpose as we did this, and have consequently a worse peace afterward. I turn my eyes away, as much as I can, from this miserable prospect; but, as a citizen and member of society, it recurs to my imagination, notwithstanding all my endeavors to banish it from my thoughts. I can do myself nor my country no good; but I feel the wretched situation of both; the state of the latter makes me better bear that of the former; and, when I am called away from my station here, I shall think it rather (as Cicero says of Crassus) 'mors donata quam vita erepta'.
I have often desired, but in vain, the favor of being admitted into your private apartment at, Hamburg, and of being informed of your private life there. Your mornings, I hope and believe, are employed in business; but give me an account of the remainder of the day, which I suppose is, and ought to be, appropriated to amusements and pleasures. In what houses are you domestic? Who are so in yours? In short, let me in, and do not be denied to me.
Here I am, as usual, seeing few people, and hearing fewer; drinking the waters regularly to a minute, and am something the better for them. I read a great deal, and vary occasionally my dead company. I converse with grave folios in the morning, while my head is clearest and my attention strongest: I take up less severe quartos after dinner; and at night I choose the mixed company and amusing chit-chat of octavos and duodecimos. 'Ye tire parti de tout ce gue je puis'; that is my philosophy; and I mitigate, as much as I can, my physical ills by diverting my attention to other objects.
Here is a report that Admiral Holborne's fleet is destroyed, in a manner, by a storm: I hope it is not true, in the full extent of the report; but I believe it has suffered. This would fill up the measure of our misfortunes. Adieu.
LETTER CCXIII
BATH, November 20, 1757
MY DEAR FRIEND: I write to you now, because I love to write to you; and hope that my letters are welcome to you; for otherwise I have very little to inform you of. The King of Prussia's late victory you are better informed, of than we are here. It has given infinite joy to the unthinking public, who are not aware that it comes too late in the year and too late in the war, to be attended with any very great consequences. There are six or seven thousand of the human species less than there were a month ago, and that seems to me to be all. However, I am glad of it, upon account of the pleasure and the glory which it gives the King of Prussia, to whom I wish well as a man, more than as a king. And surely he is so great a man, that had he lived seventeen or eighteen hundred years ago, and his life been transmitted to us in a language that we could not very well understand--I mean either Greek or Latin--we should have talked of him as we do now of your Alexanders, your Caesars, and others; with whom, I believe, we have but a very slight acquaintance. 'Au reste', I do not see that his affairs are much mended by this victory. The same combination of the great Powers of Europe against him still subsists, and must at last prevail. I believe the French army will melt away, as is usual, in Germany; but this army is extremely diminished by battles, fatigues, and desertion: and he will find great difficulties in recruiting it from his own already exhausted dominions. He must therefore, and to be sure will, negotiate privately with the French, and get better terms that way than he could any other.
The report of the three general officers, the Duke of Marlborough, Lord George Sackville, and General Waldegrave, was laid before the King last Saturday, after their having sat four days upon M----t's affair: nobody yet knows what it is; but it is generally believed that M----t will be brought to a court-martial. That you may not mistake this matter, as MOST people here do, I must explain to you, that this examination before the three above-mentioned general officers, was by no means a trial; but
I have often desired, but in vain, the favor of being admitted into your private apartment at, Hamburg, and of being informed of your private life there. Your mornings, I hope and believe, are employed in business; but give me an account of the remainder of the day, which I suppose is, and ought to be, appropriated to amusements and pleasures. In what houses are you domestic? Who are so in yours? In short, let me in, and do not be denied to me.
Here I am, as usual, seeing few people, and hearing fewer; drinking the waters regularly to a minute, and am something the better for them. I read a great deal, and vary occasionally my dead company. I converse with grave folios in the morning, while my head is clearest and my attention strongest: I take up less severe quartos after dinner; and at night I choose the mixed company and amusing chit-chat of octavos and duodecimos. 'Ye tire parti de tout ce gue je puis'; that is my philosophy; and I mitigate, as much as I can, my physical ills by diverting my attention to other objects.
Here is a report that Admiral Holborne's fleet is destroyed, in a manner, by a storm: I hope it is not true, in the full extent of the report; but I believe it has suffered. This would fill up the measure of our misfortunes. Adieu.
LETTER CCXIII
BATH, November 20, 1757
MY DEAR FRIEND: I write to you now, because I love to write to you; and hope that my letters are welcome to you; for otherwise I have very little to inform you of. The King of Prussia's late victory you are better informed, of than we are here. It has given infinite joy to the unthinking public, who are not aware that it comes too late in the year and too late in the war, to be attended with any very great consequences. There are six or seven thousand of the human species less than there were a month ago, and that seems to me to be all. However, I am glad of it, upon account of the pleasure and the glory which it gives the King of Prussia, to whom I wish well as a man, more than as a king. And surely he is so great a man, that had he lived seventeen or eighteen hundred years ago, and his life been transmitted to us in a language that we could not very well understand--I mean either Greek or Latin--we should have talked of him as we do now of your Alexanders, your Caesars, and others; with whom, I believe, we have but a very slight acquaintance. 'Au reste', I do not see that his affairs are much mended by this victory. The same combination of the great Powers of Europe against him still subsists, and must at last prevail. I believe the French army will melt away, as is usual, in Germany; but this army is extremely diminished by battles, fatigues, and desertion: and he will find great difficulties in recruiting it from his own already exhausted dominions. He must therefore, and to be sure will, negotiate privately with the French, and get better terms that way than he could any other.
The report of the three general officers, the Duke of Marlborough, Lord George Sackville, and General Waldegrave, was laid before the King last Saturday, after their having sat four days upon M----t's affair: nobody yet knows what it is; but it is generally believed that M----t will be brought to a court-martial. That you may not mistake this matter, as MOST people here do, I must explain to you, that this examination before the three above-mentioned general officers, was by no means a trial; but