The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume II Part 63

June, 1758.

I am very much obliged to you for the remarks and hints you sent me on my Catalogue. They will be of use to me; and any observations of my friends I shall be very thankful for, and disposed to employ, to make my book, what it is extremely far from being, more perfect. I was very glad to hear, Sir, that the present Lord Archbishop of Canterbury has continued you in an employment for which n.o.body is so fit, and in which n.o.body would be so useful. I wish all manner of success to, as well as continuance of, your labours; and am, etc. etc.

425 Letter 264 To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, Sunday morning, June 11, 1758.

This will not depart till to-morrow, by which time probably there will be more news, but I am obliged to go into the country to-day, and would not let so much history set out, without my saying a word of it, as I know you trust to no gazette but mine. Last Thursday se'nnight our great expedition departed from Portsmouth--and soon separated; lord Anson with the great ships to lie before Brest, and Commodore Howe,(895) our naval hero, with the transports and a million of small fry on the secret enterprise. At one o'clock on Thursday night, alias Friday morning a cutter brought advice that on Sunday night the transports had made land in Concalle Bay, near St.

Maloes, had disembarked with no opposition or loss, except of a boatswain and two sailors, killed from a little fort, to which Howe was near enough to advise them not to resist. However, some peasants in it fired and then ran away. Some prisoners have a.s.sured our troops that there is no force within twenty leagues. This may be apocryphal, a word which, as I am left at liberty, I always interpret false. It is plain, however, that we were not expected at St. Maloes at least. We are in violent impatience to hear the consequences--especially whether we have taken the town, in which there is but one battalion, many old houses of wood, and the water easily to be cut off.

If you grow wise and ask me with a political face, whether St.

Maloes is an object worth risking fourteen thousand of our best troops, an expense of fifty thousand pounds, and half of the purplest blood of England, I shall toss up my head with an air of heroism and contempt, and only tell you--There! there is the Duke Of Marlborough in the heart of France; (for in the heroic dictionary the heart and the coast signify the same thing;) what would you have? Did Harry V. or Edward III mind whether it was a rich town or a fishing town, provided they did but take a town in France? We are as great as ever we were in the most barbarous ages, and you are asking mercantile Questions with all the littleness of soul that attends the improvements in modern politics! Well! my dear child, I smile, but I tremble-.

and though it is pleasanter to tremble when one invades, than when one is invaded, I don't like to be at the eve even of an Agincourt. There are so many of my friends upon heroic ground, that I discern all their danger through all their laurels.

Captain Smith, aide-de-camp to Lord George Sackville, dated his letter to the Duke of Dorset, "from his Majesty's dominions in France." Seriously, what a change is here! His Majesty, since this time twelvemonth, had not only recovered his dominions in Germany, but is on the acquiring foot in France. What heads, what no heads must they have in France! Where are their Cardinals, their Saxes, their Belleisles? Where are their fleets, their hosts, their arts, their subsidies? Subsidies, indeed! Where are ours? we pay none, or almost none, and are ten times greater than when we hired half Europe. In short, the difference of our situation is miraculous; and if we can but keep from divisions at home, and the King of Prussia does not prosper too fast for us, we may put France and ourselves into situations to prevent them from being formidable to us for a long season. Should the Prussian reduce too suddenly the Empress-Queen to beg and give him a secure peace, considering how deep a stake he still plays for, one could not well blame his accepting it--and then we should still be to struggle with France.

But while I am politicising, I forget to tell you half the purport of my letter--part indeed you will have heard; Prince Ferdinand's pa.s.sage of Rhine, the most material circ.u.mstance of which, in my opinion, is the discovery of the amazing weakness of the French in their army, discipline, councils, and conduct.

Yesterday, as If to amuse us agreeably till we hear again from St. Maloes, an express arrived of great conquests and captures which three of our ships have made on the river Gambia, to the destruction of the French trade and settlements there. I don't tell you the particulars, because I don't know them, and because you see them in the gazette. In one week we strike a medal with Georgius, Germanicus, Gallicus, Africa.n.u.s.

Mr. M'Kinsy, brother of Lord Bute, has kissed hands for Turin; you remember him at Florence. He is very well-bred, and you will find him an agreeable neighbour enough.

I have seen the vases at Holland-house, and am perfectly content with them: the forms are charming. I a.s.sure you Mr.

Fox and Lady Caroline do not like them less than I do. Good night! am not I a very humane conqueror to condescend to write so long a letter?

(895) Richard, after the death of his elder brother, Viscount Howe.

426 Letter 265 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.

June 16, 1758, 2 o'clock noon.

Well, my dear Harry! you are not the only man in England who have not conquered France!(896) Even Dukes of Marlborough have been there without doing the business. I don't doubt but your good heart has even been hoping, in spite of your understanding, that our heroes have not only taken St. Maloes, but taken a trip cross the country to burn Rochefort, only to show how easy it was. We have waited with astonishment at not hearing that the French court was removed in a panic to Lyons, and that the Mesdames had gone off in their shifts with only a provision of rouge for a week. Nay, for my part, I expected to be deafened with encomiums on my Lord Anson's continence, who, after being allotted Madame Pompadour as his share of the spoils, had again imitated Scipio, and, in spite of the violence of his temperament, had restored her unsullied to the King of France. Alack! we have restored nothing but a quarter of a mile of coast to the right owners. A messenger arrived in the middle of the night with an account that we have burned two frigates and an hundred and twenty small fry; that it was found impossible to bring up the cannon against the town; and that, the French army approaching the coast, Commodore Howe, with the expedition of Harlequin as well as the taciturnity, re-embarked our whole force in seven hours, volunteers and all, with the loss only of one man, and they are all gone to seek their fortune somewhere else. Well! in half a dozen more wars we shall know something of the coast of France. Last war we discovered a fine bay near Port l'Orient: we have now found out that we know nothing of St. Maloes. As they are popular persons, I hope the city of London will send some more gold boxes to these discoverers. If they send a patch-box to Lord George Sackville, it will hold all his laurels. As our young n.o.bility cannot at present travel through France, I suppose that is a method for finishing their studies. George Selwyn says he supposes the French ladies will have scaffolds erected on the sh.o.r.e to see the English go by. But I won't detain the messenger any longer; I am impatient to make the d.u.c.h.ess(897) happy, who I hope will soon see the Duke returned from his coasting voyage.

The Churchills will be with you next Wednesday, and I believe I too; but I can take my own word so little, that I will not give it you. I know I must be back at Strawberry on Friday night; for Lady Hervey and Lady Stafford are to be there with me for a few days from to-morrow se'nnight. Adieu!

(896) Alluding to the expedition against Rochefort, the year before, in which Mr. Conway was second in command.

(897) Lady Mary Bruce, d.u.c.h.ess of Richmond, only child of the Countess of Ailesbury by her first marriage.

She was at Park-place with her mother during the Duke of Richmond's absence, who was a volunteer upon this expedition

427 Letter 266 To The Earl Of Strafford.

Arlington Street, June 16, 1758.

My dear lord, Dear lord, I stayed to write to you, in obedience to your commands, till I had something worth telling you. St. Maloes is taken by storm. The Governor leaped into the sea at the very name of the Duke of Marlborough. Sir James Lowther put his hand into his pocket, and gave the soldiers two hundred and fifty thousand pounds to drink the King's health on the top of the great church. Norborne Berkeley begged the favour of the Bishop to go back with him and see his house in Gloucestershire. Delaval is turned capuchin, with remorse, for having killed four thousand French with his own hand. Commodore Howe does nothing but talk of what he has done. Lord Downe, who has killed the intendant, has sent for Dupr'e(898) to put in his place; and my Lord Anson has ravished three abbesses, the youngest of whom was eighty-five. Sure, my lord, this account is glorious enough! Don't you think one might 'bate a little of it? How much will you give up? Will you compound for the town capitulating, and for threescore men of war and two hundred privateers burned in the harbour? I would fain beat you down as low as I could. What, if we should not have taken the town? Shall you be very much shocked, if, after burning two ships of fifty-four and thirty-six guns, and a bushel of privateers and smallware, we had thought it prudent to leave the town where we found it, and had re-embarked last Monday in seven hours, (the despatch of which implies at least as much precipitation as conduct,) and that of all the large bill of fare above, nothing should be true but Downe's killing the intendant; who coming out to reconnoitre, and not surrendering, Downe, at the head of some grenadiers, shot him dead. In truth, this is all the truth, as it came in the middle Of the night; and if your lordship is obstinately bent on the conquest of France, you must wait till we have found another loophole into it, which it seems our fleet is gone to look for. I fear it is not even true that we have beat them in the Mediterranean! nor have I any hopes but in Admiral Forbes, who must sail up the Rhone, burn Lyons, and force them to a peace at once.

I hope you have had as favourable Succession of sun and rain as we have. I go to Park-place next week, where I fancy I Shall find our little d.u.c.h.ess(899) quite content with the prospect of recovering her Duke, without his being provided with laurels like a boar's head. Adieu! my dear lord. My best compliments to my lady and her whole menagerie.

(898) A French master.

(899) of richmond.

428 Letter 267 To Sir Horace Mann.

Strawberry Hill, June 18, 1758.

I write to you again so soon, only to laugh at my last letter.

What a dupe was I! at my years to be dazzled with glory! to be charmed with the rattle of drums and trumpets, till I fancied myself at Cressy or Poictiers! In the middle of all this dream of conquest, just when I had settled in what room of my castle I would lodge the Duke of Alen'con or Montpensier, or whatever ill.u.s.trious captive should be committed to the custody of Seneschal Me, I was awakened with an account of our army having re-embarked, after burning some vessels at St. Maloes. This is the history, neither more nor less, of this mighty expedition.

They found the causeway broken up, stayed from Tuesday night till Monday morning in sight of the town; agreed it was impregnable; heard ten thousand French (which the next day here were erected into thirty thousand) were coming against them; took to their transports, and are gone to play at hide and seek somewhere else. This campaign being rather naked, is coloured over with the great damage we have done, and with the fine disposition and despatch made for getting away--the same colours that would serve to paint pirates or a flight.

However, the city is pleased; and Mr. Pitt maintains that he never intended to take St. Maloes, which I believe, because when he did intend to have Rochefort taken last year, he sent no cannon; this year, when he never meant to take St. Maloes, he sent a vast train of artillery. Besides, one of the most important towns in France, lying some miles up in the country, was very liable to be stormed; a fishing town on the coast is naturally impracticable. The best side of the adventure is, that they were very near coming away without attempting the conflagration, and only thought of it by chance--then indeed

Diripuere focos-- Atqui omnis facibus p.u.b.es accingitur atris.

Perhaps the metamorphosis in Virgil of the ships into mermaids is not more absurd than an army of twelve or thirteen thousand of the flower of our troops and n.o.bility performing the office of link-boys, making a bonfire, and running away! The French have said well, "les Anglois viennent nous ca.s.ser des vitres avec des guin'ees."(900) We have lost six men, they five, and about a hundred vessels, from a fifty-gun ship to a mackerel-boat.

I don't only ask my own pardon for swelling out my imagination, but yours, for making you believe that you was to be representative of the Black Prince or Henry V. I hope you had sent no bullying letter to the conclave on the (,authority of my last letter, to threaten the cardinals, that if they did not elect the Archbishop of Canterbury Pope, you would send for part of the squadron from St. Maloes to burn Civita Vecchia. I had promised you the duchy of Bretagne, and we have lost Madras!

Our expedition is still afloat--whither bound, I know not; but pray don't bespeak any more laurels; wait patiently for what they shall send you from the Secretary's office.

I gave your brother James my new work to send you-I grieve that I must not, as usual, send a set for poor Dr. Cocchi. Good night!

(900) "Mr. Pitt's friends exult on the destruction of three French ships of war, and one hundred and thirty privateers and trading ships, and affirm that it stopped the march of three score thousand men, who were going to join the Comte de Clermont's army. On the other hand, Mr. Fox and company call it breaking windows with guineas, and apply the fable of the mountain and the mouse." Lord Chesterfield.-E.

430 Letter 268 To Sir David Dalrymple.(901) Strawberry Hill, June 29, 1758.

Sir, Inaccurate and careless, as I must own my book is,(902) I cannot quite repent having let it appear in that state, since it has procured me so agreeable and obliging a notice from a gentleman whose approbation makes me very vain. The trouble you have been so good as to give yourself, Sir, is by no means lost upon me; I feel the greatest grat.i.tude for it, and shall profit not only of your remarks, but with your permission of your very words, wherever they will fall in with my text. The former are so judicious and sensible, and the latter so well chosen, that if it were not too impertinent to propose myself as an example, I should wish, Sir, that you would do that justice to the writers of your own country, which my ignorance has made me execute so imperfectly and barrenly.

Give me leave to say a few words to one or two of your notes.

i should be glad to mention more instances of Queen Elizabeth's fondness for praise,(903) but fear I have already been too diffuse on her head. Bufo(904) is certainly Lord Halifax: the person at whom you hint is more nearly described by the name of Bubo, and I think in one place is even called Bubb.(905) The number of volumes of Parthenissa I took from the list of Lord Orrery's(906) writings in the Biographia: it is probable, therefore, Sir, that there were different editions of that romance. You will excuse my repeating once more, Sir, my thanks for your partiality to a work so little worthy of your favour. I even flatter myself that whenever you take a journey this way, you will permit me to have the honour of being acquainted with a gentleman to whom I have so particular an obligation.

(901) Now first collected. This eminent lawyer, antiquary, and historian was born in 1726. He was educated at Eton, and afterwards studied civil law at Utrecht. In 1748, he was called to the Scotch bar, and in 1766 made a judge of session, when he a.s.sumed the name of Lord Hailes. Boswell states, that Dr. Johnson, in 1763, drank a b.u.mper to him "as a man of worth, a scholar, and a wit." His "Annals of Scotland" the Doctor describes as "a work which has such a stability of dates, such a certainty of facts, and such a punctuality of citation, that it must always sell." He wrote several papers in the World and Mirror. He died in 1792.-E.

(902) The Royal and n.o.ble Authors.-E.

(903) Queen Elizabeth, who had turned Horace's Art of Poetry into English, having been offended with Sir Francis Bacon, the Earl of Ess.e.x, to recommend him again to favour, artfully told her, that his suit was not so much for the good of Bacon, as for her own honour, that those excellent translations of hers might be known to those who could best judge of them.-E.

(904) In Pope's Prologue to the Satires--

"Proud as Apollo on his forked hill, Sat full-blown Bufo puff'd by many a quill."-E.

(905) Bubb Dodington--

"And then for mine obligingly mistakes The first lampoon Sir Will, or Bubo makes."-E.

(906) Roger Boyle, Earl of Orrery. His Parthenissa, a romance in six books, appeared in folio in 1677.