<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0307" id="link2H_4_0307"></SPAN></p>
<h2> LETTER CCCVI </h2>
<h3> LONDON, January 29, 1768. </h3>
<p>MY DEAR FRIEND: Two days ago I received your letter of the 8th. I wish you
had gone a month or six weeks sooner to Basle, that you might have escaped
the excessive cold of the most severe winter that I believe was ever
known. It congealed both my body and my mind, and scarcely left me the
power of thinking. A great many here, both in town and country, have
perished by the frost, and been lost in the snow.</p>
<p>You have heard, no doubt, of the changes at Court, by which you have got a
new provincial, Lord Weymouth; who has certainly good parts, and, as I am
informed, speaks very well in the House of Lords; but I believe he has no
application. Lord Chatham is at his house at Hayes; but sees no mortal.
Some say that he has a fit of the gout, which would probably do him good;
but many think that his worst complaint is in his head, which I am afraid
is too true. Were he well, I am sure he would realize the promise he made
me concerning you; but, however, in that uncertainty, I am looking out for
any chance borough; and if I can find one, I promise you I will bid like a
chapman for it, as I should be very sorry that you were not in the next
parliament. I do not see any probability of any vacancy in a foreign
commission in a better climate; Mr. Hamilton at Naples, Sir Horace Mann at
Florence, and George Pitt at Turin, do not seem likely to make one. And as
for changing your foreign department for a domestic one, it would not be
in my power to procure you one; and you would become 'd'eveque munier',
and gain nothing in point of climate, by changing a bad one for another
full as bad, if not worse; and a worse I believe is not than ours. I have
always had better health abroad than at home; and if the tattered remnant
of my wretched life were worth my care, I would have been in the south of
France long ago. I continue very lame and weak, and despair of ever
recovering any strength in my legs. I care very little about it. At my age
every man must have his share of physical ills of one kind or another; and
mine, thank God, are not very painful. God bless you!</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0308" id="link2H_4_0308"></SPAN></p>
<h2> LETTER CCCVII </h2>
<h3> LONDON, March 12, 1768. </h3>
<p>MY DEAR FRIEND: The day after I received your letter of the 21st past, I
wrote to Lord Weymouth, as you desired; and I send you his answer
inclosed, from which (though I have not heard from him since) I take it
for granted, and so may you, that his silence signifies his Majesty's
consent to your request. Your complicated complaints give me great
uneasiness, and the more, as I am convinced that the Montpellier
physicians have mistaken a material part of your case; as indeed all the
physicians here did, except Dr. Maty. In my opinion, you have no gout, but
a very scorbutic and rheumatic habit of body, which should be treated in a
very different manner from the gout; and, as I pretend to be a very good
quack at least, I would prescribe to you a strict milk diet, with the
seeds, such as rice, sago, barley, millet, etc., for the three summer
months at least, and without ever tasting wine. If climate signifies
anything (in which, by the way, I have very little faith), you are, in my
mind, in the finest climate in the world; neither too hot nor too cold,
and always clear; you are with the gayest people living; be gay with them,
and do not wear out your eyes with reading at home. 'L'ennui' is the
English distemper: and a very bad one it is, as I find by every day's
experience; for my deafness deprives me of the only rational pleasure that
I can have at my age, which is society; so that I read my eyes out every
day, that I may not hang myself.</p>
<p>You will not be in this parliament, at least not at the beginning of it. I
relied too much upon Lord C——-'s promise above a year ago at
Bath. He desired that I would leave it to him; that he would make it his
own affair, and give it in charge to the Duke of G——, whose
province it was to make the parliamentary arrangement. This I depended
upon, and I think with reason; but, since that, Lord C has neither seen
nor spoken to anybody, and has been in the oddest way in the world. I have
sent to the D——-of G———, to know if L——-C——had
either spoken or sent to him about it; but he assured me that he had done
neither; that all was full, or rather running over, at present; but that,
if he could crowd you in upon a vacancy, he would do it with great
pleasure. I am extremely sorry for this accident; for I am of a very
different opinion from you, about being in parliament, as no man can be of
consequence in this country, who is not in it; and, though one may not
speak like a Lord Mansfield or a Lord Chatham, one may make a very good
figure in a second rank. 'Locus est et pluribus umbris'. I do not pretend
to give you any account of the present state of this country, or Ministry,
not knowing nor guessing it myself.</p>
<p>God bless you, and send you health, which is the first and greatest of all
blessings!</p>
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