L30/14/138/12

Sent from Ampthill Park, 5 August 1777, received 22 August:

1777

From: 1777 To: 1777

"Your letter of the 10th of July gave me a very sensible pleasure, as it was so long since I heard from you, the very persons you particularly desired to be remember'd to were here when I received it, I mean the Fish and Lady Mary, as you call her. She is here still and desires her best compliments to you, she has two charming children, her son is as fine a boy as can be, and amazingly like poor Stephen. She has many admirers but I think is likely to continue her veuvage. Has this unaccountable bad weather prevailed with you as it has with us the whole summer? in many parts of Europe I see it has and I am now in lamentations over my hay which is all spoiling and it is now raining as hard as it can, seriously speaking it will have very bad consequences in this country if it does not alter very soon. I am going next week into Yorkshire and to York races where I have a favourite horse to run, I wish most sincerely you were now at Newby upon Swale and that I were to find you there, your ambassade is really become a great boar to all your friends. I will remember to examine the Velasquez at Bedford house for you. I recollect poor Tavistock was very fond of it. It must be difficult to make good copies after him. I suppose you have read Robertson's new work, in which he acknowledges his obligation to you. I think there are very fine parts in it, mais il y a des longeurs, I lament his being in some degree forced to write for money, which has made him spin out this work into two quartos and you see he has laid in his claim for 2 more when our American troubles are over but I hope for his sake he has something else to do in the mean while, for I am so gloomy a politician as to think that desirable event far distant, at least if we go on with the infatuated notions of absolute conquest and unconditional submission. I have heard from my brother since his arrival in America, he was very well, and in good spirits. A campaign will be a new scene to so fine a gentleman as he has hitherto been, but in some respects I am not sorry that he is gone, as I think it may be of service to him. There is a Monsieur Linguet, a French avocat, who publishes a kind of journal here called Annales civiles, poilitiques and litteraires, which is an entertaining publication, tho' he is a very paradoxical fellow, what makes me mention this is a story I read in his last of a Monsieur Olabidés who has fallen into the clutches of the inquisition, the suite of which I should like to hear and which I suppose you may send me without danger of being put into it yourself. I was in hopes the wings of that infernal tribunal had been sufficiently clipped". Compliments...

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Crawfurd, John,
Fitzpatrick, Mary,
Tavistock,
Robertson,
Linguet