you tell me of Prince Ferdinand and Count Dohna makes me all impatience. I trust, with a happy dependence upon Him in whom alone is victory, that he will mercifully grant we may be blessed with happy news from both. Health and success attend my beloved life!

His loving wife,

HESTER PITT.

MR. PITT TO LADY HESTER PITT.

Monday night, August 6, 1759.

I CANNOT let the groom go without a line to my sweetest life, especially as I have the joy to tell her that our happy victory (') ne fait que croitre et embellir. By letters come to-day, the hereditary Prince (2), with his corps, had passed the Weser, and

(1) The celebrated battle of Minden, won from the French by the allied armies under Prince Ferdinand, on the 1st of August.

(2) Charles William Ferdinand, hereditary Prince of Bruns wick Wolfenbuttle. He was born in 1735; entered the military profession, under the auspices of his renowned uncle Prince Ferdinand, in 1758; married the Princess Augusta, eldest sister of George the Third, in 1764; and succeeded to the dukedom, upon the demise of his father, in 1780. In 1806, he took the command of the Prussian army; and, being mortally wounded at the battle of Jena, he was removed to the neutral town of Altona, where he expired on the 10th of November. An application from his son, for permission to lay his father's body in

attacked, with part of it, a body of six thousand French, defeated it, took many prisoners, some trophies and cannon. M.de Contades's baggage, coaches, mules, letters, and correspondencies (') have fallen

the tomb of his ancestors, being rejected with the same sternness which had characterised Buonaparte's conduct to him when living, the successor thenceforward clothed his little army in black, vowing that they should wear no other colour, until he had avenged the insults offered to his parent and fell, fighting at their head, in the field of Waterloo. In Lord Byron's beautiful description of the evening which preceded that memorable battle, the fate of sire and of son is thus immortalised :

66

But, hark! that heavy sound breaks in once more,

As if the clouds its echo would repeat;

And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before!

Arm! arm! it is it is the cannon's opening roar !

Within a window'd niche of that high hall
Sate Brunswick's fated chieftain; he did hear
That sound the first amidst the festival,
And caught its tone with Death's prophetic ear;
And when they smiled because he deem'd it near,
His heart more truly knew that peal too well
Which stretch'd his Father on a bloody bier,
And rous'd the vengeance blood alone could quell:
He rush'd into the field, and, foremost fighting, fell."

(1) These "correspondencies" were afterwards made public. "They included," says Walpole, "his correspondence with Marshal Belleisle, who directed the operations of the war, and gave orders for the conduct of it, with a barbarity that spoke very plainly how little France was influenced by sentiments of humanity or good faith in pursuit of her views. The Germans were treated in those despatches with the most marked contempt; the princes suspected by them, despotically; and even their friends, the electors of Cologne and Palatine, were to be made to feel the misery of being connected with a too powerful and arrogant ally. They were to be plundered, under the observance of the most insulting ceremonial; but what shocked Europe most, were repeated commands to reduce the most

into our hands; words in letters say, "qu'on se lasse de prendre des prisonniers." The main of the French army seen to be flying they know not where; being cut off, by the defeat of the Duke of Brissac, from their ovens and magazines, they have neither bread nor other provisions than what mere pillage, where they pass, affords. To this point has favouring Providence blessed our immortal Ferdinand. May Heaven send success on the Oder; and may happy peace wind up the glorious work, and heal a bleeding world!

W. PITT.

MR. PITT TO PRINCE FERDINAND OF BRUNSWICK.

[From a draught in Mr. Pitt's hand-writing.]

MONSEIGNEUR,

Ce 18 Decembre, 1759.

PERMETTEZ que j'aie l'honneur d'accuser la réception des lettres que V. A. S. a daigné m'écrire du 26° Novembre et 8° de ce mois; aussi bien que celle qui m'a été rendue par le colonel Boyd. J'ose renouveller ici les respectueuses assurances, que je ne cesserai d'employer tout ce qui est en pour rendre justice à un si digne officier, qui a su s'attirer une protection si glorieuse.

moi

fertile provinces of Germany to a desert; the pretence, to shorten the war. Had their meditated invasions of this country succeeded, one may judge what would have been the secret instructions to their generals."-Memoirs of Geo. II. vol. ii. p. 368.

Agréez, Monseigneur, que je vous offre, avec l'empressement le plus vif, de nouvelles félicitations sur la nouvelle gloire dont le Prince Héréditaire s'est couvert dans sa belle expédition de Fülde. Les actions éclatantes se succèdent si rapidement sous les auspices de V. A. S., que pendant que la joie de Munster étoit encore fraîche, ce dernier événement est venu avec un nouveau lustre, s'emparer pour le présent des éloges universels. En même tems, l'attention ne peut que se fixer à l'expédition de Monseigneur le Prince Héréditaire, non sans de vives inquiétudes pour des jours si précieux à l'Europe. () On se flatte toutefois que des mouvemens exécutés avec la même capacité auront des effets également prompts et efficaces sur la retraite de M. Daun, qu'ils l'ont eu sur celle de M. de Broglie.

Je ne puis exprimer, Monseigneur, combien je sens la part que V. A. S. veut bien prendre à la victoire de l'Amiral Hawke, et à quel point je suis pénétré de ce qui s'y trouve de si infiniment gracieux pour moi, et je supplie V. A. S. d'être per

(1) In a letter to Lord Holdernesse, dated head-quarters at Friburg, 12th February 1760, Mr. Mitchell says: "The hereditary Prince of Brunswick left this place on the 7th. This young hero, by the modesty and manliness of his behaviour, by his insensibility to flattery, and by an affability which can flow from an honest heart only, has gained the esteem and affection of every body here, from the King to the lowest officer he had occasion to converse with. In talking of the prince, his Prussian majesty said, he was surprised with the knowledge he had acquired, and added these remarkable words: Il a le jugement et le bon sens d'un homme de quarante ans, et il a fait tant de progrès dans la science militaire, que je pourrois lui confier le commandement de mes armées.'"- Mitchell MSS. in Brit Mus.

suadé, que je ne croirois pas les vrais sentimens de bon Anglois, si je prenois un intérêt moins vif aux plaines de Minden qu'à la baye de Quiberon.

Je suis, &c.

W. PITT.

WILLIAM BECKFORD, ESQ., TO MR. PITT.

MY DEAR SIR,

Fonthill, January 7, 1760.

YOUR very obliging and much esteemed favour was duly received. I consider it the greatest honour to have such a sponsor to my child. (') He was made a Christian last night, and Lord Effingham (2) was your proxy. No endeavours of mine shall be wanting (if it please God to spare his life) to instil into his tender mind principles of religion, honour, and love of country. It is true, these are oldfashioned principles; but they are such as you approve of, and practise.

Nothing would give me more pleasure than to take your opinion on my present works (3), and to

(1) Mr. Beckford married, in 1756, Maria, daughter and coheiress of the hon. George Hamilton, son of James, sixth earl of Abercorn; by whom he had an only child and heir, the present William Beckford, Esq.; author, amongst other elegant writings, of "Caliph Vathek," an Eastern tale, written originally in the French language, and which, in the opinion of Lord Byron, "for correctness of costume, beauty of description, and power of imagination, far surpasses all European imitations."

(2) Thomas, second earl of Effingham, deputy earl-marshal of England; who, in 1744-5, had married Elizabeth, daughter of the writer's eldest brother, Peter Beckford, Esq., speaker of the house of assembly of Jamaica.

(3) The improvements at this time going on at Fonthill.