me as well as they can; for to retrieve its honor is now too
late. One would really think that our ministers and generals were all as
drunk as the Patriarch was. However, in your situation, you must not be
Cham; but spread your cloak over our disgrace, as far as it will go.
M----t calls aloud for a public trial; and in that, and that only, the
public agree with him. There will certainly be one, but of what kind is
not yet fixed. Some are for a parliamentary inquiry, others for a martial
one; neither will, in my opinion, discover the true secret; for a secret
there most unquestionably is. Why we stayed six whole days in the island
of Aix, mortal cannot imagine; which time the French employed, as it was
obvious they would, in assembling their troops in the neighborhood of
Rochfort, and making our attempt then really impracticable. The day after
we had taken the island of Aix, your friend, Colonel Wolf, publicly
offered to do the business with five hundred men and three ships only. In
all these complicated political machines there are so many wheels, that
it is always difficult, and sometimes im possible, to guess which of them
gives direction to the whole. Mr. Pitt is convinced that the principal
wheels, or, if you will, the spoke in his wheel, came from Stade. This is
certain, at least that M----t was the man of confidence with that person.
Whatever be the truth of the case, there is, to be sure, hitherto an
'hiatus valde deflendus'.

The meeting of the parliament will certainly be very numerous, were it
only from curiosity: but the majority on the side of the Court will, I
dare say, be a great one. The people of the late Captain-general, however
inclined to oppose, will be obliged to concur. Their commissions, which
they have no desire to lose, will make them tractable; for those
gentlemen, though all men of honor, are of Sosia's mind, 'que le vrai
Amphitrion est celui ou l'on dine'. The Tories and the city have engaged
to support Pitt; the Whigs, the Duke of Newcastle; the independent and
the impartial, as you well know, are not worth mentioning. It is said
that the Duke intends to bring the affair of his Convention into
parliament, for his own justification; I can hardly believe it; as I
cannot conceive that transactions so merely electoral can be proper
objects of inquiry or deliberation for a British parliament; and,
therefore, should such a motion be made, I presume it will be immediately
quashed. By the commission