uccessors. He retrieved our
affairs when ruined by a most incapable Administration; and we are
fallen into a worse state since he was removed. Therefore, I doubt,
posterity will allow more to his merit, than it is the present fashion
to accord to it. Our historians have of late been fond of decrying Queen
Elizabeth, in order if possible to raise the Stuarts: but great actions
surmount foibles; and folly and guilt would always remain folly and
guilt, though there had never been a great man or woman in the world.
Our modern tragedies, hundreds of them do not contain a good line; nor
are they a jot the better, because Shakspeare, who was superior to all
mankind, wrote some whole plays that are as bad as any of our present
writers.

I shall be very glad to see your nephew, and talk of you with him; which
will be more satisfactory than questioning accidental travellers.

_CAPTURE OF PONDICHERRY--CHANGES IN THE MINISTRY--LA FAYETTE IN
AMERICA._

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

ARLINGTON STREET, _March_ 22, 1779.

If your representative dignity is impaired westward, you may add to
your eastern titles those of "Rose of India" and "Pearl of
Pondicherry."[1] The latter gem is now set in one of the vacant sockets
of the British diadem.

[Footnote 1: The authority of the great Warren Hastings, originally
limited to five years, was renewed this year; and he signalised the
prolongation of his authority by more vigorous attacks than ever on the
French fortresses in India. He sent one body of troops against
Chandemagore, their chief stronghold in Bengal; another against
Pondicherry, their head-quarters in the south of Hindostan; while a
third, under Colonel Goddard, defeated the two Mahratta chieftains
Scindia and Holkar, and took some of their strongest fortresses.]

I have nothing to subjoin to this high-flown paragraph, that will at all
keep pace with the majesty of it. I should have left to the _Gazette_ to
wish you joy, nor have begun a new letter without more materials, if I
did not fear you would be still uneasy about your nephew. I hear he has,
_since his parenthesis_, voted again with the Court; therefore he has
probably not taken a new _part_, but only made a Pindaric transition on
a particular question. I have seen him but twice since his arrival, and
from both those visits I had no reason to expect he would act
differently from what you wished. Perhaps it may never happen again. I
go so little into the world, that I don't a