e, where they are embarking mightily. Some think the attempt will be
on Portsmouth. To sweeten this pill, Clinton has taken a fort and
seventy men--not near Portsmouth, but New York; and there were reports
at the latter that Charleston is likely to surrender. This would be
something, if there were not a French war and a Spanish war in the way
between us and Carolina. Sir Charles Hardy is at Torbay with the whole
fleet, which perhaps was not a part of the plan at Havre: we shall see,
and you shall hear, if anything passes.

_Friday night, July 16th._

Your nephew has sent me word that he will breakfast with me to-morrow,
but shall not have time to dine. I have nothing to add to the foregoing
general picture. We have been bidden even by proclamation to expect an
invasion, and troops and provisions have for this week said to have been
embarked. Still I do not much expect a serious descent. The French, I
think, have better chances with less risk. They may ruin us in detail.
The fleet is at present at home or very near, and very strong; nor do I
think that the French plan is activity:--but it is idle to talk of the
present moment, when it will be some time before you receive this. I am
infinitely in more pain about Mr. Conway, who is in the midst of the
storm in a nutshell, and I know will defend himself as if he was in the
strongest fortification in Flanders--and, which is as bad, I believe the
Court would sacrifice the island to sacrifice him. They played that
infamous game last year on Keppel, when ten thousand times more was at
stake. They look at the biggest objects through the diminishing end of
every telescope; and, the higher they who look, the more malignant and
mean the eye....

Adieu! my dear Sir. In what manner we are to be undone, I do not guess;
but I see no way by which we can escape happily out of this crisis--I
mean, preserve the country and recover the Constitution. I thought for
four years that calamity would bring us to our senses: but alas! we have
none left to be brought to. We shall now suffer a greal deal, submit at
last to a humiliating peace, and people will be content.--So adieu,
England! it will be more or less a province or kind of province to
France, and its viceroy will be, in what does not concern France, its
despot--and will be content too! I shall not pity the country; I shall
feel only for those who grieve with me at its abject state; or for
posterity, if they do not, like other degraded