might very well succeed, "for Sir
Joshua is the ablest man I know on a canvass."

(58) Henry Edward Fox, youngest son of Lord Holland.

(59) Thomas Pelham-Holles, Duke of Newcastle (1693-1768). For half a
century in the front of English political life. In 1724 he became
Secretary of State in Walpole's Administration, and continued in
office until 1756, having on the death of his brother, Henry Pelham,
in 1754, become First Lord of the Treasury. In 1757 he returned as
Prime Minister to office with the elder Pitt, resigning again in
1762. In Lord Rockingham's Ministry, 1765 to 1766, he was Lord Privy
Seal. Newcastle is a remarkable instance of a man of apparently
ordinary capacity holding high office in the State for many years.

Jan. 17, Sunday morning.--We received your Badge at last yesterday.
Sir W. Musgrave and I deliberated a great while about the method of
sending it, and at last went together to Lord Clive, who sets out
for Paris to-morrow, and will take charge of it, as the surest
conveyance. The courier was rejected as too expensive, and Mr. Ward
as too uncertain. I have enclosed a schedule of what the packet
delivered to Lord Clive contains. It is addressed to Sir J. Lambert
and Mr. Ward. If he goes to Paris to-day, as he intended, [he] will
carry a letter from me to Sir J. L[ambert] with directions for the
safest and speediest conveyance of this to you; I shall write to him
again upon the subject on Tuesday.

I wish somebody had received a letter from you by Friday's post, to
satisfy us where you was. This idea of an epidemical disorder at
Turin has alarmed Lady Carlisle, and I have caught some of the
fright of her. March returned yesterday from Lord Spencer's, and the
usual company supped at the Duke of Grafton's.

Mrs. Horton(60) sets out for Nice with a toad-eater and an upper
servant of the Duke's this next week. The night robbers prove to be
soldiers in the Foot Guards, which I suspected; we have not
recovered our terrors, and still go home, as they travel in the
Eastern countries, waiting for convoys; it ruins me in flambeaux's.

Lord Clive will not I think live to go to Nice, but I hope he will
get safe to Paris, and then Sir J. Lambert will take care of all the
rest. The Badge is pretty, excepting that the shape of it is too
long, and the whole seems too large for a young person. But that was
the fault of the sardonyx.

The Duchess of Bucc[leugh](61) is very far gone with child; but I
bel