Bath, _Dec. 21st, 1805_.[755]

DEAR HARROWBY,

I was prevented from writing a few lines as I intended by the
messenger we sent from hence yesterday. We are sending orders
for another today to pass through Berlin on his way to the
Emperor's head-quarters, to remind them of sending the
ratification which we have never yet received. We have nothing
very authentic from the armies later than your despatch of the
9th by estafette, but there are accounts thro' Hamburg from
Berlin of the 10th, corroborated by reports from various
quarters, which lead us to hope that the sequel of the battle at
length terminated in great success on the part of Russia. If
this proves true, I flatter myself your subsidiary treaty will
have been soon brought to a prosperous issue, and you will be
delivered from all your fatigue and anxiety. I am quite grieved
to think how much you have suffered, tho' I trust your complaint
is only temporary, and that a good battle and a good treaty will
send you back to us in better health than you went. I see no
danger of your exceeding our limit in the amount of subsidy, as
we looked if necessary to an actual annual payment of
L3,000,000, and the number proposed in the treaty, of 180,000
Prussians and 40,000 Allies, will not require more than
L2,750,000, which still leaves room for 25,000 men more if they
are wanted and can be had. I have been here for ten days and
have already felt the effect of the waters in a pretty smart fit
of the gout from which I am just recovering, and of which I
expect soon to perceive the benefit.

Ever yours,
W. PITT.

I need hardly tell you that every step you have taken has been
exactly what we should have desired.

He who wrote these cheering words was in worse health than Harrowby. The
latter lived on till the year 1847; Pitt had now taken his last journey
but one. Sharp attacks of gout had reduced him to so weak and tremulous
a state that he could scarcely lift a glass to his lips. So wrote Mrs.
Jackson on 9th December, long before the news of Austerlitz reached
these shores.[756] So far back as 27th November, Canning, in prophetic
strains, begged him not to defer a projected visit to Bath until it was
too late for the waters to do him goo