hey were afterwards forced to
evacuate it; and though Belleisle conducted the retreat with great
courage and skill, the army, which had numbered fifty thousand men when
it crossed the Rhine, scarcely exceeded twelve thousand when it regained
the French territory. (See the Editor's "History of France under the
Bourbons," c. xxv.)]

For my own part, I comfort myself with the humane reflection of the
Irishman in the ship that was on fire--I am but a passenger! If I were
not so indolent, I think I should rather put in practice the late
Duchess of Bolton's geographical resolution of going to China, when
Whiston told her the world would be burnt in three years. Have you any
philosophy? Tell me what you think. It is quite the fashion to talk of
the French coming here. Nobody sees it in any other light but as a thing
to be talked of, not to be precautioned against. Don't you remember a
report of the plague being in the City, and everybody went to the house
where it was to see it? You see I laugh about it, for I would not for
the world be so unenglished as to do otherwise. I am persuaded that
when Count Saxe,[1] with ten thousand men, is within a day's march of
London, people will be hiring windows at Charing-cross and Cheapside to
see them pass by. 'Tis our characteristic to take dangers for sights,
and evils for curiosities.

[Footnote 1: The great Marechal Saxe, Commander-in-chief of the French
army in Flanders during the war of the Austrian succession.]

Adieu! dear George: I am laying in scraps of Cato against it may be
necessary to take leave of one's correspondents _a la Romaine_, and
before the play itself is suppressed by a _lettre de cachet_ to the
book-sellers.

P.S.--Lord! 'tis the first of August,[1] 1745, a holiday that is going
to be turned out of the almanack!

[Footnote 1: August 1 was the anniversary of the accession of George I.]

_INVASION OF SCOTLAND BY THE YOUNG PRETENDER--FORCES ARE SAID TO BE
PREPARING IN FRANCE TO JOIN HIM._

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

ARLINGTON STREET, _Sept._ 6, 1745.

It would have been inexcusable in me, in our present circumstances, and
after all I have promised you, not to have written to you for this last
month, if I had been in London; but I have been at Mount Edgecumbe, and
so constantly upon the road, that I neither received your letters, had
time to write, or knew what to write. I came back last night, and found
three packets from you, which I have no time to answer, an