let him purchase Trostrey; if I had been in England that would never have happened. You will be glad to hear that the warm Summer has done my health a great deal of good, and if it had not, I should not have been able to have endured this climate much longer; but I now hope to be able to finish the business the king has entrusted me with, still flattering myself that I shall have performed my task by next Christmas. What would I give that you could spend three or four months with me in this country; it is certainly well worth seeing, and the Greek clergy would make you stare, Half the parish priests cannot read, and the study of their youth is, to get the service by heart; but these things must be kept for long nights at Coldbrook. Be assured my dear friend of my con stant wishes for your welfare, and that I set a just and true value upon your friendship. What a dismal conclusion of our affairs in the Mediterranean, one would think it was hardly possible for a man to be so guilty, as I believe Mr. Byng to be. This is certain, that if after his scandalous engagement with the French fleet, he had only sailed towards PortMahon, and lay before that place, the French could never have taken Fort St. Philip. But what can all the other captains in the fleet say for not opposing Byng's return to Gibraltar, and what can the land officers say, who thrust themselves into a sea council of war, and encouraged Byng to make a scandalous retreat, to abandon his countrymen in Fort St. Philip, to the mercy of the French, and to bring an everlasting disgrace upon his country. Give my best services to all the community at Newland, particularly to Mrs. Birt. You say my brother Hanbury talked in plaintive style. I vow and protest, that I cannot imagine what he can found any complaint upon; ever since my going out of England, his behaviour to me and my children, has been as bad as possible. No kindness or obligations have any effect upon him, and he is a slave not only to passion, but to ill-humour. Non bene pro meritis capitur, sed tangitur irâ. I am, most sincerely And affectionately yours, C. HANBURY WILLIAMS. DEAR SIR; TO THE SAME. St. Petersburg, Oct. 23rd, 1756. I Your friendly and obliging letter of 11th September is come safe to my hands. It is exactly such a one as I expected from you. never can desire you to enter into any thing upon my account that is wrong, because I flatter myself that a very serious and due reflection has put my mind in a situation of neither wishing nor doing any thing that is not right. I did imagine that, in the end, my brother Hanbury would not care to part with the management or rather the government of my affairs. He loves power more than any man, and in spite of a great fortune, and a very good name (I mean family name), he has so contrived it, that he has less than any body I ever knew; few people love him, and fewer fear him. He has been fifteen years an independent member of Parliament without having done the least good to himself or any one friend in all that time. His refusing to pay you the twenty pound bill was shocking to me, and his late letters have been such as you would imagine, if you were to read them, had been wrote to one of his debtors. I return you the letter of attorney properly executed. When you have settled the balance of his accounts, you will then take them and deliver them to Major Chambre, for I agree with you, that those accounts ought to be in the hands of him who is to manage my estate. I am glad to hear the account you give of my nephew John, in short he is my heir, and I intend to form his education, therefore the prospect you give me of his person and parts are very agreeable to me. I shall always love and esteem Mrs. Hanbury of Pontpool, I have certainly obligations to her which I can never forget, and I shall always partake in every thing |