“Since I wrote to you last I have taken a long and pleasant journey up the Rhine among the palaces of the four Electors, from thence I am come to the Hague, about 10 days ago. From the neatness of the town, the incomparable walks and rides about it, its rendezvous of Ministers and politicks, it is a very agreeable place to live in. The Ministers here by turns hold assemblies of the men at their houses, morning and evening, and I have dined at the house of one or other of them almost every day. The court is well filled and well attended, but as formal as our own.... The most extraordinary person here is Mr. Grounen, the Father of Mrs. Trevor, wife of our envoy, who has knowledge and sense enough to be mighty well acquainted with the History of Europe, and to be supposed by some people to be writing the History of his own times, to have constantly every noon about him a resort of the Ministers and best company here, to be the center of all their news, and to be the particular and intimate acquaintance of several great men, and among the rest the correspondent of Lord Chesterfield, and yet at the same time to be so mad as for fear of infection literally not to touch any human creature, neither his servants, his children, nor even his second wife!” [Page heading: DEATH OF MR. JAMES MONTAGU] Mr. James Montagu, half-brother to Mr. Edward Montagu, had for some time been deaf, and was now in a very dropsical state; he now fell very ill. Mr. and Mrs. Montagu nursed him tenderly till the end, which took place on October 30. From letters of Mrs. Medows to Mrs. Montagu one learns the brothers had not been brought up together; hence the blow was less acutely felt. He appears to have died in London. His estate of Newbold Verdon in Leicestershire was left to Wortley Montagu. Mrs. Medows says, “I can’t help feeling a little hurt that Newbold goes where it should not, but I really believe Sandleford is a pleasanter place to live in.” In a letter to Sarah, Mrs. Montagu says-- “Mr. Montagu is now returned from the melancholy ceremony of opening the will. My brother has left us a handsome legacy, and also all his plate and jewels, which last, he told the person who made the codicil, would be proper for me, as I had refused any when I married, perhaps his brother would forget them. I hear the plate is valued at £1500, and the jewels, they say, are fine, but I never saw them. I esteem the good will and kindness of the donor more than ever I shall the glittering gems.” The two sailor brothers had just returned from the East Indies.