“I return you my sincerest and warmest thanks for your most entertaining and instructive present.[264] When I heard that you had undertaken that work, I expected no less, and now that I have it, without a compliment I could wish for no more from you. You have applied History to its best use, the advantage of morality; you have exposed vice and folly, but with so noble a hand, that both fools and knaves must feel that you would rather correct than execute them. You have even shown mercy to one who never showed nor felt it; I mean that disgrace to humanity, that sanguinary monster of the North, distinguished only by his Barbarism and his Barbarity, Charles the 12th[265] of Sweden. I would fain have homicide no longer reckoned as hitherto it has been, a title to Heroism, and the infamous but fashionable traffick of human blood, no matter for or against, who, if they pay but well, called by its true name _assassination_. Your Lordship has still a great field left open to you for another and yet another volume, which nobody can range in so usefully to mankind as yourself. I must take the liberty of troubling your Lordship with a petition to your brother the Governor of Jamaica,[266] whom I have not the pleasure of being acquainted with myself. It is to recommend to his protection and favour a relation of mine, one Captain Stanhope, who is now there, and, I believe, has some little employment given him by the present Deputy Governor, Mr. Moore. My kinsman was formerly an Officer of the footguards, but being a man of wit and pleasure, shared the common fate of that sort of gentleman, and was obliged to leave England and go to Jamaica, for (I doubt) more than suspicion of debt. I am assured that he is now quite reformed, and has a mind to be an honest man. “I am with the greatest honour and esteem, “Your Lordship’s Most faithfull, humble servant, “CHESTERFIELD.” Lord Chesterfield’s handwriting is beautiful, and the easiest possible to read. [263] Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield; born 1694, died 1773. [264] His “Dialogues of the Dead,” just published. [265] Allusion to Dialogue No. 20 on Charles XII. and Alexander the Great. [266] William Henry, son of Sir Thomas Lyttelton; he was created Baron Westcote of Ballymore in 1776; died in 1808. [Page heading: “DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD”] Lord Lyttelton’s “Dialogues of the Dead” had just appeared. Of these Mrs. Montagu wrote three, viz. Dialogues 26, 27, 28. Writing to Mrs. Carter, she says--