THE PRETENDER--POLITICAL CAUTION.--You will, in many parts of Italy, meet with numbers of the Pretender’s people (English, Scotch, and Irish fugitives) especially at Rome; and probably the Pretender himself. It is none of your business to declare war on these people; as little as it is your interest, or, I hope, your inclination to connect yourself with them: and therefore I recommend to you a perfect neutrality. Avoid them as much as you can with decency and good manners; but, when you cannot avoid any political conversation or debates with them, tell them that you do not concern yourself with political matters; that you are neither a maker nor a deposer of kings; that, when you left England, you left a king in it, and have not since heard either of his death, or of any revolution that has happened, and that you take kings and kingdoms as you find them; but enter no farther into matters with them, which can be of no use, and might bring on heat and quarrels. When you speak of the old Pretender you will call him only, the Chevalier de St. George; but mention him as seldom as possible. Should he chance to speak to you at any assembly (as, I am told, he sometimes does to the English) be sure that you seem not to know him; and answer him civilly, but always either in French or in Italian; and give him, in the former, the appellation of _Monsieur_, and in the latter of _Signore_. Should you meet with the Cardinal of York, you will be under no difficulty, for he has, as Cardinal, an undoubted right to _Eminenza_. Upon the whole, see any of those people as little as possible; when you do see them be civil to them, upon the footing of strangers; but never be drawn into any altercations with them about the imaginary right of their king, as they call him. It is to no sort of purpose to talk to those people of the natural rights of mankind and particular constitution of this country. Blinded by prejudices, soured by misfortunes, and tempted by their necessities, they are as incapable of reasoning rightly, as they have hitherto been of acting wisely. The late Lord Pembroke never would know anything that he had not a mind to know; and, in this case, I advise you to follow his example. Never know either the father or the two sons, any otherwise than as foreigners; and so not knowing their pretensions you have no occasion to dispute them. [_Sept. 5, 1749._]