I am going to London to-morrow, expressly to deliver this letter to our ambassador with my own hands, since the last was delayed so long. Probably it fell into the hands of the curious, for we shall not soon get rid of the 'infamie' of opening letters. In two days I shall return, and shall be happy enough to miss three or four balls in the interval.--I took a long walk this morning, and this time not entirely alone, but with one of the many agreeable girls I have met with here. When young unmarried women are once 'lancées' in the world, they enjoy more rational freedom in England than in any other country in Europe. The young lady 'quæstionis' was just seventeen, and polished in Paris. On my return home I found, to my no small astonishment, a letter from the luckless R----, who has been again driven back to Harwich, and despairingly implores money and help. Contrary to my desire, as I now learn for the first time, he did not go by Calais. These wanderings of the Garden-Odysseus are as ludicrous as they are disagreeable, and you will doubtless think the adventurer 'malgré lui' is eaten by the fishes, till you have ocular proof of the contrary. I recollect that twelve years ago, about this same season, I was going to embark for Hamburg, from which I was fortunately dissuaded by my old French valet. He said, with rather an odd turn of expression; "Dans ces tems ci, il y a toujours _quelques équinoxes_ dangéreuses, qui peuvent devenir funestes." He was right; the vessel was wrecked, and several lives lost. _London, Feb. 18th._