"DEAR SIR,--I am ashamed of being so long in writing to you. If I should
plead laziness, you would say I am much altered; if multiplicity of
business, you would scarce believe me; if forgetfulness of you and our
friendship, I should tell a gross untruth. I can therefore plead nothing
but idleness, and a gay, pleasurable life, which steals away hour after
hour, and day after day, and leaves no time for such occupations as
one's sober reason may approve most of. This is our case while on shore,
and even while on board, as far as one can have much enjoyment in that
situation.
"I wrote my brother from the coast of Britanny; giving him some account
of our expedition, and of the causes of our disappointment. I suppose he
received it after you had left the country, but I doubt not he has
informed you of it. We were very near a great success, the taking of
L'Orient, perhaps Port Louis, which would have been a prodigious blow to
France; and, having an open communication with the sea, might have made
a great diversion of their forces, and done great service to the common
cause. I suppose you are become a great general, by the misfortune of
the seat of war being so long in your neighbourhood. I shall be able
when we meet to give you the just cause of our failure. Our expedition
to North America is now at an end; we are recalled to England, the
convoy is arrived, and we re-embark in a few days. I have an invitation
to go over to Flanders with the general, and an offer of table, tent,
horses, &c. I must own I have a great curiosity to see a real campaign,
but I am deterred by the view of the expense, and am afraid, that living
in a camp, without any character, and without any thing to do, would
appear ridiculous. Had I any fortune which would give me a prospect of
leisure and opportunity to prosecute my _historical projects_, nothing
could be more useful to me, and I should pick up more literary knowledge
in one campaign, by living in the general's family, and being introduced
frequently to the duke's, than most officers could do after many years'
service. But to what can all this serve? I am a philosopher, and so, I
suppose, must continue.