"One of them, a friend of mine, as soon as he went home, took it down in writing, of which he gave me a copy, and which I transmit to you. He is a military man, and his style is not elegant; but I am sure, from another certain authority, that the account is in the main just; only I have reason to think that Lord Halifax was proscribed along with the rest; at least he said so yesterday to a friend of mine. I wish this high spirit of his M. may be supported. But _femme qui écoute et ville qui parle sont bientôt rendues_. Lord Bute goes abroad very soon. Some pretend that the present administration is more enraged against him than is the opposition, on account of his taking this important step without consulting them. Never in any history was there so curious a scene; nor was there ever so formidable a demagogue as this man. Lord Sandwich, it is said, will be secretary for some weeks; our friend Wood is so at present. Many of the leading men in the opposition were left out on Mr. Pitt's plan; which, it is thought, will breed dissensions among them. "I dined yesterday with Lord Chesterfield, along with Colonel Irvine. The Colonel made an apology for our arriving so late, on account of his being detained at court. 'At court?' said my lord: 'I should be glad to know what place that is.' Dear Mure, yours."[160:1] In an earlier part of this work, we have found Hume narrating events of contemporary military history. In the following, as in the preceding letter, he gives his version of a celebrated ministerial revolution, of which the public is as yet possessed of no account which is not liable to doubt. HUME _to_ ADAM SMITH. "_Lisle St. 13th Sept. 1763._ "MY DEAR SMITH,--The settlement which I had made in Scotland was so much to my mind, I had indeed struck root so heartily, that it was with the utmost reluctance I could think of transplanting myself, and I began to approach towards that age in which these experiments became no longer practicable with safety. I own that, on my arrival in London, I found every circumstance more inviting than I had reason to expect; particularly the characters of Lord and Lady Hertford, who are allowed to be the two persons the most unexceptionable among all the English nobility. Even that circumstance of Lord Hertford's character, his great piety, ought to make my connexions with him more agreeable, both because it is not attended with any thing sour and rigid, and because I draw the more honour from his choice, while he overlooked so many seeming objections which lay against me on that head. My fortune also receives a great addition during life from this connexion; besides many openings to ambition, were I so simple as to be exposed to temptation from that passion.