BLACKHEATH, September 22, 1758

MY DEAR FRIEND: I have received no letter from you since you left
Hamburg; I presume that you are perfectly recovered, but it might not
have been improper to have told me so. I am very far from being
recovered; on the contrary, I am worse and worse, weaker and weaker every
day; for which reason I shall leave this place next Monday, and set out
for Bath a few days afterward. I should not take all this trouble merely
to prolong the fag end of a life, from which I can expect no pleasure,
and others no utility; but the cure, or at least the mitigation, of those
physical ills which make that life a load while it does last, is worth
any trouble and attention.

We are come off but scurvily from our second attempt upon St. Malo; it is
our last for this season; and, in my mind, should be our last forever,
unless we were to send so great a sea and land force as to give us a
moral certainty of taking some place of great importance, such as Brest,
Rochefort, or Toulon.

Monsieur Munchausen embarked yesterday, as he said, for Prince
Ferdinand's army; but as it is not generally thought that his military
skill can be of any great use to that prince, people conjecture that his
business must be of a very different nature, and suspect separate
negotiations, neutralities, and what not. Kniphausen does not relish it
in the least, and is by no means satisfied with the reasons that have
been given him for it. Before he can arrive there, I reckon that
something decisive will have passed in Saxony; if to the disadvantage of
the King of Prussia, he is crushed; but if, on the contrary, he should
get a complete victory (and he does not get half victories) over the