I thank you for your last information of our success in the
Mediterranean, and you say very rightly that a secretary of state ought
to be well informed. I hope, therefore, you will take care that I shall.
You are near the busy scene in Italy; and I doubt not but that, by
frequently looking at the map, you have all that theatre of the war very
perfect in your mind.

I like your account of the salt works; which shows that you gave some
attention while you were seeing them. But notwithstanding that, by your
account, the Swiss salt is (I dare say) very good, yet I am apt to
suspect that it falls a little short of the true Attic salt in which
there was a peculiar quickness and delicacy. That same Attic salt
seasoned almost all Greece, except Boeotia, and a great deal of it was
exported afterward to Rome, where it was counterfeited by a composition
called Urbanity, which in some time was brought to very near the
perfection of the original Attic salt. The more you are powdered with
these two kinds of salt, the better you will keep, and the more you will
be relished.

Adieu! My compliments to Mr. Harte and Mr. Eliot.




LETTER IX

LONDON, April 14, O. S. 1747.

DEAR BOY: If you feel half the pleasure from the consciousness of doing
well, that I do from the informations I have lately received in your