With all his faults we shall want Mr Pitt, if such a complicated, such an extensive war is to be carried on. I know nobody who can plan or push the e… - Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne

I hope our active Secretary will at last find out that dexterity with princes, to seem to promise all and intend nothing, will as little do as with private persons.

I hope and believe you will receive, before you have this letter, an account of the signing the Definitive Treaty, and the accession of the court of Vienna; upon which near prospect, I most heartily congratulate you and my country. I feel the joy of an honest man upon it. I have the secret comfort of thinking that I have not only greatly, not to say almost singly, brought it about.

You will not wonder that I have neither time nor spirits to write to you, having lost the best King, the best Master and the best Friend that ever subject had. God knows what consequences it may have.