It has been frequently said that fools make knaves; it is equally true, I believe, that credulity is the parent of falsehood. - Joseph Ritson

You will perceive by to-days paper that lord Malmsbury is about to return as wise as he went. Whatever the ministers object was in this ridiculous embassy, he has been apparently disappointed. It is a notorious fact that the embarrassments of government are beyond anything ever known. The treasury is unable to pay the smallest bill, though perpetually besieged by clamorous duns: and it turns out that even the miserable pittance collected from the police-offices (being the weekly amount of fees, fines, &c.) has, most rapaciously and dishonestly, been applied to the exigencies of the state, while the tradesmen, constables and other persons, who should be paid out of the money, are in the greatest distress and have actually advertised a general meeting to consider how they can obtain relief. Not a soul seems to have the remotest conception how Mr. Pitt will be able to weather the impending storm.

You cannot say that I have ever been backward in doing justice to your ingenious contrivances and unremitting assiduity in pursuit of money. I foresaw the success of your design upon the poor Count, too well concerted, indeed, to give him a chance of eluding it. But I am not yet sufficiently hardened to congratulate you upon an event which affords the immediate prospect of a jail for your client, and the not very distant one of a gallows—or at least a pillory—for yourself. Jonathan Wild was a great man, to be sure; but I would not have you forget that he was hanged at last.

Shoals of Scotchmen are arriving here every day; the difficulty, I should imagine, would be to find one going back. Edinburgh, at the same time, is so very small a place, that you may be easily acquainted with the motions of every individual from your shop-door. Formerly, I have been told, when a Scotchman intended a journey to the South, he used to ring the cryers bell for a quarter of a year beforehand, in order to indemnify himself against the enormous expences of the Newcastle waggon, by the packets and parcels he got the charge of from his neighbours; but at present, I suppose, the neighbours go too— not in the Newcastle waggon, I mean, but the mail-coach—Tempora mutantur!