JET. 29.] MISSION TO PORTUGAL. 357 



by himself. Should it be necessary now or hereafter 

 to send a still better observer, I have an officer of 

 very great trust and experience ready at an hour's 

 notice. He has assisted me much, and was zealous 

 to go himself, but I declined it for the present. He 

 is a quartermaster, and the fittest man for the service. 

 One of the emissaries is a military subject, an eleve 

 of his. I have arranged matters for improving in 

 various essential respects the general correspondence 

 of the consuls in the north, and have in general 

 taken all the steps that seemed to me best adapted 

 for organising such a state of communication with 

 France and Spain as will secure us at all times the 

 best and earliest intelligence. The present crisis 

 may soon pass over, but the expense will cease with 

 it; and the same communication may at any mo- 

 ment be renewed by writing a few letters. I think, 

 that until something definite occurs, no counter- 

 orders should be given to the emissaries. Had we 

 possessed such means of information ten weeks ago, 

 our expedition and mission to Lisbon would have 

 probably been saved. 



Private. 



" I lament most sincerely the fatal news of Mr 

 Fox's death. Though I had almost made up my 

 mind to expect it, I own I felt it as if it had been a 

 surprise. Next to that calamity the worst news is 

 the piracy in South America. If Popham is not 

 shot, we deserve to be conquered everywhere, both 



