The Correspondence of Jeremy Bentham, Volume 5: January 1794 to December 1797

By Jeremy Bentham

The first five volumes of the Correspondence of Jeremy Bentham contain over 1,300 letters written both to and from Bentham over a 50-year period, beginning in 1752 (aged three) with his earliest surviving letter to his grandmother, and ending in 1797 with correspondence concerning his attempts to set up a national scheme for the provision of poor relief. Against the background of the debates on the American Revolution of 1776 and the French Revolution of 1789, to which he made significant contributions, Bentham worked first on producing a complete penal code, which involved him in detailed explorations of fundamental legal ideas, and then on his panopticon prison scheme. Despite developing a host of original and ground-breaking ideas, contained in a mass of manuscripts, he published little during these years, and remained, at the close of this period, a relatively obscure individual. Nevertheless, these volumes reveal how the foundations were laid for the remarkable rise of Benthamite utilitarianism in the early nineteenth century.

Bentham’s life in the mid-1790s was dominated by the panopticon, both as a prison and as a network of workhouses for the indigent. The letters in this volume document in excruciating detail Bentham’s attempt to build a panopticon prison in London, and the opposition he faced from local aristocratic landowners. His brother Samuel was appointed as Inspector-General of Naval Works and in September 1796 married Mary Sophia Fordyce.

Praise for the Correspondence of Jeremy Bentham, volumes 1-5

‘These volumes provide significant additions to our understanding of Bentham’s work in the first half of his life up to 1797. The insights they offer into Bentham’s activities, ideas and method cast light on his philosophical and political positions in a seminal period in British and European history.’British Journal for the History of Philosophy

• Language: English
• Publisher: UCL Press
• Release date: Jun 7, 2017
• ISBN: 9781911576242

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THE COLLECTED WORKS OF JEREMY BENTHAM

General Editor

J. R. Dinwiddy

Correspondence

Volume 5

The

CORRESPONDENCE

of

JEREMY BENTHAM

Volume 5

January 1794 to December 1797

edited by

ALEXANDER TAYLOR MILNE

This edition published in 2017 by

UCL Press

University College London

Gower Street

London WC1E 6BT

First published in 1981 by The Athlone Press,

University of London

Available to download free: www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-press

Text © The Bentham Committee, UCL

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from The British Library.

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Alexander Taylor Milne (ed.), The Correspondence of Jeremy Bentham, Vol.5: January 1794 to December 1797. The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham. Edited by J.R. Dinwiddy. London, UCL Press, 2017. https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781911576211

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781911576211

PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION OF VOLUME 5

The fifth volume of Jeremy Bentham’s Correspondence was originally published, together with the fourth volume, in 1981, under the editorship of the late Alexander Taylor Milne and the General Editorship of the late J.R. Dinwiddy. The Correspondence volumes represent the ‘backbone’, so to speak, of the authoritative edition of The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham, giving scholars the orientation that enables them to begin to make sense of Bentham’s published works and the vast collection of his unpublished papers, consisting of around 60,000 folios in UCL Library and 12,500 folios in the British Library.

The present volume has been attractively re-keyed in a typeface that is sympathetic to the original design, and crucially the exact pagination of the original volume has been retained, so that referencing remains stable. The opportunity has been taken to incorporate corrections identified by the Bentham Project. All these corrections are relatively minor, except for the removal of Letter 1279. This letter was included in the present volume in the mistaken belief that it was dated 2 May 1797, whereas it is in fact dated 2 May 1798, and appears in its correct place as Letter 1324 in the sixth volume of the Correspondence. Professor Guillaume Tusseau (Sciences Po, Paris) has kindly checked the accuracy of the reproduction of the French material according to the conventions currently adopted in the edition as a whole. Thanks are also due to my Bentham Project colleague Dr Louise Seaward for assistance with a variety of queries throughout all five volumes.

The letters in this volume, written against the background of an increasingly difficult and unsuccessful war against Revolutionary France, are dominated by Bentham’s attempts to further his panopticon prison scheme. After a certain amount of wrangling, an Act of Parliament was passed in the summer of 1794, giving the Treasury powers to enter into a contract for a profit-making prison. Crucially the Act did not stipulate the acquisition of the site at Battersea Rise that Bentham wanted. Bentham made strenuous efforts but ultimately failed to persuade the Treasury to buy the land at Battersea Rise, since they would not proceed against the wishes of the owner Earl Spencer, who did not want to give up his land for the sake of a prison. Searching for another site, Bentham was rebuffed by local landowners at Hanging Wood, Woolwich, before turning his attention to Tothill Fields, not far from his home at Queen’s Square Place. The whole sorry saga dragged on until he eventually acquired a site at Millbank in 1798, but the prison was destined never to be built.

In the meantime Bentham’s brother Samuel, who was intimately involved in the practical aspects of the panopticon, was appointed Inspector-General of Naval Works, a post created for him, and which resulted in his introducing new machinery and a host of reforms into the working practices of the Royal dockyards. Samuel was responsible to the First Lord of the Admiralty, who, ironically, was the same Earl Spencer who was thwarting the acquisition of Battersea Rise for the panopticon. An important family event took place on 26 October 1796 when Samuel married Mary Sophia Fordyce, with the newly-weds sharing Bentham’s house at Queen’s Square Place. The first of their five children, Mary Louisa, was born the following year. Samuel also fathered at least three illegitimate children. The Benthams’ step-brother Charles Abbot, the future Speaker of the House of Commons and first Baron Colchester, was enhancing his reputation as a Parliamentarian, and doing what he could to further the panopticon scheme. Other support came from the social reformer William Wilberforce, with who Bentham came into close contact.

At various points from 1796 to 1798 Bentham devoted a great deal of time to writing on the poor laws. Poor harvests in 1794 and 1795, together with the disruption caused by the war with France, had produced a crisis in the administration of the poor laws, and led to the leader of the ministry William Pitt’s proposing what Bentham considered to be an ill-conceived scheme of reform. Bentham produced an elaborate counter-proposal, which would have seen the construction of a countrywide network of 250 panopticon industry houses, each holding up to 2,000 paupers, and administered by a joint-stock company. Bentham’s essays on the subject have appeared in the Collected Works as Writings on the Poor Laws: Volume I and Volume II, both edited by Michael Quinn, and published in 2001 and 2010 respectively. While never implemented in the form that Bentham envisaged, his ideas eventually formed the basis of the New Poor Law introduced in 1834.

While Bentham’s career appeared to be mired down in the panopticon, he maintained his friendship with such figures as the Marquis of Lansdowne, James Trail, George Wilson, and Samuel Romilly, and made contact with Sir John Sinclair and Arthur Young at the Board of Agriculture. Of most significance perhaps, Bentham’s literary relationship with the Genevan Etienne Dumont began to bear fruit as the latter inserted a series of translations of Bentham’s work in the Bibliothèque britannique which heralded the publication in 1802 of Traités de législation civile et pénale, the work that established Bentham’s reputation as a philosopher and reformer.

A more detailed account of Bentham’s activities during the years covered by this volume appears at the beginning of the fourth volume of Correspondence.

Philip Schofield

General Editor of The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham

UCL, March 2017

CONTENTS

List of Letters in Volume 5

A List of Missing Letters

Key to Symbols and Abbreviations

THE CORRESPONDENCE

January 1794–December 1797

Index

The editor’s Preface and Introduction to Volumes 4 and 5 of The Correspondence appear in Volume 4

LIST OF LETTERS IN VOLUME 5

MISSING LETTERS OF JEREMY BENTHAM REFERRED TO IN THE CORRESPONDENCE

January 1794 to December 1797

KEY TO SYMBOLS AND ABBREVIATIONS

SYMBOLS

ABBREVIATIONS

Apart from standard abbreviations, the following should be noted:

B.L. I, II...etc.: refer to the main series of Bentham papers in the British Library, Additional Mss. 33537–64, the volumes of which are numbered from I to XXVIII. Thus B.L. V and B.L. VI, the volumes in the collection most frequently cited in these years, refer to Add. Mss. 33541 and 33542.

U.C.: refers to the Bentham papers in the Library of University College London. Roman numerals refer to the boxes in which the papers are placed, Arabic to the leaves within each box.

Bowring: refers to The Works of Jeremy Bentham, published under the superintendence of...John Bowring (11 vols.), Edinburgh, 1838–43. Volumes x and xi contain Bowring’s Memoirs of Bentham and selections from his correspondence.

NOTE

Apart from sources cited in the notes, the following standard works have been in frequent use and have not usually been cited:

Dictionary of National Biography

Joseph Foster, ed., Alumni Oxonienses . . . 1715–1886, 4 v., 1887–8 John and John Archibald Venn, comps., Alumni Cantabrigienses. Pt. I (to 1751), 4 v., 1922–7. Pt. II (1752–1900), 6 v., 1940–54

G. F. R. Barker and A. H. Stenning, eds., The record of Old Westminsters, 2 v., 1928

Sir Lewis Namier and John Brooke, The History of Parliament. The House of Commons, 1754–90, 3 v., 1964

J. C. Sainty and J. M. Collinge, comps., Office-holders in modern Britain: v. I, Treasury officials, 1660–1870 (1972); v. II, Officials of the Secretaries of State, 1660–1782 (1973); v. III, Officials of the Board of Trade, 1660– 1870 (1974); v. IV, Admiralty officials, 1660–1870 (1975); v. V, Home Office officials, 1782–1870 (1975); v. VI, Colonial Office officials [1794– 1870], (1976); v. VII, Navy Board officials, 1660–1832 (1978); v. VIII, Foreign Office officials, 1782–1870 (1979).

J. F. Michaud, ed. Biographie universelle, ancienne et moderne, 52 v., 1811–28

Jules Balteau and others, eds., Dictionnaire de biographie française, v. 1—, 1929– . In progress.

Correspondence

January 1794 to December 1797

937

To Samuel Bentham

¹

5 January 1794 (Aet 45)

Hendon Jan: 5 – 1794

Who would have thought of Sylvester Douglas’s governing Ireland!² The papers talk of his setting out so soon as Wednesday. He might catch and I should suppose would not be ill disposed to do so. Pity he had not seen Panopticon Model etc. There can hardly now be time for it. When Panopticon is set up here, he can surely make no difficulty of setting it up there. Go to Wilson and consult him about it, and whether any thing is to be done now—though probably Douglas will be coming to England on a Furlough before we should want any thing to be done about Panopticon in Ireland. Douglas can surely have no time to eat victuals at Q.S.P. If he would I would come to town on purpose.

As to Law³ I cannot afford to come to London on purpose. It is possible I might be ready to come by that day, but I hardly expect it.

You were certainly in high luck at Knowle.⁴

937.

¹ B.L. V: 479–80. Autograph. No docket. Addressed: ‘To / Colonel Bentham / Queen’s Square Place / Westminster.’

Evidently a reply to a missing letter from Samuel.

² Sylvester Douglas, Baron Glenbervie (1743–1823), who had known the Benthams since the mid-seventies (see Correspondence, ii passim, especially 124 n. 2). He succeeded Lord Hobart as Chief Secretary of the lord lieutenant of Ireland in January 1794, but was himself succeeded by Viscount Milton in January 1795. He entered the British House of Commons in that year, became a lord of the Treasury, 1797–1800, and was raised to the Irish peerage in 1800.

³ Thomas Law.

⁴ The seat of the Sackville family at Sevenoaks, Kent.

938

To Samuel Bentham

¹

7 January 1794 (Aet 45)

Hendon Jany 7 1794

I think it probable I shall be with you by Saturday but the one first mentioned will poison the pleasure from the ride. I wish you had had him all to yourself as you proposed.

Collins² I should have liked much to dine with. But I can’t afford to come to town on purpose.

But make him promise to come again soon when I am in town.

938.

¹ B.L. V: 481. Autograph. No signature. Addressed: ‘To / Colonel Bentham / Queens Square Place / Westminster.’

Evidently a reply to a missing letter from Samuel.

² Probably William or his son, Edward Collins, who visited them later (see letters 1088–9) and assisted both brothers in their various schemes.

939

To Samuel Bentham

¹

9 January 1794 (Aet 45)

Hendon Friday Jan. 9th. 1794

I was a Goose for saying what I did about C.² It was not worth writing, much less sending about. My antipathies are not so strong as that comes to. His being there would not keep me from thence by any means: but the fact is I can not afford to come. I hope I shall by Monday, so as to meet Mr Chauvet³ at Mr Browne’s. But if the day is not fixed I could be surer of Tuesday.

As to Mr Poole,⁴ it is impossible for me to give him any account from hence. Panopticon Bill is now to me what Specification was to you: though thank Heaven not quite so bad.

939.

¹ King’s College, Cambridge. Bentham Ms 73/1. Autograph, unsigned. No docket.

Addressed: ‘Colonel Bentham / Queen’s Square Place / Westminster.’

² An allusion to the first paragraph of his letter of 7 January (938), to which Samuel had evidently replied. Clearly ‘C’ does not refer to either Collins or Chauvet.

³ David Chauvet. See Correspondence, iv, 387 n. 3.

⁴ Perhaps Josiah. See Correspondence, iii, 96 n. 11.

940

To Samuel Bentham

¹

14 January 1794 (Aet 45)

Panopt

Hendon Jan: 14 1794.

Steam Engine if underground so much the better, and the smoke condensed makes Tar, which is what they call burning the smoke, though it is only condensing and collecting it.

See this recommended in Trans of Soc.y of Arts Vol. 9th for 1790 or thereabouts.² This paper contains useful information. I do not recollect our meeting with it. If we have not got that Volume you may as well send for it (in my name to Payne’s).

Burning the smoke could not be performed I suppose without a red hot iron tube, which would soon wear away and be very expensive.

In 30 years experience timbers for under-water work have been preserved unimpaired and unworm-eaten by soaking in Oil. An American at Boston has ‘sollicited’ of the United States a Patent for it. New Ann. Register for 1791. Occurrences p. 32. Said to be communicated from Jefferson to an eminent House in the City.³ (It was Vaughan’s, I remember his shewing us the letter.)

940.

¹ B.L. V: 482. Autograph. No docket. Addressed: ‘To / Colonel Bentham.’

² The reference is to an article in the Transactions of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, vol. ix. Most of this was reprinted under the title: ‘Process of converting the

smoke

of

steam-engines,

etc. into Tar’, in the New Annual Register for 1791, Philosophical Papers, pp. 125–6.

³ The passage in the New Annual Register for 1791, Principal Occurrences, p. 32, reads: ‘Mr. Jefferson, the late American minister at the court of France, has communicated to an eminent house in the city a discovery, which, if sanctioned by experience, will be of the utmost importance. A person near Boston, who was a shipbuilder, has solicited a patent from the United States for a mode of preserving shiptimber from being worm-eaten. During the thirty years he has been a bridgebuilder, he has always soaked such timbers as were to be under water in oil, and has found this method to preserve them ever since he was in that employment.’

Bentham’s recollection is that the communication was made to the business house of William Vaughan, Benjamin’s brother (see Correspondence, iv, 426, letter 898, n. 2).

941

To Archbishop Markham and Earl Spencer

¹

14 January 1794 (Aet 45)

Q.S.P. Jan. 14. 1794.

Mr Bentham presents his respectful Complts. to the Archbp of York /Compliments to Lord Spencer/ and takes the liberty of requesting the return, as soon as consists with his Lordship’s /Grace’s/ convenience of such of the Papers he was troubled with some time ago relative to the Panopticon business: those excepted which were mentioned as meant for his Lordship’s /Grace’s/ acceptance. Those wanted are

1. A printed copy of two Reports of the /a Committee of/ the House of Commons: the last of the year 1784. Sent as believed to Ld Spencer only

2. A Ms. Copy of the last of those two Reports. Sent as believed to the Archbp of York only.

3. A copy of a Memorial relative to the intended disposition of the purchase-money of the Estate at Battersea Rise specifying the leases according to the valuation made of it by a Jury in Sept. 1782. Sent first to Lord Spencer and by him perhaps at the request of Mr B. to the Archb of York.

4. A small drawing of the intended Panopticon Building according to the plan and proportions once intended. Sent to Lord Spencer: and perhaps by his Lordship to the Archbishop of York.

941.

¹ B.L. V: 483. Autograph draft of two separate letters. Docketed: ‘1794 Jan 14 / J. B. Hendon / to / Archbp of York / and / Lord Spencer Brouillon / Dated Q.S.P. / Copies sent from Hendon / by penny post as above under cover to Pollard.’

The covering note to Bentham’s servant, Pollard, is missing.

942

From David Gray

¹

15 January 1794

Dresden Jany 15th 1794

Dear Sirs,

I hope you will not impute my long silence either to indolence or forgetfulness. Neither I assure you is the case. The truth is that in this melancholy War of opinion when the passions of Individuals enter so much into all political reasonings I thought it imprudent for one even in my humble Diplomatique station to hazard any observations which might appear unfavourable to the conduct of Government in the measures adopted in the present most arduous and interesting contest which the history of Mankind can produce. It is somewhat singular that in two Countries whose Politics are at present so very opposite the same terms should be made use of, tho’ in a sense very different in regard to Aristocracy and Democracy. Moderantisme in England as well as in France leads persons to become suspecte. If I were not most perfectly convinced of your discretion in not making any improper use of the few observations I may happen to make I should even now hesitate to write, for the Idea of doing anything inconsistent with propriety with regard to my employ hurts me very much. Indeed the present Crisis appears so very alarming that every person more or less may be permitted to deliver his Sentiments. No events in the course of last year’s campaign, even the most favourable, could be reckoned so decisive as to supersede the necessity of another. To carry on this the concurrence of the Court of Berlin happens to be absolutely necessary. Notwithstanding His Prussian Majesty’s aversion, in common with other Sovereigns, to Frenchmen and principles, he seems nevertheless fully aware of the advantage of his present situation and very prudently for himself appears desirous to relinquish the very honorable, tho very expensive, cause of Kings, and to substitute in its place the more lucrative Idea of commercial hostility—Hence arises the expedition of Lord Malmesbury and Mr de Lehrbach to Berlin² to prevail with his said Majesty by golden arguments to give this year at least the same number of troops as he afforded last year gratis according to Treaty with Austria. The unfortunate turn which the War has lately taken, the loss of Toulon and the total defeat, I might almost say annihilation, of Wurmser’s army on the Rhine and the consequences that may yet result from these misfortunes will undoubtedly suspend for the present all negociations at the Court of Berlin.³ When to these successes we add the deplorable state of the Royalists in Britanny, the increase in value of the French Assignats and the energy which the Convention has now assumed, by making as they have well said terror the order of the day, I think everybody must be convinced that in regard to another Campaign the resources of the French are increased while those of the Coalized Powers are diminished. It is the peculiar misfortune of this War that if it is difficult to go on, it is no less so to go back, and the present hostilities must terminate if not in the extinction at least in extreme humiliation to either of the parties concerned. It is at this awful moment much to be regretted that the possibility of misfortune has hardly been supposed which might have been some check to the too free indulgence of the passions and the reciprocal abuse which has resulted therefrom—God forbid that I should ever attempt to extenuate the criminality of the numberless horrors daily committed in France, that I should hesitate to say that murder is murder or that robbery is robbery, to defend confiscation when to be rich is to be criminal, or to panegerize the activity of the Guillotine. But I know there are some people who are somewhat uncertain whether these horrors are to be attributed to an original malignity in the French character, or to be considered as an effect of some cause not yet ascertained. The principle, of the right of one nation to interpose in the internal affairs of another is of a most dangerous nature. It was formally announced by the Emperor Leopold’s circular letter from Padua,⁴ repeated by the declaration of Pilnitz⁵ and proclaimed aloud by the Manifestos of the Duke of Brunswick.⁶ Similar pretensions on the part of the French with regard to the Low Countries and Holland have been considered by everybody with becoming disapprobation. Whoev wishes to investigate the real origin of this melancholy War ought particularly to consider in their chronological order the different facts and measures which have been adopted, and which imply the assertion of the above right—Without presuming to say what is really the truth one may readily allow that hostilities are virtually commenced by a Coup de plume equally as by a coup de canon—It would be happy for Mankind if the dignity of Courts would permit them like Individuals to retract an error and acknowledge honestly a mistake. When Leopold received Mr de Noailles⁷ as French Ambassador after the acceptation of the new Constitution by the King, he only acquiesced in the arrangement, but did not renounce the principle he had previously asserted. If this War is singular in its origin the views in continuing it appear no less extraordinary. There is a negative unanimity indeed agreed on by all parties viz. that the present Individuals who govern France ought to be set aside, but what particular arrangement is then to follow, the Legislative Armies of the coali Powers have not yet explicitly exhibited. One declaration approves of the late Constitution, while another proposes a different form of limited Monarchy, only however to take place after a provisional restitution of Despotism. The late reestablishment of the old feudal forms and police in Alsace, Condé, Valenciennes etc. seem highly impolitic, as if no act of common sense had passed any of the three Assemblys and when every body allows that the first carried some dignity along with it. In short there is in every public Paper on this subject a degree of contradiction which is unaccountable. In one sentence a right to internal interference is solemnly renounced, while at the same time a following paragraph issues a Congé d’elire in favour of Monarchy. But whatever may have been the origin or the object of the present atrocious hostilitys, the manner of conducting the present war is out of the common way. The libertys taken in respect to foreign Neutral nations are great beyond example. Indeed Foreigners are not a little surprised at the arbitrary conduct of of some of the Agents of a free Government at Foreign Courts, for independence is but an empty title as soon as any power presumes to pass its opinions for the criterion of truth in regard to the intercourse of one Country with another. Of this there are many examples, from the proposal of erecting something like a Dutch tribunal to condemn French Regicides, to the effrontery at Florence and the cacade at Genoa inclusive. I question whether at some future period when facts remain and passions will be evaporated, it will not be thought that even for the sake of a good cause we should not have kept such very bad company. Posterity may think it somewhat extraordinary for England the first Government in point of liberty in Europe to coalize with the bigotted Spaniard, the ignorant Austrian, the barbarous Russian, together with the military mechanism of Prussia, in support of Social order and legitimate government, and that too, at the very time when the two last Powers commit an act agt an innocent and independent nation which in point of arrogance and depravity cannot be equalled in History. I mean the scandalous partition of Poland, an act equally hostile to Social order and Legitimate Government. If the daily enormities committed in France tend to excite disgust in respect to popular governments, the iniquitous conduct of Russia and Prussia with regard to Poland reconcile again Men’s minds to Democracy. The political fiction of considering France as a garrison in order to starve it and the counterpart of the tale in converting Toulon into a Country for the purpose of legalising supplies not permitted by the custom of Nations to the Towns in a state of siege are circumstances which further distinguish the manner of carrying on the present War. The Idea of Starvation in regard to an extensive Country may be accompanied with such frightful consequences as to shock the common feelings of Humanity. The necessities of a Garrison starved into capitulation may be immediately supplied by the Besiegers—but in a Country starved into submission Millions must perish before the circulation of provisions can effectively be re-established. In every point of view as a Wellwisher to my country I am frightened at this War, as I think the danger resulting from it to us increases in the ratio of its duration. I am afraid that our Ministers have been hitherto much deceived by false intelligence and many of our Public Agents have been rather too time serving in accomodating their reports to Ministerial volition. In this Country I can assure you peace is much desired if it could be procured on any kind of decent terms. The 5,000 Men which the Elector⁸ gives as his Contingent cost exactly as much as his whole Army of 30,000 Men on the Peace establishment and by all Accounts the resources of Austria are completely exhausted. The only resource remaining is confiscation not of private property indeed but of some independent German states protected by the laws of the Empire, and poor Poland likewise furnishes a further fund. You will hardly believe [that]⁹ another act of the infamous Tragedy is likely again to take place. Both the King of Poland and Siewers¹⁰ have fallen lately under the Empress’s displeasure, the latter being recalled. A new Diet is talked of to compleat the suicide and the name of Poland may soon cease to exist. Prussia still covets another Palatinate or two. The Empress of All the Russias has pretension on Galicia as formerly bearing that name and the Emperor perhaps in spite of himself may be obliged in his present state of humiliation to accept some of the spoils of that unfortunate Country in exchange—It is somewhat singular that notwithstanding the present coalition, the national jealousy between Austria and Prussia exists perhaps more than ever. I was at Vienna when the news came of the taking the lines of Weissemburg by Wurmser. As this plan had always been opposed by the Duke of Brunswick the unexpected success elated the Austrians extremely and even led them I thought at the time to make many unguarded and impolitic observations not very honorable either to Prussian tactics or Prussian sincerity—The retreat of Wurmser has afforded the Prussians their revenge and indeed the retreat of that army was accompanied with such circumstances the 26 and 28th of last month as appears by a letter of Gen Kalckreuths¹¹ which I have read as will remain a lasting reproach to the Austrian arms. In short the soldiers wd fight no longer and in running away not only pillaged the peasants but their own Officers. The retreat of the Duke of Brunswick is variously talked of. By some it is said that he has conceived too formidable an Idea of the French arms to undertake any enterprize