Upbraids PE for not writing. Asks after his progress with Sophocles. Politics has been occupying everyone - Pitt is hostile to the current administration. CW has spoken in Parliament on the feeble conduct which has emboldened Bonaparte and caused the present war - a sentence of the speech was in Latin (quotation from Cicero?), which he presents for PE's approval. His brother Henry has been appointed His Majesty's Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of Dresden, at a salary of
Half a letter only. No statesman was allowed to rise to individual and personal prominence under Elizabeth, William 3rd or Oliver Cromwell. Re military merit, England seems to have possessed more good officers than any other country except Spain, but he does not see any particular proof of superiority of talent - it is just that the battles they fought were more important in their consequences and therefore more celebrated. Raleigh, however, was in almost every respect above his age and would have shone in any profession or situation.
