Your brother repeated to me his great desire that you should publish your speech,(410) as he told you. I do not conceive why he is so eager for it, for he professes total despair about America. It looks to me as if there was a wish of throwing the blame somewhere; but I profess I am too simple to dive into the objects of shades of intrigues: nor do I care about them. We shall be reduced to a miserable little island; and from a mighty empire sink into as insignificant a country as Denmark or Sardinia! When our trade and marine are gone, the latter of which we keep up by unnatural efforts, to which our debt will put a stop, we shall lose the East Indies as Portugal did; and then France will dictate to us more imperiously than ever we did to Ireland, which is in a manner already gone too! These are mortifying reflections, to -which an English mind cannot easily accommodate itself. But, alas! we have been pursuing the very conduct that France would have prescribed, and more than with all her presumption she could have dared to expect. Could she flatter herself that we would take no advantage of the dilatoriness and unwillingness of Spain to enter into the war? that we would reject the disposition of Russia to support us? and that our still more natural friend, Holland,(411) would be driven into the league against us? All this has happened; and, like an infant, we are delighted with having set our own frock in a blaze! I sit and gaze with astonishment at our frenzy. Yet why? Are not nations as liable to intoxication as individuals? Are not predictions founded on calculation oftener rejected than the prophecies of dreamers? Do we not act precisely like Charles Fox, who thought he had discovered a new truth in figures, when he preached that wise doctrine, that nobody could want money that would pay enough for it? The consequence was, that in two years he left himself without the possibility of borrowing a shilling. I am not surprised at the spirits of' a boy of parts; I am not surprised at the people; I do wonder at government, that games away its consequence. For what are we now really at war with America, France, Spain, and Holland!—Not with hopes of reconquering America; not with the smallest prospect of conquering a foot of land from France, Spain, or Holland. No; we are at war on the defensive to protect what is left, or more truly to stave off, for a year perhaps, a peace that must proclaim our nakedness and impotence. I would not willingly recur to that womanish vision of something may turn up in our favour! That something must be a naval victory that will annihilate at once all the squadrons of Europe—must wipe off forty millions of new debt—reconcile the affections of America, that for six years we have laboured to alienate; and that must recall out of the grave the armies and sailors that are perished- -and that must make thirteen provinces willing to receive the law, without the necessity of keeping ten thousand men amongst them. The gigantic imagination of Lord Chatham would not entertain such a chimera. Lord * * * * perhaps would say he did, rather than not undertake; or Mr. Burke could form a metaphoric vision that would satisfy no imagination but his own: but I, who am nullius addiclus itrare in verba, have no hopes either in our resources or in our geniuses, and look on my country already as undone! It is grievous—but I shall not have much time to lament its fall!(412)
(409) On the 3d of October occurred one of the most dreadful hurricanes ever experienced in the West Indies. In Jamaica, Savannah la Mar, with three hundred inhabitants, was utterly swept away by an irruption of the sea; and at Barbados, on the 10th, Bridgetown, the capital of the island, was almost levelled to the ground, and several thousands of the inhabitants perished.-E.
(410) "Introductory of a motion for leave to bring in a bill for quieting the troubles that have for some time subsisted between Great Britain and America, and enabling his Majesty to send out commissioners with full power to treat with America for that purpose." The motion was negatived by 123 against 81. For the speech of General Conway, and a copy of his proposed bill, see Parl. History, vol, Nxi. pp. 570, 588.-E.
(411) Mr. Henry Laurens, president of the American council, having been taken by one of the King's frigates early in October 1780, on his passage to Holland, and it being discovered by the papers in his possession that the American States had been long carrying on a secret correspondence with Amsterdam, Sir Joseph Yorke, the British minister at the Hague, demanded a satisfactory explanation; but the same not being afforded, hostilities against Holland were declared on the 28th of December 1780.-E.
(412) To this passage the editor of Walpole's Works subjoined, in March 1798, the following note:—"It may be some comfort, in a moment no less portentous and melancholy than the one here described, to recollect the almost unhoped-for recovery of national prosperity, which took place from the peace of 1782 to the declaration of war against France in the year 1793. May our exertions procure the speedy application of a similar remedy to our present evils, and may that remedy be productive of equally good effects!"-E.
Letter 208 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Berkeley Square, Feb. 7, 1781. (page 268)
Dear Sir, I will not leave you a moment in suspense about the safety of your very valuable volume, which you have so kindly sent me, and which I have just received, with the enclosed letters, and your other yesterday. I have not time to add a word more at present, being full of business, having the night before last received an account of Lady Orford's death at Pisa,(413) and a copy of her will, which obliges me to write several letters, and to see my relations. She has left every thing in her power to her friend Cavalier Mozzi, at Florence; but her son comes into a large estate, besides her great jointure. You may imagine, how I lament that he had not patience to wait sixteen months, before he sold his pictures!
I am very sorry you have been at all indisposed. I will take the utmost care of your fifty-ninth volume (for which I give you this receipt), and will restore it the instant I have had time to go through it. Witness my hand.
(413) See vol. i. p. 243, letter 61.-E.
Letter 209 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
February 9, 1781. (page 268)