for peace next summer, as the king and his ministers were for war
last winter. In this natural view of things, your lordship stands in
a very critical situation: your whole character is now staked upon
your laurels; if they wither, you wither with them; if they flourish,
you cannot live long to look at them; and at any rate, the black
account hereafter is not far off. What lately appeared to us
misfortunes, were only blessings in disguise; and the seeming
advantages on your side have turned out to our profit. Even our loss
of this city, as far as we can see, might be a principal gain to us:
the more surface you spread over, the thinner you will be, and the
easier wiped away; and our consolation under that apparent disaster
would be, that the estates of the Tories would become securities for
the repairs. In short, there is no old ground we can fail upon, but
some new foundation rises again to support us. "We have put, sir, our
hands to the plough, and cursed be he that looketh back."

Your king, in his speech to parliament last spring, declared, "That
he had no doubt but the great force they had enabled him to send to
America, would effectually reduce the rebellious colonies." It has
not, neither can it; but it has done just enough to lay the
foundation of its own next year's ruin. You are sensible that you
left England in a divided, distracted state of politics, and, by the
command you had here, you became a principal prop in the court party;
their fortunes rest on yours; by a single express you can fix their
value with the public, and the degree to which their spirits shall
rise or fall; they are in your hands as stock, and you have the
secret of the alley with you. Thus situated and connected, you become
the unintentional mechanical instrument of your own and their
overthrow. The king and his ministers put conquest out of doubt, and
the credit of both depended on the proof. To support them in the