“Nothing was more shocking than the King’s laughing and saying
at his levee that _he had as lief fight the Bostonians as the
French_. It was only to be paralleled by James the Second
sporting on Jeffreys’s ‘campaign in the West.’”[351]
And under date of 28th May, 1775, we have his record of the encounter
at Lexington, with the reflection:--
“Thus was the civil war begun, and a victory the first fruits
of it on the side of the Americans, whom Lord Sandwich had had
the folly and rashness to proclaim cowards.”[352]
His letters to the Countess of Ossory, written during the war, show his
irrepressible sentiments. Thus, under date of 9th November, 1775:--
“I think this country undone almost beyond redemption. Victory
in any war but a civil one fascinates mankind with a vision of
glory. What should we gain by triumph itself? Would America
laid waste, deluged with blood, plundered, enslaved, replace
America flourishing, rich, and free? Do we want to reign over
it, as the Spaniards over Peru, depopulated? Are desolate
regions preferable to commercial cities?”[353]