“My humble opinion is, that we shall never recover America,
and that France will take care that we shall never recover
ourselves.”[354]
“Friday night, late,” 5th December, 1777, he breaks forth:--
“Send for Lord Chatham! They had better send for General
Washington, Madam,--or at least for our troops back.… No,
Madam, we do not want ministers that would protract our
difficulties. I look on them but as beginning now, and am
far from thinking that there is any man or set of men able
enough to extricate us. _I own there are very able Englishmen
left, but they happen to be on t’other side of the Atlantic._
If his Majesty hopes to find them here, I doubt he will be
mistaken.”[355]
“Thursday night,” 11th December, 1777, his feelings overflow in no
common language:--
“Was ever proud, insolent nation sunk so low? Burke and Charles
Fox told him [Lord North] the Administration thought of nothing
but keeping their places; and so they will, and the members
their pensions, and the nation its infamy. Were I Franklin, I
would order the Cabinet Council to come to me at Paris with
ropes about their necks, and then kick them back to St. James’s.
“Well, Madam, as I told Lord Ossory t’other day, I am
satisfied: _Old England is safe,--that is, America, whither the
true English retired under Charles the First_: this is Nova
Scotia, and I care not what becomes of it.… Adieu, Madam! I am
at last not sorry you have no son; and your daughters, I hope,
will be married to Americans, and not in this dirty, despicable
island.”[356]
All this is elevated by his letter of 17th February, 1779, where he
says:--
“Liberty has still a continent to exist in. I do not care a
straw who is Minister in this abandoned country. It is _the
good old cause of Freedom_ that I have at heart.”[357]
Thus with constancy, where original principle was doubtless quickened
by party animosity, did Horace Walpole maintain the American cause and
predict a new home for Liberty.