ion of my trust.

To open my whole heart to you on this subject, I do confess, however,
that there were other times, besides the two years in which I did visit
you, when I was not wholly without leisure for repeating that mark of
my respect. But I could not bring my mind to see you. You remember that
in the beginning of this American war (that era of calamity, disgrace,
and downfall, an era which no feeling mind will ever mention without a
tear for England) you were greatly divided,--and a very strong body, if
not the strongest, opposed itself to the madness which every art and
every power were employed to render popular, in order that the errors of
the rulers might be lost in the general blindness of the nation. This
opposition continued until after our great, but most unfortunate victory
at Long Island. Then all the mounds and banks of our constancy were
borne down, at once, and the frenzy of the American war broke in upon us
like a deluge. This victory, which seemed to put an immediate end to all
difficulties, perfected us in that spirit of domination which our
unparalleled prosperity had but too long nurtured. We had been so very
powerful, and so very prosperous, that even the humblest of us were
degraded into the vices and follies of kings. We lost all measure
between means and ends; and our headlong desires became our politics and
our morals. All men who wished for peace, or retained any sentiments of
moderation, were overborne or silenced; and this city was led by every
artifice (and probably with the more management because I was one of
your members) to distinguish itself by its zeal for that fatal cause. In
this temper of yours and of my mind, I should sooner have fled to the
extremities of the earth than hate shown myself here. I, who saw in
every American victory (for you have had a long series of these
misfortunes) the germ and seed of the naval power of France and Spain,
which all our heat and warmth against America was only hatching into
life,--I should not have been a welcome visitant, with the brow and the
language of such feelings. When afterwards the other face of your
calamity was turned upon you, and showed itself in defeat and distress,
I shunned you full as much. I felt sorely this variety in our
wretchedness; and I did not wish to have the least appearance of
insulting you with that show of superiority, which, though it may not be
assumed, is generally suspected, in a time of calamity, from those w