OF CHINA._

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

ARLINGTON STREET, _Oct._ 26, 1777.

It is past my usual period of writing to you; which would not have
happened but from an uncommon, and indeed, considering the moment, an
extraordinary dearth of matter. I could have done nothing but describe
suspense, and every newspaper told you that. Still we know nothing
certain of the state of affairs in America; the very existence where, of
the Howes, is a mystery. The General is said to have beaten Washington,
Clinton to have repulsed three attacks, and Burgoyne[1] to be beaten.
The second alone is credited. Impatience is very high, and uneasiness
increases with every day. There is no sanguine face anywhere, but many
alarmed ones. The pains taken, by circulating false reports, to keep up
some confidence, only increase the dissatisfaction by disappointing.
Some advantage gained may put off clamour for some months: but I think,
the longer it is suspended, the more terrible it will be; and how the
war should end but in ruin, I am not wise enough to conjecture. France
suspends the blow, to make it more inevitable. She has suffered us to
undo ourselves: will she allow us time to recover? We have begged her
indulgence in the first: will she grant the second prayer?...

[Footnote 1: In June and July General Burgoyne, a man of some literary
as well as military celebrity, achieved some trifling successes over the
colonial army, alternating, however, with some defeats. He took
Ticonderoga, but one of his divisions was defeated with heavy loss at
Bennington--a disaster which, Lord Stanhope says, exercised a fatal
influence over the rest of the campaign; and finally, a week before this
letter was written, he and all his army were so hemmed in at Saratoga,
that they were compelled to lay down their arms--a disgrace which was
the turning-point of the war, and which is compared by Lord Stanhope to
the capitulation of his own ancestor at Brihuega in the war of the
Spanish Succession. The surrender of Saratoga was the event which
determined the French and Spaniards to recognise the independence of the
colonies, and consequently to unite with them in the war against
England.]

You have heard of the inundation at Petersburg. That ill wind produced
luck to somebody. As the Empress had not distressed objects enough among
her own people to gratify her humanity, she turned the torrent of her
bounty towards that unhappy relict the Duchess of Kingston, and ordered