on to it of the Monroe doctrine. As for me, the
dramatist, I smile, and lead the conversation back to Burgoyne.

Burgoyne's surrender at Saratoga made him that occasionally necessary
part of our British system, a scapegoat. The explanation of his defeat
given in the play is founded on a passage quoted by De Fonblanque from
Fitzmaurice's Life of Lord Shelburne, as follows: "Lord George Germain,
having among other peculiarities a particular dislike to be put out of
his way on any occasion, had arranged to call at his office on his way
to the country to sign the dispatches; but as those addressed to Howe
had not been faircopied, and he was not disposed to be balked of his
projected visit to Kent, they were not signed then and were forgotten
on his return home." These were the dispatches instructing Sir William
Howe, who was in New York, to effect a junction at Albany with
Burgoyne, who had marched from Boston for that purpose. Burgoyne got as
far as Saratoga, where, failing the expected reinforcement, he was
hopelessly outnumbered, and his officers picked off, Boer fashion, by
the American farmer-sharpshooters. His own collar was pierced by a
bullet. The publicity of his defeat, however, was more than compensated
at home by the fact that Lord George's trip to Kent had not been
interfered with, and that nobody knew about the oversight of the
dispatch. The policy of the English Government and Court for the next
two years was simply concealment of Germain's neglect. Burgoyne's
demand for an inquiry was defeated in the House of Commons by the court
party; and when he at last obtained a committee, the king got rid of it
by a prorogation. When Burgoyne realized what had happened about the
instructions to Howe (the scene in which I have represented him as
learning it before Saratoga is not historical: the truth did not dawn
on him until many months afterwards) the king actually took advantage
of his being a prisoner of war in England on parole, and ordered him to
return to America into captivity. Burgoyne immediately resigned all his
appointments; and this practically closed his military career, though
he was afterwards made Commander of the Forces in Ireland for the
purpose of banishing him from parliament.

The episode illustrates the curious perversion of the English sense of
honor when the privileges and prestige of the aristocracy are at stake.
Mr. Frank Harris said, after the disastrous battle of Modder River,
that the Eng