er glanced at it and read the fate of the New World, and must have
stood as one dazed:

"Cornwallis has surrendered!"

Lord Walsingham, an under-Secretary of State, was at the house. To him
he read the stunning dispatch. The two took a hackney coach and rode in
haste to Lord Stormont's.

"Mount the coach and go with us to Lord North's. Cornwallis is taken!"

Lord Stormont mounted the coach, and the three rode to the office of the
Secretary of State.

The prime minister received the news, we are told, "as he would have
taken a ball into his heart."

"O God, it is all over!" he exclaimed, pacing up and down the room, and
again and again, "O God, it is over!"

The news was conveyed to the king that half of his empire was lost--that
his hope of the New World was gone. How was the king affected? Says a
writer of the times, who gives us a glance at this episode:

"He dined on that day," he tells us, "at Lord George Germain's; and Lord
Walsingham, who likewise dined there, was the only guest that had become
acquainted with the fact. The party, nine in number, sat down to the
table. Lord George appeared serious, though he manifested no
discomposure. Before the dinner was finished one of his servants
delivered him a letter, brought back by the messenger who had been
dispatched to the king. Lord George opened and perused it; then looking
at Lord Walsingham, to whom he exclusively directed his observation,
'The king writes,' said he, 'just as he always does, except that I
observe he has omitted to note the hour and the minute of his writing
with his usual precision.' This remark, though calculated to awaken some
interest, excited no comment; and while the ladies, Lord George's three
daughters, remained in the room, they repressed their curiosity. But
they had no sooner withdrawn than Lord George, having acquainted them
that from Paris information had just arrived of the old Count de
Maurepas, first minister, lying at the point of death, 'It would grieve
me,' said he, 'to finish my career, however far advanced in years, were
I first minister of France, before I had witnessed the termination of
this great contest between England and America.' 'He has survived to see
that event,' replied Lord George, with some agitation. Utterly
unsuspicious of the fact which had happened beyond the Atlantic, he
conceived him to allude to the indecisive naval action fought at the
mouth of the Chesapeake early in the preceding month of Septem