t sinking of money, and that from both ends
at once; first, in hiring troops out of the nation, and in paying them
afterwards, because the money in neither case can return to Britain. We
are already in possession of the prize, you only in pursuit of it. To
us it is a real treasure, to you it would be only an empty triumph. Our
expenses will repay themselves with tenfold interest, while yours entail
upon you everlasting poverty.

Take a review, sir, of the ground which you have gone over, and let
it teach you policy, if it cannot honesty. You stand but on a very
tottering foundation. A change of the ministry in England may probably
bring your measures into question, and your head to the block. Clive,
with all his successes, had some difficulty in escaping, and yours being
all a war of losses, will afford you less pretensions, and your enemies
more grounds for impeachment.

Go home, sir, and endeavor to save the remains of your ruined country,
by a just representation of the madness of her measures. A few moments,
well applied, may yet preserve her from political destruction. I am not
one of those who wish to see Europe in a flame, because I am persuaded
that such an event will not shorten the war. The rupture, at present,
is confined between the two powers of America and England. England finds
that she cannot conquer America, and America has no wish to conquer
England. You are fighting for what you can never obtain, and we
defending what we never mean to part with. A few words, therefore,
settle the bargain. Let England mind her own business and we will mind
ours. Govern yourselves, and we will govern ourselves. You may then
trade where you please unmolested by us, and we will trade where we
please unmolested by you; and such articles as we can purchase of each
other better than elsewhere may be mutually done. If it were possible
that you could carry on the war for twenty years you must still come to
this point at last, or worse, and the sooner you think of it the better
it will be for you.

My official situation enables me to know the repeated insults which
Britain is obliged to put up with from foreign powers, and the wretched
shifts that she is driven to, to gloss them over. Her reduced strength
and exhausted coffers in a three years' war with America, has given a
powerful superiority to France and Spain. She is not now a match
for them. But if neither councils can prevail on her to think, nor
sufferings awaken her