to the influence of the moon.

But the expression, if true, is the greatest confession of disgrace
that could be made, and furnishes America with the highest notions of
sovereign independent importance. Mr. Wedderburne, about the year 1776,
made use of an idea of much the same kind,--Relinquish America! says
he--What is it but to desire a giant to shrink spontaneously into a
dwarf.

Alas! are those people who call themselves Englishmen, of so little
internal consequence, that when America is gone, or shuts her eyes
upon them, their sun is set, they can shine no more, but grope about in
obscurity, and contract into insignificant animals? Was America, then,
the giant of the empire, and England only her dwarf in waiting! Is the
case so strangely altered, that those who once thought we could not live
without them, are now brought to declare that they cannot exist without
us? Will they tell to the world, and that from their first minister of
state, that America is their all in all; that it is by her importance
only that they can live, and breathe, and have a being? Will they, who
long since threatened to bring us to their feet, bow themselves to
ours, and own that without us they are not a nation? Are they become so
unqualified to debate on independence, that they have lost all idea of
it themselves, and are calling to the rocks and mountains of America to
cover their insignificance? Or, if America is lost, is it manly to sob
over it like a child for its rattle, and invite the laughter of the
world by declarations of disgrace? Surely, a more consistent line of
conduct would be to bear it without complaint; and to show that England,
without America, can preserve her independence, and a suitable rank with
other European powers. You were not contented while you had her, and to
weep for her now is childish.

But Lord Shelburne thinks something may yet be done. What that something
is, or how it is to be accomplished, is a matter in obscurity. By arms
there is no hope. The experience of nearly eight years, with the expense
of an hundred million pounds sterling, and the loss of two armies,
must positively decide that point. Besides, the British have lost their
interest in America with the disaffected. Every part of it has been
tried. There is no new scene left for delusion: and the thousands
who have been ruined by adhering to them, and have now to quit the
settlements which they had acquired, and be conveyed like transports to