To open my whole heart to you on this subject, I do confess, however, that there were other times, besides the two years in which I did visit you, when I was not wholly without leisure for repeating that mark of my respect.  But I could not bring my mind to see you.  You remember that in the beginning of this American war (that era of calamity, disgrace, and downfall, an era which no feeling mind will ever mention without a tear for England) you were greatly divided,—­and a very strong body, if not the strongest, opposed itself to the madness which every art and every power were employed to render popular, in order that the errors of the rulers might be lost in the general blindness of the nation.  This opposition continued until after our great, but most unfortunate victory at Long Island.  Then all the mounds and banks of our constancy were borne down, at once, and the frenzy of the American war broke in upon us like a deluge.  This victory, which seemed to put an immediate end to all difficulties, perfected us in that spirit of domination which our unparalleled prosperity had but too long nurtured.  We had been so very powerful, and so very prosperous, that even the humblest of us were degraded into the vices and follies of kings.  We lost all measure between means and ends; and our headlong desires became our politics and our morals.  All men who wished for peace, or retained any sentiments of moderation, were overborne or silenced; and this city was led by every artifice (and probably with the more management because I was one of your members) to distinguish itself by its zeal for that fatal cause.  In this temper of yours and of my mind, I should sooner have fled to the extremities of the earth than hate shown myself here.  I, who saw in every American victory (for you have had a long series of these misfortunes) the germ and seed of the naval power of France and Spain, which all our heat and warmth against America was only hatching into life,—­I should not have been a welcome visitant, with the brow and the language of such feelings.  When afterwards the other face of your calamity was turned upon you, and showed itself in defeat and distress, I shunned you full as much.  I felt sorely this variety in our wretchedness; and I did not wish to have the least appearance of insulting you with that show of superiority, which, though it may not be assumed, is generally suspected, in a time of calamity, from those whose previous warnings have been despised.  I could not bear to show you a representative whose face did not reflect that of his constituents,—­a face that could not joy in your joys, and sorrow in your sorrows.  But time at length has made us all of one opinion, and we have all opened our eyes on the true nature of the American war,—­to the true nature of all its successes and all its failures.