The gigantic imagination of Lord Chatham would not entertain such a chimera.  Lord * * * * perhaps would say he did, rather than not undertake; or Mr. Burke could form a metaphoric vision that would satisfy no imagination but his own:  but I, who am nullius addiclus itrare in verba, have no hopes either in our resources or in our geniuses, and look on my country already as undone!  It is grievous—­but I shall not have much time to lament its fall!(412)

(409) On the 3d of October occurred one of the most dreadful hurricanes ever experienced in the West Indies.  In Jamaica, Savannah la Mar, with three hundred inhabitants, was utterly swept away by an irruption of the sea; and at Barbados, on the 10th, Bridgetown, the capital of the island, was almost levelled to the ground, and several thousands of the inhabitants perished.-E.

(410) “Introductory of a motion for leave to bring in a bill for quieting the troubles that have for some time subsisted between Great Britain and America, and enabling his Majesty to send out commissioners with full power to treat with America for that purpose.”  The motion was negatived by 123 against 81.  For the speech of General Conway, and a copy of his proposed bill, see Parl.  History, vol, Nxi. pp. 570, 588.-E.

(411) Mr. Henry Laurens, president of the American council, having been taken by one of the King’s frigates early in October 1780, on his passage to Holland, and it being discovered by the papers in his possession that the American States had been long carrying on a secret correspondence with Amsterdam, Sir Joseph Yorke, the British minister at the Hague, demanded a satisfactory explanation; but the same not being afforded, hostilities against Holland were declared on the 28th of December 1780.-E.

(412) To this passage the editor of Walpole’s Works subjoined, in March 1798, the following note:—­“It may be some comfort, in a moment no less portentous and melancholy than the one here described, to recollect the almost unhoped-for recovery of national prosperity, which took place from the peace of 1782 to the declaration of war against France in the year 1793.  May our exertions procure the speedy application of a similar remedy to our present evils, and may that remedy be productive of equally good effects!"-E.

Letter 208 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.  Berkeley Square, Feb. 7, 1781. (page 268)

Dear Sir, I will not leave you a moment in suspense about the safety of your very valuable volume, which you have so kindly sent me, and which I have just received, with the enclosed letters, and your other yesterday.  I have not time to add a word more at present, being full of business, having the night before last received an account of Lady Orford’s death at Pisa,(413) and a copy of her will, which obliges me to write several letters, and to see my relations.  She has left every thing in her power to her friend Cavalier Mozzi, at Florence; but her son comes into a large estate, besides her great jointure.  You may imagine, how I lament that he had not patience to wait sixteen months, before he sold his pictures!