The Gentleman's Magazine Volume 233 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1872 edition. Excerpt: ...had become enfeebled; and others that he would not make peace with America because it would be a triumph for France. But when he proclaimed that we could not conquer the men of English blood who were fighting for liberty, did he hold that the independence of the colonies was the only way of ending the struggle? And if he did, still when the hour was at hand for the confession of defeat he might well shrink from the act of national humiliation, and, maddened by despair, prefer for awhile to wage a hopeless warfare. Lopping off a limb is an easy and, surgically speaking, a safe operation. The loss oi a limb does not interfere with the vital functions of the body, yet the patient recoils from the amputation of arm or leg, and suffers a nervous shock, and is afflicted with a nervous depression often fatal. So with a nation. The loss of outlying territory may not be injurious, yet no national calamity is felt so bitterly and so lastingly as dismemberment. When, in 1856, the news reached us of the mutiny in India, and when those who hate us gloated over the prospect of England losing her Eastern Empire, men of all opinions and of all conditions resolved that at least we would pour forth our treasure and our blood without stint to defend or to restore our magnificent dominion. The loss of the thirteen colonies must have appeared a still greater calamity to our ancestors. The men who had renounced political union with England were Englishmen. The colonies of America were our pride and our boast. They were not only a source of wealth, but they rendered the sceptre of England supreme in the New World. When the United States became an independent Power, the loss seemed irreparable, for we had not then won a vast Empire in the East, and the fifth...