The year 1781 will remain memorable as that in which the connection of England with her American Colonies was finally broken.  The surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown on October 19th impressed the Government with the futility of a contest which the country had already realised, and which would have at once caused a change of administration if the House of Commons had been truly representative of the opinion of the country; “a sense of past error,” wrote the Duke of Grafton in his autobiography, “and a conviction that the American war might terminate in further destruction to our armies, began from this time rapidly to insinuate itself into the minds of men.  Their discourse was quite changed, though the majorities in Parliament were still ready to support the American war, while all the world was representing it to be the height of madness and folly."(146) But though the country was oppressed by taxation, and disgusted at the want of success of its armies, society in St. James’s Street took the national disasters with perfect composure.  It troubled itself more about the nightly losses of money at the card-tables of Brooks’s than of soldiers on the Delaware.  It lived in the same kind of fatalism as the House of Commons and the King, who, with characteristic obstinacy, refused to bow to the force of events, and kept in office, but not in power, a minister who did not believe in the policy which he was compelled to support in Parliament.  From contemporaries the cardinal events of history are obscured by the course of their ordinary social or political life.  To us, who can see them so large and momentous, it appears strange that they do not fill a greater place in the public mind of the period.  Selwyn constantly hearing of the course of the vital conflict between England and her Colonies, fills his correspondence with details of the day, mingling remarks on facts which have become historical with the latest story of the clubs.

1781, Feb. 1, Thursday morning, Cleveland Court.—. . .  I saw Lord Gower yesterday morning; he is grown very corpulent, and his face fuller of humour than I ever saw it.  While this humour keeps out he will be well, but when it returns I am afraid the consequences will be fatal to him. . . .

We dined at March’s yesterday.  Boothby, James, Williams, Offley, Lord W. Gordon, Dr. Warner,(147) and myself.  The place of rendezvous for the morning is I believe, the Park, and it is a reconnoitring party too.  Where the Prince sups, and lies, and with whom, are the chief objects of the politics of a certain class of people.  All agree that at present the agreement between him and the King is perfect.  The speculation is only how long it is likely to last.  His Royal Highness stoops as yet to very low game.  In some respects it may be better.  You will have heard of Captain Waldgrave’s success with the two Dutch ships, and the French merchantman, if I am right.

To-day is to be one of violent attack upon Lord Sandwich and Palliser.  Charles makes the motion.  We shall have a great deal of abuse, and reply and declamation from Bourk(148) (Burke), and vociferation from Lord Mahon, and perhaps a long day; and I must go down early, because I was yesterday when the House was called a defaulter; so I shall dine there, and after dinner I will collect upon paper what I hear of the transactions of the day.