I am still to learn wisdom and experience, if these
things are not so." (Letter to Mann, January 25, 1775.) "A war with
our colonies, which is now declared, is a proof how much influence
jargon has on human actions. A war on our own trade is popular."
(February 15, 1775.) "The war with America goes on briskly, that is as
far as voting goes. A great majority in both houses is as brave as a
mob ducking a pick-pocket. They flatter themselves they shall terrify
the colonies into submission in three months, and are amazed to hear
that there is no such probability. They might as well have
excommunicated them, and left it to the devil to put the sentence into
execution." (February 18, 1775.) Not only is Walpole's judgment wiser,
but the elements of a wise judgment were present to him in a way in
which they were not so to Gibbon. When the latter does attempt a
forecast, he shows, as might be expected, as little penetration of the
future as appreciation of the present. Writing from Paris on August
11, 1777, when all French society was ablaze with enthusiasm for
America, and the court just on the point of yielding to the current,
he is under no immediate apprehensions of a war with France, and
"would not be surprised if next summer the French were to lend their
cordial assistance to England as the weaker party.
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