Note 4 — Chapter III · A GROUP OF BOOK-LOVERS AND PUBLIC BENEFACTORS.
Reading edition
This famous speech was delivered on the 5th of March, 1778. ‘Then,’ said Lord Shelburne, after denouncing measures which would sever the Colonies from the Kingdom, ‘the sun of Great Britain is set. We shall be no more a powerful or even a respectable people.’—Parliamentary Debates, vol. xix, col. 850.