Note 15 — Chapter VIII · THE FRENCH ALLIANCE

Things seemed to be getting into somewhat the condition contemplated in the satirical print of “The Man in the Moon,” which appeared as frontispiece to a tract published in London in 1776, entitled “A Plea of the Colonies on the Charges brought against them by Lord Mansfield and others.” The Man in the Moon is George III. looking through a telescope held by his Tory chief justice, whose sleeve shows the Scotch plaid of Clan Murray. He looks upon a reversed and topsy-turvy world, in which New York (whose true latitude is nearly the same as that of Naples) appears farther north than London, and America is east of Europe. The American coast is covered with vast armies, and the whole British fleet is on its way thither, leaving England exposed to the attack of a French host gathered at Dunkirk. Meanwhile the Gallic cock crows lustily, and the sketchy outline of Great Britain indicates that the artist supposes the island “may be so far wasted before the year 1800, that people will hardly know where the nation resided that was once so formidable.” See Tracts 985, Harvard University Library.