Britannia to America

Britannia to America. My dear daughter, I cannot behold without great pain your headstrong backwardness to return to your duty in not opposing all the good I long intended for your sole happiness, and being told that you have given your hand to a base and two-faced Frenchman, I have sent you over five wise men, the greatest of all my children, to put you to rights and hope you will listen to them and mind what they say to you. They have instructions to give you those things you formerly required. So be a good girl, discharge your soldiers and ships of war, and do not rebel against your mother. Rely upon me and do not trust to what that French rascal shall tell you. I see he wants to bring on an enmity to all unity between you and I, but listen not to him. All the world takes notice of his two faces. I’ll send him such messages from my great cannons as shall make his heart repent and know that one good or ill turn merits another. N.B. Let not hate take too much hold of your heart. I am your friend & mother.

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Print shows a letter in the form of a rebus portraying Britannia as a mother urging her daughter America to jilt the Frenchman she is planning to marry and stop rebelling. This political satire refers to the American alliance with France and concerns Great Britain’s last attempt to end the American Revolution through diplomatic means by sending a delegation known as the Carlisle Peace Commissioners to Philadelphia.

See the colonial response America to Her Mistaken Mother.

Britannia

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Frenchman

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unity

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