The period was marked by sharp contradictions: opportunity constrained by risk, prudence compromised by folly, conviction unsettled by doubt, and hope dimmed by persistent gloom. Public affairs lurched between meaningful progress and abrupt reversals, while the loudest voices favored hyperbole over nuance. England was governed by a decisive king and a restrained queen; France by an equally decisive king and a more prominent queen. In both courts, influential figures were confident the established order would endure. The year was 1775. True to national habit, England buzzed with claims of revelation. Joanna Southcott had just turned twenty-five; a trooper in the Life Guards proclaimed himself a prophet and foretold the imminent destruction of London and Westminster; and the Cock Lane ghost—first reported twelve years earlier and briefly revived the previous year—had fallen silent again. Far more consequential, however, were the dispatches from the American Continental Congress, whose impact would far outstrip any Cock Lane sensation.